What if I ain't no violinist?

192. Twoset Barista III

Eddy sighed and picked up the cup. It was very light. Eddy widened his eyes.

"Please Eddy, take it with you. Thanks."

Brett rushed back behind the counter to serve the waiting customers.

Eddy had no idea why Brett would give him an empty cup. He was quite annoyed by the whole situation, he was tempted to just leave the cup behind on the table and go. But he saw the desperate look on Brett's face. Eddy didn't like the idea of leaving rubbish on the table either. He also didn't like the idea of disposing of the cup in front of Brett – he thought that would be hurtful, to see Eddy throw the cup in the bin right in front of his eyes. So he grabbed the cup by the top and left, thinking he'd just throw it away once he was outside the coffee shop.

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Saying that Eddy was annoyed with himself was an understatement. For starters, Eddy regretted not saying something straight away. He disliked conflict and had chosen the path to ride things out and by the time the problem starting to bother him he was too shy to mention anything as he didn't want Brett to think he was making a complaint. He was also actually jealous of Shaun whose face, name and order were remembered by Brett even after 6 months. Eddy blamed himself for not being able to leave a decent impression on the cute barista.

Saying that Eddy was confused about the whole situation was also an understatement. Eddy had initially thought Brett was being a bit of a cheeky smart*ss by purposely messing up Eddy's order or the spelling of his name as a little prank in order to get Eddy's attention. And at first, Eddy did think it was funny and cute. What Eddy didn't expect was that he had developed a bit of a crush on the cute barista and to find it quite hurtful when the barista kept doing it.

A bit of a crush?

Okay, so perhaps by now it was a rather enormous one.

And to top it all off, what's with the empty coffee cup!?

With his hand holding the top of the cup, Eddy quickly stood up and left the coffee shop as he felt Brett's eyes on him. He briskly walked along the street till he knew Brett could no longer see him from inside the coffee shop. He then lifted his hand to look at the coffee cup Brett had given to him. Eddy was so worked up, he had scrunched up the top part of the paper cup along with its plastic lid. He loosened the grip of his right hand as he let his left hand hold the cup, leaving his right hand holding the scrunched up plastic lid.

He then noticed there was writing inside the cup.

Peering inside, Eddy noticed the barely legible, chicken scratch of what looked like Brett's phone number.

Brett had been nervously staring at the entrance of the coffee shop so he immediately noticed Eddy when he walked in.

"Eddy"

"Hi Brett"

"Thank you so much for texting me and agreeing to see me. I already ordered our coffees.. I got you a latte, no sugar."

"..Sounds good. So what's the coffee here like? Is it as nice as the ones you make?"

Brett smiled.

"That's very nice of you to say, thanks. Yeah. They make pretty nice coffees here."

Eddy shrugged.