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If it was one thing that Keith enjoyed, it was going into the coffeeshops with the wonderful aroma that surrounded the shop. The shop was somewhere he would solace in his thoughts, listen to his music and just enjoy his morning. All the busy bustling of college kids, adults who needed their coffee and what not and bouts of other people.
Keith was waiting in line to order his hot chocolate and not only that but to see his favorite barista -
Lance.
He didn’t know what it was but any time he saw Lance, he would get butterflies in his stomach. Lance had a really cute smile, he moved quickly of course, when it came to all the orders but any time they exchanged glances he couldn’t help but to look down as his cheeks became a faint pink.
“Have a nice day!” Lance said sweetly to a middle aged woman who walked out with whatever drink she had in her hand. He didn’t even realize how quickly the line had moved. He really did get stuck in his thoughts, didn’t he? He tended to do that.
Keith perked up, smiling as Lance greeted him. He had been coming into the coffee shop for quite awhile. They even exchanged numbers and even that - was big for Keith especially since he had been crushing on Lance for awhile. Hunk had pushed him to ask Lance for his number and since then, they had exchanged letters every morning too (as Lance would forget to text Keith because Lance tended to suck at texting but it was fine - he enjoyed the notes none the less).
“Well good morning to you, Mullet!”
“Good morning to you too, loverboy.” Keith chuckled. He loved teasing Lance with that nickname as Lance would laugh and his eyes would crickle. His smile really was like a sunset; so beautiful.
“What can I get for you? The usual, a medium hot chocolate with whipped cream for three dollars?” Lance began to tap at the screen in front of him as Keith began to dig in his pockets.
Keith began to search his pockets frequently -
where the hell was his wallet!? No fucking way did he forget THAT! He did… he forgot his wallet. Fuck.
He internally cursed at himself. He tapped at pockets of his jeans and of his leather jacket, shaking his head as he sighed.
“I - I don’t have my wa-” Keith began but before he could finish his sentence Lance had already began on his drink. He reached behind the counter and started to add the liquid to the medium cup. Lance was already writing his name in cursive. Every morning it was written with a heart.
“It’s on the house, don’t worry mullet.”
“O - on the house? A - are you sure? I’ll pay you back!”
“It’s fine Keith. Say, how about-” Lance added whipped cream to his drink as he then handed it to him along with his letter for the day. “-we go out to dinner together? We’ll split the bill.”
It wasn’t often that Keith saw Lance blush despite the countless mornings he’d walk in and the two would talk he never saw him blush. He truly was cute.
Wait hold on, did Lance just ask if he would go out to dinner with him and that’s how he’d return the favor for Lance paying his drink? Snap out of it! Say yes! You like him!
“Uh, yeah! S - sure!” Lance held out Keith’s drink as he told it from his grip and he gave Lance his letter for the day.
“Uh we can go out to dinner, yeah? I - I’ll text you the details! Thank you, t - thank you Lance, really
thank you!
Have a nice day, uh b - bye!” Keith gripped his cup tightly as Lance stood for a moment, looking to see his other coworkers working to finish orders from other customers. There wasn’t too many people. Lance shrugged, smiling as he moved closer towards Keith from the counter that was the drop off station.
“It’s nothing really,” Lance shrugged, “So…. You. Me. We go out to dinner tonight, sounds good?” He rose an eyebrow. Keith didn’t even notice until now - that Lance wore a light blue apron.
Huh. He really did only pay attention to his face. Goddammit! Pay attention to him, you idiot!
“Yeah!” Keith’s voice squeaked as he then looked down avoiding eye contact with Lance.
Why is that at this time his voice had to crack?
“We can go out for dinner uh, have a great day.. Yeah! S - see you Lance.” Keith began to scratch behind his black beanie.
God.. what an embarrassment he was. Wait so.. Did Lance ask him out on a date?
“I’ll see you later cutie,” he winked, “And i’ll be checking my phone this time. You bet!” Keith smiled fondly at Lance as he waved at him. Lance waved back as his he drew his attention to the customers who began to get into line.
