Liebesfreud

“Son of a bitch,” Oliver cried, the scalding hot milk sloshing out of the milk-frothing pitcher and splashing down the back of his hand, thoroughly burning him. He set the metal pitcher down and vigorously shook his hand to dislodge the angry droplets, the skin already red as he cursed over and over under his breath. He walked over to the sink in three long strides, turned on the tap, and ran cold water over his hand. I guess that’s what I get for rushing through drinks… shit, I’m just trying to keep up.

It was early Saturday morning, and already dozens of patrons were seated in Cafe Hooray!, waiting on their coffee, reading, or typing away on laptops, headphones snug over their ears. Oliver was the opening barista slash to-go server, since the to-go server had called out. She claimed to be sick, but Oliver had a feeling that it was more along the lines of a hangover than the flu. Not his business, really, he just hated how behind it put him. Normally he was the one focused on just making the coffees, a position entrusted to him because over the years he had gotten incredibly good at making beautiful and delicious drinks. He would argue that his skills are what caused such a massive uptick in business at the cafe in recent years, but that was beside the point.

He kept his burnt hand under the running water as he used his other to pull his cell phone out of his pocket, shooting his roommate a text.

| Oliver (07:24)
Any way you can come in a little early? It’s just me. Dying rn.

Instead of a response, he got the “thumbs-up” iMessage reaction, which he took to mean was him immediately getting up to get ready to leave. He hoped, anyway.

Oliver turned the running water off, turning back to the treacherous milk pitcher, the contents of which were still steaming, and pouring it into his prepared mug with espresso. The latte, although it had physically hurt him to make, turned out lovely looking, featuring a little leaf as the latte art, one of his favorites to do. He brought it over to the lady who was waiting at the coffee bar, and she didn’t say anything, just gave him a slight nod without looking up from her laptop. I nearly burned my hand off and she doesn’t even appreciate it… figures…

When he glanced at his phone again, it reminded him it was only seven-thirty, and he was already ready to go home. It wasn’t that he didn't like working, in fact he loved his job, but he had better things to do today. Things that involved playing Stardew Valley for hours and maybe eating the ice cream he had bought the other day that was still in the freezer. Yeah. Those two things sounded really nice.

“Excuse me,” came a man’s impatient voice at the to-go counter. Oliver snapped out of his thoughts and begrudgingly walked over to take his order, plastering on a believable fake smile while simultaneously wishing instant death upon this man who was talking to him like he was lesser than. If the floor plan and coffee-making area of Cafe Hooray wasn’t so open, Oliver would definitely hock a loogie in this guy’s decaf americano to-go. Oliver didn’t understand the point of decaf coffee. What the hell was the doodoo juice good for if it didn’t at least make you function a little bit better for a few hours of the day? Whatever, it didn’t matter to him, and when the man snatched the to-go cup from his hand and turned towards the exit, muttering to himself, he managed to suppress the urge to flip him off on his way out.

Back when Oliver had first started at Hooray Cafe, he would get overwhelmed in scenarios like the previous two. He was timid, and people being downright awful to him was sure to make him cry on any day of the week. He was intimately familiar with the cafe’s bathrooms, and had a favorite stall he would retreat to and pretend like he wasn’t having an entire emotional breakdown on the clock. Those days got better when his roommate got a job at the cafe as well, and they worked together more often than not. Now, over a year later, he was too jaded to really care if people were going to be a little snotty to him. He was definitely still a bit of a crybaby, but he mastered the art of shutting down when it came to customers and not letting anything they said affect him. Most days.

The morning rush continued and Oliver was churning out to-go coffees, the counter littered with dirty espresso cups and milk frothing pitchers in his haste. He was intricately making a whipped cream and chocolate sauce topping on an iced mocha when the phone started ringing. That damn phone.

“For the love of all things caffeinated,” Oliver groaned to nobody in particular, but a cheery voice floated from across the coffee bar and raised his mood by at least half.

“I’ve got it!” August called, and Oliver could kiss him… metaphorically speaking, of course. The taller male picked up the phone and chirped into it, “Thanks for calling Cafe Hooray, what can I do for you today?” It was their “required” catchy phone greeting, and of course August followed it and delivered it in a way that sounded sincere. Oliver just usually said “Cafe Hooray” in a voice that was only slightly above being deadpan. He hated answering the phone. Luckily, he had August.

August. His roommate, coworker, best friend… where would he be without the guy?

Oliver finished up his masterpiece of an iced mocha and delivered it to the lady waiting at the coffee bar, turning to look at the other male after he did so. August had the phone tucked in between his shoulder and ear and was scrawling on a notepad, diligently taking down the order from whoever was on the line in his neat, compact handwriting. He was humming “uh huh.. Uh huh…” as he did so, and wow did his hair look good today. It was pulled back into a little low ponytail, the top of it still mussed but in a way that looked windswept instead of disheveled. He was wearing his usual Cafe Hooray T-shirt and jeans, and his server apron was tied around his waist already. He really looked like he belonged here. He was borderline the posterboy for the cafe, meanwhile Oliver looked like he rolled out of bed and started grinding espresso beans. Which, to be fair, wasn’t far off from the truth.

