One thing Steve liked about his barista job was the free drinks and if anyone asked that's what he'd tell them...but another thing he liked was that there was a Waffle House right next door. You might think it was for the food but it was actually for one specific worker; Eddie.
Steve had met Eddie early on in his job. The man came in right at opening, uniform on and long, curly locks tied into a bun with chunks of hair falling loose. Steve was immediately attracted to him and quickly went to the register to take his order, his coworker Robin sideyeing his pace. After he had put in the ridiculously caffeinated drink he wanted to make small talk.
"You about to start your shift?"
"No actually, just getting off," the man had replied.
"Oh! So you work the graveyard shift?" The man nodded as Steve handed him his drink mourning how fast it came out, signalling the end of their chat.
Steve eyed the drink, "When are you planning on sleeping?" The other man laughed and he thought it was an amazing sound, especially at 5 in the morning.
"Not sure," he said with a shrug. "Well, thanks. Have a good shift," he said, smiling and walking out.
After that he started coming back often, always right when Steve got in and the store opened, always at the end of his own shift. Steve learned his name was Eddie and overtime their chats got longer. Either because Robin would do him a solid and take her sweet time making his drink or because Eddie would stand around and chat for a while, drink in hand.
At some point, Eddie's hours got switched around and he started working around the same time as Steve which meant it was harder for him to come in and get a drink. Which led Steve to...finding ways to see him anyway.
Sometimes they would mess up drinks and instead of just throwing those away Steve started walking over to the Waffle House and offering them to the workers. And if he briefly chatted with Eddie that was totally normal!
But that turned into Steve maybe kinda purposely messing up drinks to go over more often. It was becoming obvious, to say the least. It was an ongoing joke with all of Steve's coworkers and he didn't want to imagine if it was one at Waffle House too.
Finally, one day Steve was walking into Eddie's job once again with a 'mess up' drink in hand that was suspiciously close to Eddie's own order.
"Hey, Eds! I have a drink for you."
"Oh, you do, huh?" Eddie asked. He had this tone lately that was either heavy flirting or mocking of Steve's obvious interest. He hoped it was the former.
"Yeah, someone ordered a drink really close to yours and I guess I found myself making yours by mistake. Muscle memory or whatever," he said, handing it to the other man who had a smug smile.
"You know, my coworkers-" he pointed towards his friends, Gareth and Jeff. "think these mess up drinks aren't really mess up drinks."
"Oh?" The jig was up, they were finally going to address the elephant in the room.
"Yeah, they seem to think you're just looking for an excuse to talk to me." Steve was silent, a little embarassingly unsure of what to say as Eddie and his coworkers looked on expectantly.
"But to be fair, I couldn't judge you if you were because I only got coffee after my graveyard shifts to see you." Oh. Steve hadn't even considered that possibility.
"You did?"
"Well, not the first time but every time after? Yeah. Why would I need that much caffeine after staying up all night? It's actually why I had to switch shifts. I was barely getting any sleep." Steve chuckled in disbelief. "So I wouldn't judge you if you were, say, making these drinks just to get to talk to me. In fact, it'd make me really happy," Eddie said, pulling a strand of hair in front of his face, covering a cheesy grin.
"Yeah?" Steve asked, a bit of cockiness seeping into his tone. "Well, that's good because I actually did just make this drink for you. No one is ordering anything close to this monstrosity." Eddie let out a loud, surprised laugh.
"So maybe we should try and talk when neither of us are working? Say, tomorrow night?"
"Yeah, yeah that sounds great. I think if I damaged out any more 'mess up' drinks my boss might fire me...or sue me at this point."
Eddie laughed, "Well we wouldn't want that you're one of the best parts of this job."
Steve smiled wide, "I know exactly what you mean."
Fin!
based off my last job that was a coffee shop next to a waffle house. we did get people coming off night shift buying coffee (we called one batman) and we did give them mess up drinks. i however didn't have a gay romance with any waffle house worker, tragically.
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