Although Lance sucked at texting. He enjoyed that they would often exchange letters and for Keith, he enjoyed that a lot more than the texts. It was something physical he had, he was a sentimental individual. He loved to read his letters talking about various things. It was a nice system. He knew that Lance was busy with his work and with college life, it was hard. Regardless, the times he would get texts they made him unbelievably happy. Even a simple, “
Good morning cutie! :)”
made him so happy.
Keith finished his hot chocolate by the time he made it into his dorm. He didn’t want to study but he had to. A test was coming up soon and if he wanted to keep up that good grade for his computer science. He wanted to get into NASA and if he wanted to do that, the only way would be to study and keep his grades up. Now that he thought about it, for time that he and Lance had been talking he never really told him. Possibly, tonight was the night he’d tell him.
“I can’t believe you jumped when you saw that spider Keith!” Lance chuckled, Keith didn’t even realize they were holding hands at this point. Wait.. he's holding hands with Lance? How did he not realize that.
Oh.
“Listen!
It’s not my fault I have a phobia of spiders! When Miles went back in there to find that damn thing I didn’t they were gonna show it up close! I’m.. I’m sorry I held onto y-”
“It’s okay, mullet. It was really cute actually. Are you.. Okay with..
This?”
Lance motioned to his hands intertwined with his. Keith felt his cheeks burn. He didn’t notice it. He was so comfortable around Lance.
“Yeah I,” He swallowed harshly. “I’m okay with this- I didn’t even notice we were holding hands I’m sorry! It - it was impulsive I’ll-”
“No no,
Keith!
Seriously it’s okay but if you aren’t okay with it that's fine too.”
“No, thank you Lance but I - I actually like this - this hand holding thing.”
Lance felt his cheeks begin to turn a bright shade of pink and for a moment, Keith couldn’t help but to chuckle. Lance was.. So cute. He didn’t even realize for a split moment that for once, his anxious thinking wasn’t getting to him. Lance really was someone special.
“You’ve… never held hands with someone before?” Lance asked genuinely as they walked around.
“I - no I haven’t actually…” Keith looked off to the side and sighed. “It’s kinda d-”
“Keith, it’s okay. We all have different experience and I’m glad to be holding your hand. I’m getting hungry, are you? How about we go to the that pizza place?” Lance pointed to the shop named The Pizza Planet. Keith nodded as they both made their way to the pizza place. He realized he had never been on actual date before. The way everything went.. Went so smoothly. Sure, he shared a kiss or two but he wouldn’t really count them as such. They were all at parties Keith went to during his senior year. They weren’t even genuine.
Lance began to talk about all the horror movies he liked as they headed into the pizza place. A sign read, “Please seat yourself,” as they both agreed to make their way to a seat by the window. They both sat adjacent from each other, taking off their jackets. Lance had this sort of aura about him. He was calming, sweet and overall just someone so amazing. When he saw Lance, he had this sort feeling. He gave off this sort of warmth that Keith really appreciated.
“So you’re telling me you absolutely hated Happy Death Day? The movie where you would come up with thousands of theories on this girl that dies about ten times?”
“
Sixteen times.
” Lance rose an eyebrow as the waitress came around with their large cheese pizza and milkshake. They both agreed on sharing a chocolate milkshake and for some reason, Keith enjoyed eating his fries with ranch hopefully Lance didn’t notice.
“Oh I’m sorry you said
you
hated Happy Death Day!
No,
I hated a couple of things but not
all of it.
I mean the repeating the same day over and over day is clique and it was pretty much a horror version of Groundhog Day.” Lance began to chow down on his pizza, taking a small sip of their shared milkshake along with their side order of fries. He took a couple of them and dipped them in the milkshake listening attentively.
“You’ve seen that movie? God I thought I was the only one! You know, the concept was really well done. I had
no idea
you liked those types of movie. Wait, have you seen the anime Erased?”
“Me and Veronica binge watched it! It was so good, I loved it so much!” Lance beamed. Keith couldn’t help but to feel the butterflies in his stomach. He felt his cheeks begin to hurt from the amount of times he was smiling through the night.
“Keith - why the hell are you dipping your fries in ranch?” Lance rose an eyebrow at him as Keith stopped eating his fry and glared at him.
“Listen
it’s delicious!”
Keith emphasised putting his hands up in defense.