August was always the good-looking one in their friendship. Dark skin, long reddish brown hair, and big brown eyes. Not to mention he was great with people, very friendly and pretty funny as well. If only he wasn’t so clueless, he might have been a perfect politician since everyone he met was smitten with him.

Oliver was… well, he was the other best friend. He wouldn’t consider himself unattractive, with his fluffy blonde locks and pale skin. He, for one, thought his fashion sense was impeccable, though dressing in the same T-shirt and apron every day for work would not have made this fact clear for most of his week. It was more his personality that was the issue, because even he could not deny that he was a little obnoxious. Throughout his life, he was always too loud, too hyper, too annoying. Then, when he would shut down, he was too weird, too quiet. He could never seem to find a happy medium. It used to bother him that people disliked him for these things, but as he got older he saw no point in hiding who he was. Much calmer now, but definitely still a drama queen, Oliver liked to consider himself an acquired taste, like a black coffee with a shot of cream. August, meanwhile, was an iced vanilla latte. Read: all the ladies love him. (Too bad for them, he was 100% into men).

The two of them were basically joined at the hip. Oliver didn’t even know what his life would look like without August these days. It wasn’t that Oliver didn’t have other friends, but once they graduated from high school, nobody seemed as inclined to keep up with him as August’s friends did. Which was fine, considering Oliver tended to prefer being at home by himself anyways, playing games or catching up on whatever show he was obsessed with at the time. He got more than enough social interaction at work, anyways.

Finally, the redhead was finished with the phone call and ripped off the top sheet of his order pad, walking past Oliver and handing it through the window into the kitchen. Then, he whirled on his heel to face the blonde, stretching his arms out in a flashy showmanship pose.

“Here I am! Forty-five minutes early, per my best friend’s request.”

“You are, without a doubt, the man, August King,” Oliver said, doing a mock bow, and they both cracked up.

The rest of the morning was considerably easier, even more so when one of the other servers, Mason, arrived at ten and the breakfast rush began to die down. Oliver had finally had a chance to clean the coffee station, to his delight, as he couldn’t stand to let it get covered in milk and ground up coffee beans. After it was near sparkling and he hadn't had someone order a coffee in the last ten minutes, he finally allowed himself a break to eat breakfast. Which meant getting a pre-made muffin from the display case, heating it up in the pastry microwave, and shoving it down his throat while standing in the kitchen and making small talk with the line cooks.

When he finished, he headed back out to the front counter area, wiping the crumbs off his face with his sleeve as he closed all the open apps on his phone. August and Mason were folding napkins, chatting easily, and Oliver joined the conversation, although much less energetic than the other two males, who had clearly gotten more sleep than Oliver had.

Oliver was typically scheduled to work the earliest shifts, for whatever reason, and while he liked the freedom to do things with his afternoon, he was usually too tired to do so. His usual shift was from six in the morning when Cafe Hooray opened to either two or twelve, depending on how he was feeling and the business needs. The scheduling was flexible due to the fact that the owner of the cafe was very easygoing and everyone currently on the staff team was relatively hardworking, save for a few who basically just showed up and did their job. Not that there was any shame in that, just that when they walked in, Oliver knew there was no way he was going to be able to leave early.

The majority of the staff, including Oliver and August, were in their early twenties. Some were in college, but Oliver had long given up on throwing a bunch of money at something he wasn’t passionate about. The only thing he had ever loved enough to maybe want to pursue as a career was music, but being a concert violinist wasn’t exactly a career that could sustain a normal adult in terms of income these days, so he resorted to being the best damn barista in town. He enjoyed his job, he enjoyed his coworkers, and the tips were good. He was content where he was at.

Well, mostly.

Oliver still didn’t have a girlfriend. Had never had one before at all, in fact. He had gone on some dates here and there, kissed a few different people in different situations, but he still had yet to really connect with someone. He figured it was maybe due to his aforementioned personality, since he could be a lot… to say the least. That, and he figured he was middle-of-the-road in terms of looks. Again, it didn’t help that his best friend was really easy on the eyes and drew most of the female attention when they went out together. Despite the odds stacked against him, Oliver was determined that he was going to find the girl for him. One day.

“Hey, Oliver, you good?” came Mason’s voice, interrupting Oliver’s daydreams of him and a cute girl frolicking along the beach. “You’re usually more… boisterous,” he said, likely searching for a word less offensive than saying he was annoying and loud as fuck, but it wouldn’t have offended them if he used those exact words.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry, I’m just kind of tired,” he answered, grabbing another clean knife and fork. He could roll silverware on autopilot all day.

