Coffee Breath ~dreamnotfound

Coffee Breath

Dream had been working on a school project for the last five hours in a small coffee shop near his college. His mind was bobbled, numbed, if you will. He sat back in his chair, rereading the text on his laptop screen for the fiftieth time. 

Finding multiple spelling errors, Dream leaned forward once again and set his hands on the keyboard. 

"Hey." A British voice made Dream look up. 

"Hi." Dream had seen this employee before, many times- his accent, pink lips, olive skin and almond freckles had him head over heels. The only issue was how absolutely mean George was. 

It didn't matter what Dream was doing, George would 'accidentally' spill coffee on him, or bump the table while Dream was trying to take a sip. Worst of all was the insults and refusal of service- George would purposely get Dreams order wrong, he would write mean things on the cup as well. Once, Dream got 'fuck you.' another time, he got 'go home.'

A random hatred, a passion of hatred, so strong for no reason. Maybe he was annoyed with Dream wearing the same stupid green hoodie and black jeans every day, or maybe he was pissed off with the smell of cheap cologne and nicotine Dream would bring into the shop like a cloud. 

Either way, no matter how mean George was, Dream fell for it. He was an asshole in return. It was a little 'game.' A game that maybe if he was a dickhole, George would get fed up with it and finally be nice, but it only fueled him to take it further.

"You've been here for five hours, please go home." 

Dream glared at the brunette through ivory eyes. "I don't think I will, actually. This papers due at five in the morning and my roommate is having an obnoxious party tonight."

"Sounds like a personal problem but I'm tired of hearing that stupid keyboard." George bumped the table, making Dream keyboard spam.

Dream sighed in annoyance and backed up the mistake he'd just typed. "And I'm tired of hearing this stupid song over and over."

George was the only employee working today, he was most days, and he'd been playing Car by It Looks Sad. since Dream got to the shop at two in the afternoon. Now, at seven pm, the song was restarting.

"What, you going through a breakup or something? Play a different song, I'll fucking pay you." Dream scoffed.

"I thought you liked thi- you know what? No, I like this song so fuck you." George pouted and walked back behind the counter.

One day in the shop, Georges coworker had put a little box by the front door to write down music options for variety during the day. Dream didn't realize it was meant to be anonymous when he wrote Car on a little slip of paper, his signature right below it. 

Dream pushed himself out of the chair and walked up to the line. The shop wasn't terribly busy today, but the line was going by desperately slow since George was working alone. When Dream was finally at the counter, he shoved his hands in his jean pockets.

"Are you going to order?" George asked with a tone. He had a nose ring on the right side, and a small mushroom tattoo under his ear. 

"You're going to fuck it up anyways, but I wanted to let you know I need something. I'm falling asleep."

"How bout a warm cup of fuck off?"

Dream shrugged. "You know what, how about a lemon cake?" He pointed to the breads in the front row of the glass container. 

"Sure." George slung plastic gloves on his hands and grabbed a slice of coffee cake. "These are the gloves I used while cleaning the toilets, by the way." He put the cake in a bag and cracked open a sharpie. He scribbled something on the side. "That'll be five eighty."