"So how was the date?"
It's the first thing that Matt asks on Monday morning when Mike gets to the cafe. It isn't really a surprise since Matt spent most of Friday afternoon badgering Mike for details about what he had planned for his first date with 'skim latte, no foam.'
Quinn. Her name is Quinn Fabray. It's just that he spent months thinking of her in terms of her drink order before he knew her name, and old habits are hard to break, especially when he's at the cafe. Mike's known her drink order for months. He's only known her name for a couple of weeks, since he ran into her at the grocery store and fumbled his way through the first conversation they had that wasn't mostly about espresso.
Mike just grins, grabbing his apron - the one with the glitter-embellished felt snowflake pinned to the strap - from where it's hanging behind the break room door. "It was good," he answers.
He thinks Matt can tell that he's understating the truth, but the guy doesn't ask any more questions right then, stepping over to the oven when the timer goes off for whatever pastry he put in before Mike arrived. Mike leaves him to it, heading up front to finish getting setup ready so they can open, practically dancing through the cafe as he pulls the chairs down off the tables and sets up the cream and sugar bar.
The date was more than good.
Going back to the offer he'd given her the first time they'd talked outside of the cafe, he invited Quinn over to his place for dinner. He made cornbread and chili from an old roommate's recipe, and they sat at the table in his kitchen talking long after they'd finished eating. After months of only knowing her coffee order and that she's an elementary school teacher, it was amazing to actually have a conversation with her, to listen to her talk about what prompted her to go to school in LA and about teaching and her students. He told her about dancing, how it's always been the thing that he did that made him happier than anything else and about the classes that he teaches at his buddy's studio.
He walked her out to her car when she said something about imposing on him, which he knew was the 'hey, I'm not sleeping with you tonight' signal. Not that he needed one. Maybe it's old-fashioned (he's certainly gotten shit for it before), but Mike doesn't have sex on the first date if he wants to have a second. He's not going to lie and say that he's never had a one-night stand, but he isn't one of these guys who uses girls that way. Especially not girls that he likes. (Plus, in his experience, sex really is better when you actually know the person you're getting naked and sweaty with.) Instead, he just gave Quinn a hug, kissed her cheek, and said good night.
He knew he liked Quinn before. She's beautiful and sweet, and he was completely enamored with her. Now that he knows her just a little bit, he's sort of dying to spend more time with her.
And yeah, at least a little bit of Mike's good mood this morning is because he knows he's going to get to see her when she comes in for her coffee, even if it's just for a few minutes.
He's just poured a breakfast blend for a guy in a suit when Quinn walks through the door. He shoots her a quick smile while he fits the plastic lid on the cup, then focuses his attention on the customer in front of him so he can get rid of the guy as quickly as possible.
"Hi," Quinn greets when she steps up to the register. She has her hair swept away from her face and a little smile on her lips.
"Hi," Mike answers, trying to keep his own smile from getting too wide and goofy looking.
"Hi," Matt interjects, grinning wickedly and hitting the button to steam the milk for Quinn's latte when they both look at him.
Quinn chuckles, and Mike shakes his head when Matt deliberately squalls the milk with the steam. There isn't anyone waiting behind her, so Mike leans his elbow against the edge of the register and asks, "How are you?"
"Good," she answers. "I got a lot of work done this weekend, and I had a date with a really great guy on Friday night."
Mike feels his smile edging into goofy territory and tries to rein it in. "Yeah?" She nods, blinking her pretty eyes at him. "You think you're gonna see him again?"
She nods again and tries to hand him money for her drink, which he waves off. "I'm going to call him after school and see if he'll go to this thing with me later this week."
"Sounds like a plan." Mike ignores the was his heartbeat quickens. He doesn't know what this 'thing' she's talking about it, but he doesn't care even a little bit.
"Do you think he'll say yes?"
Matt sets Quinn's drink down on the counter between them then, thankfully keeping his mouth shut when he does it.
"I think a guy'd have to be stupid to say no to a date with you," Mike answers, making Quinn smile again. "Your latte's on me today."
"Just for today," she says, raising one eyebrow just slightly. It's an expression that reminds him that she's a teacher, and he concedes with a nod. "Thank you, Mike. Matt," she adds, nodding in his direction before meeting Mike's eyes again. "Bye."
They both watch her walk out of the cafe, leaving them mostly alone there behind the counter. "Has she always been that damn cute?" Matt asks, shrugging when Mike shoots him a look. "I knew she was pretty, but that was like, adorable."
Mike agrees, but he doesn't get a chance to say anything else before the door swings open and a group of three people comes in.
