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Will’s first mistake was this: ever assuming that (grande iced caramel macchiato — extra caramel, no whip — and warm ham and brie croissant) Mike was single.
Actually, scratch that. Reverse it, back it up, pause, etc. Start over.
Will’s first mistake was actually this: ever deciding to work at this stupid coffee shop in the first place, because that’s what got him into this situation.
The situation is this: Will is sitting on the pile of flour bags they have stacked in the walk-in, completely heartbroken and dejected and other words that are fancier ways of saying sad , because the regular he flirts with over grande iced caramel macchiatos — extra caramel, no whip — and warm ham and brie croissants brought a girl in along with his questionable usual order, and bringing a girl to a coffee shop can only mean one thing:
They must be married, which means Will’s place on his pathetic flour throne is completely appropriate, because who else would be down so utterly horrendous for a married man?
“Will,” Max’s voice rings out, muffled, from beyond the door of the cooler. A moment later, the very tip of her head appears in the little window in the door, her eyes barely visible through the glass. She’s gone as quickly as she came, dropping out of sight, before the sound of the seal separating fills the small room and the door opens to reveal that the tip of her head is, in fact, very attached to the rest of her body.
“Hi,” Will greets quietly, giving a small wave from his flour pile.
Max gives him a once-over, eyeing his chosen seating arrangement wearily. “What are you doing in here?” she asks.
“Hiding,” Will responds, gesturing to the flour and the eggs and the butter and the host of other refrigerated goods keeping him company.
“I can see that,” Max says. “I meant, what are you doing in here when your little boy crush is in the dining room right now? Shouldn’t you be sending each other desperate glances from across the store while I try not to throw up in the back?”
“‘Desperate’ is right,” Will says miserably. He droops to the side, resting his head against the metal shelf with a sigh.
Max just stares at him, and Will lets her, because if she wants to take a picture of him and submit it to dictionary dot com to go alongside the definition of pathetic, well. He wouldn’t blame her.
“Explain,” she says finally, begrudgingly.
Will gestures vaguely to the direction of the rest of the store. When Max’s brows just pull together in confusion, he says, all exasperation and dramatics, “He’s with a girl.”
“Sure,” Max says, and she actually laughs a little, bringing her hand up to her mouth to hide her smile.
“I’m serious,” Will says, frowning.
“And last time you got upset over him being with a girl, it was some random stranger who just happened to walk in after him,” Max points out. Will frowns harder; they swore to never speak of that again. She makes a face at his face, and quickly adds, “All I’m saying is that it’s happened before!”
“It’s different this time,” Will insists. “He was talking to her, and she was laughing at something he said, and he paid for her.” His heart gives a pitiful little clench at the memory, and he sniffs. “Clearly, they love each other very much.”
“Will, I love you very much,” Max starts, “but there’s no way your weird little coffee shop freak has a girlfriend.”
“His name is Mike,” Will says, because he would know, because he’s the one that’s been writing Mike :) in sharpie on his to-go cups for the last six months, “and he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He has a wife.”
“A wife,” Max repeats, completely skeptical.
“A wife,” Will confirms.
Max frowns at him. “Let me rephrase, then: there’s no way your weird little coffee shop freak has a wife.” She looks over her shoulder, as if she can see Mike through the metal door that separates them from the rest of the store, and her frown deepens. “He looks anemic and sorrowful.”
“Anemic and sorrowful and lawfully wed,” Will replies sadly.
“You are so—“
“Go look,” Will says, pointing towards the door. “You’ll see.”
Max rolls her eyes at him, but she does turn on her heel and storm out of the walk-in, and it would all be very dramatic and cool if the slamming of the door wasn’t muffled by the rubber sealing it shut. She’s gone for only a moment, just long enough to give a quick look and ensure that they have no additional customers before she’s back in the walk-in with him, looking less amused than before she left.
“First of all,” she begins, and Will sits up straighter, because she’s starting to get a little scary, “that girl is like, twenty-five. Grande iced caramel macchiato — extra caramel, no whip — and a warm ham and brie croissant could not pull a twenty-five year old.”