“He was the only one here until I came in,” August told Mason, who shook his head in a damn, that sucks kind of way. Oliver shrugged.

“It was alright. Wouldn’t have been so bad if half the town hadn’t shown up for coffee and were also in shit moods. This one guy was so snarky I just about spit in his coffee!”

The other two laughed. They could all relate to having pissy customers. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it was sometimes, but commiserating with coworkers made it a little better.

“Well, did you want to go home? It’s not like we’re busy anymore,” August said, inclining his head towards the dining area where only two tables were occupied by older couples who were slowly enjoying their late breakfasts. “And we’ll have another server and to-go server come in at noon. We can handle a Wednesday lunch rush with four, easy.”

Mason nodded, and both of them looked at Oliver expectantly.

He hummed, thinking as all three of them continued to fold silverware napkins while barely looking at what they were doing. “Yeah, I guess. I’m off tomorrow too, so it’ll basically be like having two days off since it’s still so early….”

“Yeah! There you go! Go relax,” August encouraged.

“Okay, okay. Let me tip out.”

He closed out his shift and collected his tips, neatly folding the stack of cash and sticking it into his pocket. He grabbed another muffin from the display case and waved his friends off.

“Bye, Ollie! See you later,” August called, his signature lopsided smile sitting squarely on his face. “Get home safe.”

Oliver said goodbye to the kitchen staff on his way out of the back door and walked leisurely through the staff parking lot to his car, already feeling the tension in his shoulders relaxing after leaving his workplace.

XXX

Generally speaking, Oliver and August were fairly tidy. Oliver had been pretty clean most of his life, and whether that could be attributed to some sort of undiagnosed compulsive need to be clean was not something he was sure of, but it ended up coming in handy. August was also a pretty clean person, the type to never even leave cups or dishes in his room. As a result, the two had a very neat apartment, something that was apparently not common when two guys their age shared a living space.

It was times like today that Oliver was really grateful that they both valued a clean house, though, because he was exhausted and didn’t want to do anything else, including unload the dishwasher, so he was relieved to see that August had evidently already unloaded it at some point after he had gone to bed the night before. With that out of the way, it meant there weren’t even any house chores that needed to be done. So, he took a shower, washed off the sweat from running around all morning, and studied his burned hand after he got out and dried off. It wasn’t hurting anymore, but the skin was still a little red, and he thought to himself that he might have overheated the milk in that coffee. He shrugged, remembering that the lady he served it to was rude anyways, so it didn’t matter if he had soured her milk a little bit. She was probably too sour herself to have noticed.

The two muffins he had eaten for breakfast did little to sate his appetite, so after his shower, Oliver raided the pantry and fridge for snacks and grazed, one of his favorite activities. He loved food, especially sweet food. His bit of pudge was likely a result of his love for all things delicious, and the fact that he hated exercising almost as much as he loved food. So, it was not likely to change. He just hoped that his future wife liked her men with a little extra fluff.

Full, clean, and finally starting to run out of steam, Oliver retreated to his room. He takes up residence in the bigger bedroom out of the two in his and August’s apartment, something the redhead had insisted on because Oliver needed the extra space for his figurine collection. August was apparently less materialistic than he was, if you don’t count the many books that August had (too many for his shelf, in fact, he had a bin of them in his closet as well, like some kind of nerd. Oliver made sure to tease him on occasion, but he would occasionally borrow a novel from his friend to read). Overall, their arrangement worked out well, and they got along. Being best friends since they were kids, and by extension more than comfortable in each other’s presence, helped with that. When August had texted Oliver two years ago asking if he’d want to get a place with him, he had texted back his agreement within minutes.

The plan was to originally meet a girl and move in together out of his grandfather’s house, but as he was continuously (and painfully) reminded of, he lacked a girlfriend, and it was impossible financially speaking for any young person to afford to live on their own these days. He had been wanting to leave for a while, just because he and his adoptive brother Kyle had never really gotten along, and Kyle could be downright cruel. He loved his gramps, but having his own space was a dream come true.

August’s reasons for leaving were a bit different than his own. His friend had a large family with multiple siblings, of which he was the oldest. Their family struggled financially and August had likely not wanted to contribute to the strain, so him moving out meant one less mouth to feed. The second oldest King sibling, Natalie, was only a little younger than him, and was a lot of help around their house, but it was August who aided them financially. Oliver couldn’t help but notice the letters he sent home, stuffed with cash for his family along with handwritten notes. It was incredibly sweet, and it only affirmed for Oliver that his best friend was one of the kindest people he had ever met.

Thinking of his selfless best friend, curled up under his covers, Oliver began to drift off slowly, and then all at once crashed into unconsciousness as sleep took him.