“No the fuck it’s not!” Lance laughed and for a moment, Keith swore he forgot how to breathe. Lance didn’t even have to try. He was cute no matter what.
God… Lance is the cutest person he’s ever seen.
“You - just haven’t tried it, idiot!” Keith stuck his tongue out at Lance. He got up taking Keith’s ranch as he yelped, crossing his arms.
“I am not trying that shit! God, the stench! It’s horrendous! Ranch is disgusting!” Lance crossed his arms in an orderly fashion. He angled his head to the side with his legs crossed.
“It’s not disgusting you just have bad taste buds!” At this point Keith couldn’t stop laughing.
“Might wanna listen to what you say there, dummy!” Lance stuck his tongue at Keith as they both laughed about whether ranch was gross or not. They had then split the bill in half and the two, made their way to the arcade.
“I can’t believe you’re so good at this skee ball thing! I honestly
suck
at skeeball! You
actually
scored 1,000 and now we’re getting 1,000 tickets!” Lance beamed with his hands up. Keith couldn’t help but to smile, giggling as his shoulder shaked with the happiness surrounding him.
The two had been playing arcade games for quite awhile now. Keith didn’t mean to show off his skills but he was really good at strategy games but for one… he was really good at skee ball. He was determined to make this night memorable and so far, it was. Keith had never had so much fun in his life before.
“So
Lance
- what do you want?” Keith stopped in his tracks, holding half of the tickets that were sprawled over him arms.
“What?” Lance looked off to Keith who stood next to him. He held the other half of the tickets as the two moved to a bench that was close to the prize bench.
“What prize do you want?
We have about 2,000 tickets!
It’s enough to buy one of those medium sized bears!”
“Wait… wait.. A medium sized bear? That’s.. The best thing i’ve heard for a prize. You know the bears like you, grizzled, angry and sleepy.” Lance raised one of his eyebrows as he finished getting all the tickets in an orderly fashion so they’d be able to feed the tickets into the counting machine.
“Wait-
hey! Excuse me!
” Keith was about to get up as he comprehended what lance had said. Before he could say anything Lance had already intertwined his fingers with Keith’s as they made their way to the ticket feeder to count all of their tickets.
Once they had made their way to the prize booth, Lance had already settled on the medium sized bear that was half of their tickets. Keith didn’t want anything at all but Lance saw a hippo stuffed animal and immediately grabbed it. They had some leftover tickets and settled on getting stupid nicknacks and candy.
It was nearing the end of the of the night bouts of people were leaving the arcade place but a group of people here and there hung around. Lance looked to Keith and smiled.
“Hey I… I got you something.”
“You didn’t have to Lance, honestly!”
“But I.. I wanted to so Keith, I uh, I got you think and something else too.” Lance handled Keith a hippo plushie it was simple but he couldn’t help but to feel so happy. It was something so small but it meant so much to Keith.
“
Thank you Lance
, really it - it means a lot to me. Thank you.”
“No thank you for this amazing night Keith! I uh, I didn’t think you’d say yes to this whole.. Date thing.” Lance’s eyes looked off toe the side putting a hand to his neck.
“I said yes because I, I do like you - you - I mean I know you suck at texting but those letters we exchange? Mean so much to me and your smile brightens my everyday, Lance.” Keith smiled, his hand rested upon his cheek. He saw Lance smile with his face turning a small shade of pink.
“One more thing Keith,” Lance moved closer to Keith as they sat next to each other, Keith was so oblivious. “Can I.. kiss you, Keith?”
His eyes widened and for a split second, he forgot his surroundings. Did he hear Lance correctly? He most certainly did. He asked if he could kiss him. He snapped back into reality right away with a bright smile.
“Of course you can, idiot.” Keith grinned as Lance cupped his face leaning in slowly. Keith titled his head slightly as they both kissed. The two couldn’t help but to smile in between a couple of kisses.
They both pulled away, laughing as they sighed in a happy tone. Sure, it was a date and with mornings filled with bouts of people along with mounts of noise. Keith knew that in the mere mornings, he’d see a familiar face: Lance and then he knew, his day would be better.
Coffee shops were what calmed him but now, it was hot chocolate and a boy filled with so much light. Life was beginning to burn brighter.
Just maybe, a warm feeling was all he needed to get through the day.