Will bristles at that. “ I think he could—“
“I’m not asking you what you think — you’re literally sitting on a bag of flour,” Max interrupts with a hand held up in his direction, and, alright, maybe she has a point. He shifts on his flour-bag seat, effectively silenced. “Second of all, if you used your eyes, you’d notice that they look related.”
“I did use my eyes,” Will protests, “I noticed they look married.”
“They do not—“ Max stops herself, closing her eyes. She brings her hands up to her face in a mock prayer and takes a deep breath before she continues. “Will, he’s wearing his Gap sweater backwards,” she says, giving him a pointed look. “No respectable, pretty girl would marry a boy like that. She’s clearly his sister.”
Will opens his mouth to respond, but the door opens behind Max right at that moment, revealing Dustin, his black apron dusted with all sorts of different colored powder and icing. He looks back and forth between the two of them, doesn’t ask questions he already knows the answer to, and makes a beeline to where Will is sitting.
“Will,” he starts kindly, “I know that you are having a very private moment with the flour right now, but I need the butter that’s behind your big, beautiful head.”
That’s — well, it’s not the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him, but it’s pretty nice, if Will just focuses on the beautiful part and not the word that came before it.
“Oh, sorry,” he says, and cranes his neck to look at the shelf behind him, where, sure enough, the butter is sitting. Even though Dustin could totally reach behind his head and grab it himself, Will feels bad for blocking it in the first place, so he grabs the new stick and holds it out to him. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, sweet prince,” Dustin says, smiling at him, and why is Will in here wallowing over grande iced caramel macchiato — extra caramel, no whip — and warm ham and brie croissant Mike when Dustin is right here, doting on him with big smiles and calling his head big and beautiful and referring to him as a sweet prince? And then Dustin says, “Hey, also, your ham and brie is ready,” and Will is immediately back to wallowing over his favorite anemic and sorrowful regular. He shoots Max a panicked look, and she scowls at him.
“No,” she says immediately, shaking her head.
“Please,” Will begs.
“I’m leaving,” Dustin says, holding up his stick of butter high up over his head and leaving the walk-in.
Max shakes her head again. “Stop looking at me like that,” she says, holding up her hand and blocking him and his (very impressive — or so he’s been told) sad, kicked puppy eyes from her line of sight. “Seriously. I’ll kill you.”
“Please,” Will says again, the -ease taking on a life of its own and dragging out and filling the tiny room and restarting when Will runs out of breath on it. Between the noise and the sad eyes and the annoying patheticness of it all, Max is both literally and figuratively backed into a corner.
“Oh my God, fine,” she exclaims, drowning out the noise from Will and throwing her hands up in the air. She whirls around and wrenches open the door again, storming out of the walk-in for a second time. When the door still doesn’t give the satisfying slam that she’s after, she hauls it open again, shoots Will the meanest glare she can muster, and then slams the door shut herself.
Will leans back into the shelf, fishing his phone out of the front pocket of his apron and scrolling through the notifications he missed from the family group chat and the promotional emails currently flooding his inbox. He tucks his free hand into the space between his opposite arm and his torso, because really, it is kind of cold in here — which makes sense, since it’s designed to keep food cold and not house twenty-somethings spiraling out at work, but it’s fine. It’s whatever. Freezing his ass off is better than watching a boy he thought he’d been flirting with for the past six months flirt with his actual wife, who probably has text notifications from more than just her family group chat and who definitely doesn’t have the risk of having flour on her very black pants.
At the thought of there being flour on his very black pants, he hops up, craning his neck and twisting his body this way and that to try and assess the flour-on-butt situation, which is exactly how Max finds him when she opens the door to the walk-in.
“Okay,” she says, blinking at him, to which Will offers her a sheepish smile. Before he can ask her to look at his butt, she steps further into the cooler and says, “I have a fourth development.”
Will squints, mentally backtracking to their earlier conversation. “You never had a third development,” he points out.
“Yes I did,” Max says, exasperated. “The third development was pointing out that he was wearing his sweater backwards. The fourth development is that the girl also noticed, because when she told him about it and he looked down to check, she flicked him in the nose, which leads us to my fifth development.”
