In retrospect, Nick is pretty sure that his assumption about Harry taking a shine to people and then gluing himself to their sides must have been wrong. It's been almost a week and he hasn't been back to the coffee shop, at least not while Nick was working. Nick won't admit that he's been looking for curly hair and dimples out of the corner of his eye since the day he wandered in--nor will he consider the possibility that he was right about Harry and he's just not fond of Nick like Nick thought he was.
It's not like Nick cares anyway.
He cares so little by Friday afternoon that he's sitting on the counter, playing Temple Run 2 on his phone, and not even pretending to pay attention to the customers until they come up and clear their throats. It is keeping him from glancing up at the doorway and feeling a little punch of disappointment in his gut at the sight of another somebody with a buzz cut and a scowl, but it's not doing much for the tips jar. In fact, Nick's so engrossed in tilting his phone around to steer his cart that he doesn't even see Harry until he hears "Working hard, Nick?" in that unmistakeable accent.
Nick jumps; he loses control and his little person goes careening off the tracks. He's left the sound up, so everyone can hear a quiet little "Aaaah!" (which is eerily similar to the sound Nick's heart is making right now), and Harry laughs, as does the bloke next to him. Nick composes himself quickly, though, and turns his phone around to show it to Harry. "You made me lose," he says with a frown that's verging on petulant.
The bloke who's with Harry hooks his chin over Harry's shoulder and squints at Nick's screen. "Mate, if you're going to play Temple Run at work, you ought to at least be good at it," he says, which strikes Nick as rather rude for someone he's never met. He gives the boy a once-over: he's shorter than Harry, with artfully messy hair and a smirk on his face that Nick would bet is permanent. Going by his body language around Harry (familiar, protective), Nick would give pretty good odds that this is his boyfriend. Or possibly Nick's projecting; it's difficult to say. Regardless, Nick doesn't like him--likes him even less than he likes Harry, which he assures himself is really saying something.
"Excuse me, four million is a perfectly respectable score, especially since I was interrupted," says Nick haughtily, yanking his phone away from the two of them. The bloke shrugs and says simply, "You could do better," glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye.
Nick gets the distinct sense that they're not talking about Temple Run any more.
Apparently, so does Harry, because the two of them have what looks like a brief, frenzied conversation using only their eyes and eyebrows. Nick feels like a third wheel, so he closes the app and flicks his thumb across his phone, going from one page of apps to the next and back again, not actually doing anything except giving the appearance of being busy. This time, Nick's ready when Harry clears his throat, and instead of nearly dropping his phone, he merely raises his eyes slowly to look at the two boys. Much cooler, that way.
"Um, Nick, this is Louis. He's my housemate, a--" "And his best mate," Louis interrupts, "and since Harry came here last week he hasn't been able to shut up about how good the coffee was, so I wanted to come in and try it myself."
Nick met Harry for ten minutes a week ago, but that was enough for him to be able to tell that that was a considerably smoother lie than whatever Harry was going to say. Unfortunately for Louis, while his delivery was top-notch, he's obviously never tried the coffee here, and Harry has, and Nick knows it, because they talked about how shite it was. Nick raises an eyebrow at Harry, who is determinedly looking anywhere but at him. This little turn of events has improved Nick's mood considerably, and he grins at Louis and pushes himself off the counter. "Good on Harry for being a walking salesman for us. If you bring in three more you'll get a misspelled nickname badge of your very own." Harry and Louis chuckle, but Nick doesn't get the joke, so he barrels on. "What'll it be, Louis?"
Louis, who is clearly some kind of sadist, orders a medium soy caramel latte with no foam, but with two and a half packets of sweetener, served in a large cup, with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. The girl with a triangle shaved into her hair sitting near the counter turns around to glare at him, and her glare is nothing compared to the half-furious, half-incredulous look on Nick's face, but Louis is impervious to both of them and merely smiles sweetly. Harry looks aghast.
It takes Nick about ten minutes to make the drink, considering that on an average day the most complicated thing anybody dares risk their street cred to order is a soy latte, which means that this is his sixth month working at a coffee shop without learning to be good at making coffee. He seriously considers spitting in the finished product, but decides that the possibly-expired milk and definitely-expired caramel syrup will have the same effect, if the coffee alone doesn't do it. Nick hands it over with his best imitation of a perky barista grin.
Louis gives it a moment to cool down, but when he takes a sip, he chokes. Nick's grin gets decidedly more evil, and Harry seems to be hiding his own in his scarf (Nick is disappointed; the scarf is concealing his dimples and that's just not on). "Christ on a bike, why is this place still open?" Louis mutters not-very-quietly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "The high-class atmosphere and charming staff, of course," Nick shoots back. Louis sighs and rolls his eyes at Harry.
Nick is pretty sure that in whatever made-up language Harry and Louis use to communicate, that eyeroll had quite a bit more meaning than simple exasperation, because immediately afterwards, Harry steps up with a bright smile to order his own drink ("Is your tea any better?" "Worse if anything, mate." "Well, best stick with black coffee, then."), and he slips Nick his number written on a post-it stuck to his five-pound note. Nick pretends not to notice as he gives Harry his change, but he does write his own number on Harry's cup. Louis rolls his eyes again when he notices it on their way out the door, but Nick couldn't care less.
What he is a bit concerned about, though, is how that sequence of events transpired. He frowns to himself as he turns around and puts Harry's number into his phone. Nick's barely said a hundred words to this kid, knows nothing about him--for all Nick knows he could be underage or something, he definitely looks it--and here's Nick handing out his phone number like it's nothing? What if Harry turns out to be a psycho, or worse, utterly dull once you get past the dimples?
His phone chirps at him, because he's left the sound up from his game of Temple Run, and Nick clicks the screen on immediately. Harry's sent him an emoji of a phone crossed out and the words 'Do your job x'. Nick stares at the screen for a second, and then a hand on his shoulder makes him jump. "Whoever 'Hairy' is, he's got good advice--unless you're receiving texts from your own chest, Nicholas, in which case you ought to seek help," says Matt in his ear.
Nick clicks his phone off immediately, shoves it in his pocket, and turns around to pull a face at Matt. Though he is the assistant manager and therefore technically Nick's superior or something, Matt and Nick have been unlikely sort of mates since they started working together and Nick has no qualms about mouthing off to him. "Yes, Finchy, I ought to hop to serving all of the thousands of customers who have so impatiently queued around the block!" Honestly, who is Finchy to turn up all ten minutes early to help Nick with the evening shift and start bossing him around?
By way of a response, Matt just points at the till, and there is in fact a girl waiting to order. Damn. Perhaps Nick ought to have glanced over there first. Matt smirks, and Nick gives a very exaggerated sigh as he goes over to help her. It'd be fine if that were the end of it, but Nick knows Matt better than that; he's sure that Matt's going to ask him who he was texting later, and then be all 'I'm interested in your life, sue me for being a good friend' until Nick tells him, and then he'll text Ian and Fiona and LMC about it, and Nick will literally never, ever hear the end of it.
As he makes the girl's latte, he's pretty sure he can feel the sword of Damocles hanging over his easily-wounded ego. Or maybe he's just being dramatic again. It's hard to say, really.
