It's Spelled with a 'C'

Kellin has dealt with many rude customers in his (albeit fairly short) time working at Starbucks, but few have been as cranky and shady as this motherfucker.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. He has had several encounters with middle-aged soccer moms who proclaim that they “want to speak to the manager,” and he’s also had far too much experience with being given the evil eye (even though, most of the time, he swears he didn’t even do anything wrong). This guy, though? This guy is on a whole other level. Translation: he isn’t explicitly a huge asshole, but judging by his mannerisms, Kellin is getting a good feeling that he is, in fact, a huge asshole.

It’s around eight o’clock in the morning, and Kellin, of course, has the early shift, because he always does. Up until around ten, most of the people who come in are tired, stressed, cranky, or a mixture of the three, and this guy standing in line definitely seems to be one of those people. He looks to be around Kellin’s age and is wearing a suit (which automatically makes him at least kind of an asshole in Kellin’s book). The expression on his face as he scopes the place out is one of judgment and intense dislike for most of humanity, and Kellin swears that the guy rolls his eyes at Kellin’s exhausted “What can I get for you?”

“Venti caramel macchiato,” the guy says curtly, as if he has somewhere much better to be and his patience levels are nonexistent (which is probably true, considering that he looks like some sort of businessman). “That’s all.”

“Name?” Kellin says, trying to sound pleasant. It’s too early for this bullshit.

“Vic,” the guy replies in a tone of voice that implies that he thinks he’s above everyone else (or maybe they’re both just tired and cranky and ready to fight everyone). “Spelled V-I-C.”

As the drink is being made, Kellin leans into his coworker, Gabe, and says, “I wanna fight that guy.”

Gabe snorts. “Before nine, you wanna fight everyone.”

“No, I’m serious,” Kellin says in the midst of working, as he’s running around behind the counter. “He’s an asshole.”

“You’ve only known him for two minutes.”

“Yes, but I can tell. Plus, he’s a businessman.”

When Kellin finishes the drink and calls out Vic’s name, Vic appears almost immediately from wherever the fuck he was hiding, roughly taking the drink from Kellin without a single word, not even a “Thank you.”

Yeah, Kellin is definitely going to fight this dude.

—

The next time Kellin sees Vic, it’s around the same time, so of course they’re both tired and cranky again. This time, though, it’s made worse by the fact that now Vic is on the fucking phone.

Kellin can already tell that it’s one of those Important Business Conversations, and it annoys the hell out of him. He’s dealing with another order right now, and he hopes that by the time he gets to Vic, the call will have ended…but of course it doesn’t.

“Uh, what would you like?” Kellin says, trying to take his attention away from whatever riveting discussion he’s having.

“Hold on, barista’s talking to me,” Vic says into the phone, turning to Kellin. “Venti caramel macchiato.” Then he continues his conversation, even as he’s paying. Kellin doesn’t even bother asking Vic for his name, because he already knows it.

This time, Kellin decides that he’s not going to deal with this bullshit. When he writes Vic’s name, he spells it “V-I-K.”

Vic doesn’t seem to notice until he’s halfway back to his seat and already looking down at his cup, and when he does, he glances over his shoulder and shoots Kellin a death glare. Kellin tries not to laugh (and fails).

“Oh, God,” Gabe says, coming up behind him. “What did you do?”

Kellin shrugs. “Spelled his name wrong.”

Gabe throws his hands up in mild frustration, though they both know he’s not too serious. “You can’t do that, Kell! He’s never gonna come back! He’s gonna give us bad reviews on Yelp!”

“Nah,” Kellin says casually, shaking his head, a shit-eating grin on his lips. “Something tells me the guy’s got a good sense of humor.” And then he laughs again.

—

The next time, when Kellin asks for Vic’s name, Vic responds, “Vic. With a ‘C.’”

“A ‘C,’” Kellin repeats, nodding. “Got it.”