Will nods quickly, trying to keep up and actively forcing his hands to stay still and not count off with each development she’s listing. “Which is?” he prompts, trying to sound like he’s not totally lost.
“He shouldn’t be able to pull you either,” Max says, “even if you are being an idiot.”
And that’s just as sweet as what Dustin said, and it’s almost nicer, too, because it’s coming from Max of all people, and sweet and nice are two words he seldom associates with her. Then he thinks further back than the compliment, considering what Max said about Twelve-Dollar Questionable Order Mike and his backwards sweater and the girl he’s with.
“Okay, but—“ he starts.
Max glares at him. “Don’t say it—“
“That’s so cute and endearing,” Will says over her. “Too bad they’re married.”
“They are clearly siblings,” Max insists, looking like she very much wants to strangle him. He takes a step back from her. “Do you want me to go ask?”
“No,” Will answers immediately, shaking his head vigorously, “I think I’d rather die than have you ask, thanks.”
Max grabs onto one of his wrists, tugging him in the direction of the door. “Okay, then come out of the walk-in and see for yourself.”
“I feel like that falls under cruel and unusual punishment,” Will says, digging his heels in and watching Max struggle to tug him along, “which is mean, even for you, Max.”
“You’re going to see exactly what cruel and unusual punishment is if you keep making me do both of our jobs,” Max bites back. Will immediately stops giving any resistance, trotting right along with her out of the cooler.
“Sorry, did I say you were cruel and unusual?” he says, very normally, and does not look in the direction of where Mike is sitting with his maybe-wife. “I meant that you are so kind and generous, and that I’m so grateful to work with my best friend.”
Max drops his hand with more aggression than Will thinks is strictly necessary, and if she was going to say something so mean that it would have sent him right back into the walk-in, she doesn’t get the chance, because it’s at that moment that Missus Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato — Extra Caramel, No Whip — and Warm Ham and Brie Croissant herself approaches the counter. Max, making up for the lost opportunity, immediately shoves Will towards the register.
“Hi,” The Wife says, looking pained, because maybe she’s realized Will has a big fat crush on her husband and the thought of talking to him makes her want to throw up, “I’m sorry to bother — do you have a wet rag or something I could borrow?” She jerks her thumb back over her shoulder, to where Mister Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato — Extra Caramel, No Whip — and Warm Ham and Brie Croissant is sitting with his grande iced caramel macchiato spilled all down the front of his backwards sweater. “My idiot brother over there spilled his drink all over himself.”
“Nancy,” Idiot Brother hisses from the table, dripping with his too-sweet drink, flushed completely red and glaring daggers at the back of his sister’s head, and.
Oh.
Maybe Will is a bit of an idiot.
“Of course,” Max answers, recovering quicker than Will, who is still reeling from the brother-sister confirmation. She grabs one of their spare towels and immediately rushes to run it under the tap, wringing out the excess water before handing it to Nancy over the top of the display case.
“Thank you so much,” she says earnestly, then turns back to the table and starts dabbing at the front of Mike’s sweater, much to his clear embarrassment.
Will’s sure Max is fixing him with a very impressive, very pointed, very smug look, but he wouldn’t know, because he’s too busy staring at the sight before him, processing.
Siblings, huh. That — well, that does make a lot more sense, now that he’s actually looking at them, because as Max pointed out, they do look related, and she is very pretty, in an objective, knows-when-a-girl-is-conventionally-attractive way. While Will still insists that Mike is very good looking, thank you very much, there’s a coolness factor missing that is completely endearing to someone like Will, and a clear, complete turn off to someone like Nancy.
(You know, aside from the whole brother thing. That’s probably the first turn off.)
“Are you just going to stand there staring at them like an idiot?” Max asks him out of the corner of her mouth. quiet enough so that there’s no way Nancy and Mike would hear them.
“Oh,” Will says, feeling heat rush to his cheeks, because he hadn’t realized he’d been staring. “I’m—“ he spins around, looking around at all of the cool, brushed steel of their workstation, as if his next step is written somewhere along the countertops. It’s not — but the bottle of caramel he’d used to make Mike’s first drink is still sitting apart from the other syrups. “I’m going to remake his drink,” he finishes quietly, pushing past Max to grab a new cup.
“Whipped,” she says as he doubles back past her to the machine, but when Will glances at her over his shoulder, she’s smiling.
“No whip, actually,” he says, which earns him an exasperated — but fond, he swears — eye roll.
He makes quick work of the drink, because a grande iced caramel macchiato — extra caramel, no whip — does not take long to make, and after panic-asking Max if he has any flour on his butt (a little, but she wipes it off), he steps out from behind the counter and heads over to where Mike and Nancy are sitting.
“Hi,” he says, only slightly awkwardly, and only blushing a bit when they both look up at him — Nancy, with a sweet smile, and Mike, with a panicked gulp. “Uh, how’s the clean up going?”
“Great,” Nancy replies, holding up the solid rag. “Thank you again for the towel. The floor might be a bit sticky, but we tried our best.”
Will waves his free hand at her. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “We’ll get to it at closing.” Nancy smiles, and Mike forces a smile, too, though it’s awkward and embarrassed, and god , if Will doesn’t feel that right down to his core. “Anyway,” he continues, holding out the new drink, “I brought you a replacement, since you spilled your first. On the house.”
“Oh,” Mike says, and one of his hands lifts to tuck a piece of hair that’s escaped from his beanie behind his ear. Cute. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem,” Will says, shrugging. Mike makes no move to grab the new drink, though, which makes Will think he doesn’t want it, because maybe even without a wife he actually secretly hates Will and thinks he’s embarrassing and wishes he wasn’t working today—
“Thank you so much,” Nancy says pointedly, glancing back and forth between Mike and Will with a pained expression. This seems to kick Mike into action — along with the actual kick beneath the table that Will very politely pretends not to notice — and he glances back up at Will, smiling sheepishly.
“Yes, yeah, thank you,” he says.
“Any time,” he says. “Trade you?” He nods at the empty drink cup on the table, coffee and caramel splattered all around the inside and a few wet smears beside it on the table where they tried to clean up the spill. Mike nods, a little oh, right tumbling out of his mouth along with it, and they do an awkwardly coordinated switch between the two cups.
Their fingers brush during the passover. Will does not think about it.
“I can take that, too, if you’re finished with it,” he says to Nancy now, decidedly not looking at Mike or the pretty pink that’s dusting his perfect cheekbones.
“Thanks,” she responds, smiling up at him as she hands him the dirty rag. As he takes it, her eyes travel down to his apron, and her grin stretches even wider. “I really like your pin, by the way.”
Will looks down at his chest, where a small rainbow flag enamel pin sits on the left side of his neck strap, right above where it meets the body of the apron. “Oh,” he says, and if he wasn’t blushing before, he definitely is now. “Thank you. My sister got it for me.”
“That’s nice,” Nancy says, and sounds like she means it. Will nearly preens with it — she’s actually very polite and sweet now that she’s not Will’s mortal enemy. Will likes her a lot. “Mike, did you see his pin?”
The question is loaded with some sort of context that Will isn’t privy to, but although he’s sure Nancy’s intention is mostly to embarrass Mike, he’s also feeling a little embarrassed and, more than that, very, very awkward.
“Oh,” Mike says loudly, and Will wants to die. “Oh, that’s — I’ve never noticed that before. Have you always had that?”
“Yes,” Will answers. He thinks of his stats homework sitting unfinished on his desk back at home, and wonders, distantly, how statistically likely it is for a meteor to hit the shop right at this moment.
“It’s really cool,” Mike blurts out, and that pretty pink from before has transformed into a pretty red, and Will has to stop looking at him or he is going to throw up all over the three of them and get sued for it, probably.
“Thank you,” Will says again — awkward, stilted. He gestures with the cup and rag over his shoulder back at the register, where Max is probably watching this entire interaction with some sick sense of glee. “Well, um, if you don’t need anything else, I’m just gonna—“
“Go ahead,” Nancy says, saving the day. “Thanks again” — she squints just below the pin now, where his silly, decorated name tag is pinned to his apron — “Will.”