Once again, it’s not until he’s halfway back to his seat that Vic looks down and notices Kellin’s intentional misspelling: Vick.

“How did you spell it this time?” Gabe asks.

“V-I-C-K,” Kellin replies. “I mean, he did say that his name has a ‘C’ in it.”

Gabe shakes his head. “He’s gonna kill you.”

Kellin just giggles. He’s having far too much fun with this.

—

Vic starts coming in almost every day, presumably before work. He orders a venti caramel macchiato every single time, and every single time, Kellin misspells Vic’s name somehow (and he gives himself some credit for it, too; who knew it was possible to spell “Vic” wrong in so many different, obnoxious ways?). It has ranged from simpler ones like “Vik” to things like “Vvck” (which sort of looks like the word “fuck” because of Kellin’s handwriting), “Vikkk,” and “THE VIKTOBOT 3000” (Kellin was particularly done with Vic’s shit that day). The whole time, Kellin’s coworkers make sure to always let Kellin take Vic’s order, just so this saga can continue. Vic has started fighting back in his own special way—by being as rude and throwing as much shade as possible without making Kellin want to jump across the counter and tackle him. Gabe keeps asking why they aren’t dating yet. Kellin kind of wants to tackle him, too.

Another one of the (many) annoying things about Vic is the fact that he actually is pretty attractive. Assholes shouldn’t be allowed to be that attractive. They shouldn’t be allowed to have a nice face or nice lips or nice hair or nice eyes or anything like that. Vic, of course, has all of that, because he’s a special kind of asshole.

On this particular morning, Vic comes in and says to Kellin straight-up, “If you misspell my name one more fucking time, I swear to God, I’ll sue.”

Kellin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Sure you would, Viktobot 3000.”

If they were in a cartoon, Vic would probably have a bunch of exclamation points floating over his head. “This is so disrespectful,” he says. “Seriously, who do you think you are?”

“Who do you think you are?” Kellin shoots back—there’s nobody else in the entire restaurant other than the workers, so he’s allowed to waste time arguing. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees his coworkers watching this whole thing go down like a bunch of drama addicts. “You’re just irritating, and you know what else is irritating? You’re cute. Why are you cute? You’re an asshole.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Kellin regrets them, because seriously, what the hell? Why would he say that? Now he’s just embarrassed himself. He’s still pissed, obviously, but now he’s embarrassed, too.

Vic raises his eyebrow, and for the first time since Kellin has known him, he actually smiles, though it’s in the form of a smirk. “I’m cute, am I?”

Kellin bites his lip. Well, he can’t take it back now. “I, uh…” He glances down at Vic’s lips and then back up, locking eyes with him. “Fuck.”

Vic leans forward across the counter, and at this point, Kellin’s starting to wonder why no one is yelling at them or telling Kellin to get back to his job—his coworkers are either watching intently or pretending that they don’t see anything. Vic grabs Kellin by the shirt and pulls him in, kissing him roughly, and Kellin kisses back almost immediately. It’s not that he forgets his anger; it’s just that he channels it all into this kiss, paying absolutely no attention to anyone else in the restaurant and not giving a single fuck about who might be watching this ridiculous scenario play out (because there are only, like, two other people in the entire place).

Vic pulls away after a few seconds. “Holy shit,” he breathes, as if he can’t believe he just did that. Frankly, Kellin can’t believe Vic just did that, either.

Behind them, Gabe starts clapping. “Fucking finally!”

Kellin flips him off without breaking his eye contact with Vic. “You know, I’ve never had sex with a business guy before,” he says slowly. “Meet me here after you finish work and we can, uh, arrange something, if you’d like.”

Vic just stares at him. “Okay,” he says after a moment. “You’re still a disrespectful asshole, though.”

“And you’re still an entitled, big-headed prick,” Kellin replies. It’s way too early for this, and he still can’t believe what just happened. “So. Venti caramel macchiato, correct?”