Will just nods at her, shoots an awkward thumbs up from around the cup, and scurries back to where Max is waiting, that sick sense of glee Will had predicted radiating off of her in waves.
“That’s the most you’ve ever talked to him,” she whispers excitedly. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Will whispers back, tossing the cup into the trash and the rag into the sink. “I want to die.”
Later, after Max and Dustin have already left for the day, and Will is in the middle of cleaning up, there’s a knock at the front doors.
He doesn’t even look up, because he’d flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED twenty minutes ago, and whoever is knocking should be able to read both that and the store hours painted onto the glass. But clearly, that’s too much to ask, because another insistent tap sounds out through the store not even a minute later, and Will whirls around, already intent on telling whatever middle aged woman tapping away at the window to read the fucking room, we’re closed, when—
When he sees that it’s not a middle aged woman at all, but grande iced caramel macchiato — extra caramel, no whip — and warm ham and brie croissant, backwards-Gap-sweater-wearing, brought his sister in as a date to his regular coffee shop Mike.
Will tosses his cleaning rag aside and hurries over to the door, unlocking it and cracking it open just enough to stick his head out. “Hi,” he says, then kind of awkwardly fiddles with the sign, because it doesn’t matter how cute Mike is — Will is not making his stupid drink for a third time today. “Sorry, we’re closed.
“I know,” Mike says, and in his head, Will hears Max reply, okay, so why the fuck are you here? “I didn’t come by to order anything.”
“Okay,” Will says, confused. “So why did you come by?”
Mike shuffles his feet on the pavement. “I wanted to talk to you,” he explains, and that pretty red is right there, back on his cheeks — though that could be because its thirty-eight degrees out, and Gap sweaters and Gap denim jackets don’t actually do much in this kind of cold. “I could — do you know when you’ll be done? I can just wait out here—“
“It’s going to be another fifteen, at least,” Will admits, and then looks either way down the street, checking for any of the middle aged women he was fearful of earlier. When he deems the coast clear, opens the door just enough for Mike to come in, and says to him, voice low, “Come in. Quick.” Mike doesn’t need to be told twice, sliding through the space Will created for him and watching as Will hastily turns the lock back into place. He heads for the light switch, dimming the lights at the front of the store before gesturing towards the back.
Mike gives him a weary look. “Am I allowed to go back there?”
“Probably not,” Will answers honestly, “but it’s fine. I’m finished up in here, and I don’t want anyone to peer inside and see human people, so.”
“Got it,” Mike says, and they kind of nod awkwardly at each other before heading into the back. Will’s grateful he started closing with the cleaning and taking out of trash, because the last thing he needs is to have Mike watch him get his hands dirty again after the complete shit show that today was.
“Sorry, I just have to do inventory,” Will explains, grabbing the clipboard Dustin keeps hanging on the wall next to the walk-in door. “This is a cooler, so if you want to, like, wait in the break room, or something…”
“Oh,” Mike says. “No, I mean — I’m fine with it, as long as you are.”
Will stares at him, probably for a second too long, but he just — he doesn’t really understand this guy, who has come into this stupid little coffee shop Will has worked at every time Will has worked for the past six months, who orders strange and unsettling drink and sandwich combinations and who has spoken more words to Will today than he has in half a year. He’s a little bizarre, and he has freckles and a little bit of scruff along his jaw and upper lip, and Will doesn’t know much about him, but he finds that he really, really wants to.
“Okay,” Will says, because if this odd, beautiful boy wants to follow him into an oversized refrigerator and watch him count eggs and cartons of milk and the like, Will isn’t going to say no.
Will props open the door and motions for Mike to enter, which he does, and Will quickly follows suit, clipboard in hand and manually letting the door shut gently — the last thing he wants is for the two of them to get trapped in here. Mike backs himself into a corner where there isn’t any product and just awkwardly hovers there as Will begins to get to work, following along Dustin’s meticulous checklist. The only sound in the room is the hum of the refrigerator and the scratch of Will’s pencil against the paper.
“So,” Will says finally, after minutes of a silence that has gone from expected to awkward to downright unbearable, “what did you come by to talk about?” He glances at Mike out of the corner of his eye, a fleeting thing, but enough to make his cheeks feel warm in the cool air of the space.
“Right,” Mike says seriously, and immediately, Will feels a sense of anxiety wash over him, because even though Mike came all the way here and followed Will into the walk-in and stared at him for a solid eight minutes, maybe the reason for all of that was to tell Will that he’s annoying and Mike never wants to see him again. But what comes out of Mike’s mouth is this:
“I wanted to, uh, see if you wanted to go on a date.”
Will whips his head around to face him so fast that he hears something crack. “What?” he squeaks out.
Mike audibly swallows. “With me,” he clarifies, as if there is anyone else he could possibly be talking about.
The thing is, Will has been hoping Mike would say those words to him, ever since he first walked in wearing a Gap sweater and ordered iced coffee with a hot ham sandwich all those months ago. This is exactly what he has been manifesting in those shared glances, those sharpie smiley faces, those long stretches hiding in the walk-in. He’s been wishing and waiting for this moment for six months.
The thing also is that Mike brought his sister in today, and Will had jumped straight past any logical conclusion and gone straight to wife , and then he’d sat in this very-walk in on these exact bags of flour and spent twenty full minutes wallowing in his own idiotic despair. And overall, objectively, this state of things is actually quite funny.
So he laughs.
He can’t help it — it bubbles up out of him before he even thinks about it, pushing past his lips and escaping into the space between them like an arrow aimed straight for Mike’s heart, because that’s exactly what it looks like, even if it is untrue. If Will had asked Mike on a date and Mike responded with a laugh, Will would already be crying into the flour stack, that’s a goddamn guarantee.
“Oh,” Mike says, looking completely crushed, which is probably pretty close to how Will was looking earlier, and Christ. Today is not a good day for the walk-in.
“No, no, I’m so sorry,” Will rushes to say. “I didn’t — I wasn’t laughing at you asking me on a date. I would love to go on a date with you, actually. Like, I would really, really love that.” He winces at the admission. “It’s just — it was a little funny that you’d asked, because earlier today I was hiding in here because I thought you’d brought your wi” — he coughs through the rest of the word, swallowing it — “your girlfriend in.”
Smooth like butter, Byers.
“You thought Nancy was my wife?” Mike asks incredulously, and he is very much not soul-crushed anymore, because he’s stifling a laugh of his own.
“I said girlfriend,” Will sniffs, turning towards the shelf.
“You started to say wife,” Mike says.
Will sighs. “I started to say wife,” he relents. “Should I give you my full name so that you can get a restraining order against me?”
“Uh, no,” Mike answers, “but if you did, I wouldn’t get a restraining order.” There is a pause, where Will peeks at Mike out of the corner of his eye, and then: “Maybe a marriage certificate, which is just. I can’t believe I just said that.”
A full glance over at Mike confirms that yes, he really can’t believe he just said that, because he is redder than the two times Will has ever seen him get red.
Luckily for him, Will thinks he is so, so endearing.
“I mean,” Will starts, turning back to his clipboard, “I would.” And while what Mike said was insane, Will answering the way he did and as easily as he did is just as insane, so he scrambles to cover himself up. “I mean, like, after years and years and stuff. Of dating, that is.” He clears his throat. “So, a first date is a good place to start, because then we can go on more.”
“Right,” Mike agrees, seemingly with a hold on a little more of his cool now, “that’s a good idea.”
Will finishes marking off the last of the inventory, and without his checklist as a distraction anymore, he looks up at Mike, considering.
“…We’re pretending like these last two minutes never happened, right?” he asks.
Mike nods vigorously. “We sure are.”
Will smiles at him, a shy thing, and bites his lip. “How about I give you my number,” he says, “and you text me?”
“That is a very normal thing to do,” Mike says, nodding again. Will would like to kiss him, one day. “I would like it very much.”