Quinn told him that she wouldn't take it personally if he didn't want to go with her to the first grade music recital at her elementary school. He said yes though, because he wants to spend time with her, and there are worse things in the world than listening to a bunch of seven-year-olds butchering songs. She'd laughed and joked that he might change his mind after he had to sit through it, but he thinks that he got points with her for agreeing to go so easily. He can't explain why, but he thinks that earning those points is important with Quinn.
Mike picks her up at her house, and he decides as soon as he parks his car at the curb that it suits her. It's light gray with white trim and a cute little front porch. A pair of neatly trimmed bushes that he doesn't recognize flank the porch steps, and finds himself thinking that Quinn seems like the sort of girl who plants flowers every year.
"You look really pretty," Mike says quietly when they're walking into her school's auditorium.
She glances up at him. "This is what I looked like when you saw me this morning."
"I know." He smiles when she raises her eyebrows. "You looked pretty then, too, but there were too many people around to tell you." The cafe was busy when she stopped in this morning, but if telling her that she looked pretty would have meant getting the smile that she offers him now, maybe he won't worry about who's around from now on.
The recital is almost exactly what Mike expected it to be: A huge group of kids singing songs that only about half of them seem to know the lyrics to, and only a handful of whom sound like they can carry a tune. They're cuter than he expected though. Little girls in dresses are always adorable, but he's surprised by how cute little boys wearing ties are.
Quinn laughs in the car on the way back to her house when he tells her that. "Boys in ties never stop being cute," she says quietly, glancing not-so-subtly down at the tie that Mike is wearing.
He tries to keep the grin off his face, but he fails pretty hard.
"If you're interested," Quinn says when he pulls to a stop at the curb in front of her house, "I have something for dessert inside. And you should know that that isn't a euphemism," she adds before he can say anything.
"I didn't think it was," he says honestly, meeting her eyes through the dim light coming from the streetlamp. "But yeah, I'm interested in dessert."
If he had to describe Quinn's kitchen in one word, it would be cheerful. The walls are painted a buttery yellow, the same color as the tiles that form the backsplash behind the stove and countertops, and if there's any clutter in this room, it's hidden behind the white cabinet doors. There are a few pieces of flatware and a single coffee mug - white, with multi-colored polka dots - in the draining rack next to the empty sink, a clean white tea towel hangs from the handle of the oven door, and the windowsill above the sink is lined with little pots of bright green herbs.
He watches Quinn produce two cupcakes from a cake saver sitting beside the coffeemaker, placing each on a small white plate. "I have lots of sprinkles and things if you want to decorate them," she says, looking almost shy.
"Isn't it like, a rule that you have to decorate a cupcake before it can be eaten?" She smiles, then bends to pull an plastic organizer bin from the cabinet. It's filled with containers of sprinkles and jimmies and colored sugars, nearly overflowing even though they're carefully organized. "Whoa. How often do you bake these?" he asks, poking through some of the bottles.
"A lot, actually," she answers, selecting some multi-colored sprinkles that are shaped like flowers. "Not all of my students come from homes where they can afford to celebrate birthdays very extravagantly. I think everyone deserves to feel a little special on their birthday, so I take cupcakes for everyone." Mike chooses a bottle of sprinkles without looking, keeping his eyes on Quinn as she talks. "I have twenty-two kids this year, so I'll have made cupcakes twenty-two times by June."
"What about kids with summer birthdays?"
"I make a calendar at the beginning of the year with everyone's birthday on it, and then I fill in any big gaps with summer kids."
"That's really cool, Quinn." Mike thinsk it's a a great teacher who cares that much about her students.
The smile on her lips gets wider when she looks at his cupcake. "Feeling patriotic?" she asks, and he realizes that the sprinkles he chose were red, white, and blue. He just shrugs and picks up the cupcake, peeling back the edge of the paper wrapper carefully so he can take a bite. "Thank you for coming with me tonight," she says, swiping a finger through the frosting on top of her own cupcake and licking it off thoughtfully. It's sexy, though he doesn't think that she's doing it to tease him.
"It was kind of fun," he admits. "Little kids are cute."
"They're less cute when they're tattling because Alex stuck out his tongue at Laney and she told him that he has a stupid face."
Mike grins. "What do you do about stuff like that?"
"Tell them to keep their tongues in their mouths and their comments to themselves," she answers with a shrug. "I don't have much patience for that sort of thing."
"I don't think I'd have the patience to be a teacher at all," he tells her before pushing the last of the cupcake into his mouth. He's a dude, so he can eat a cupcake in about three bites, and it's good enough that he can't really help how fast he eats it.
She finishes chewing her own bite with a thoughtful look on her face. "I love it. More than I thought I would, honestly. I majored in education because I didn't know what else to do, and I was dreading my student teaching when I started doing it." She shrugs one shoulder. "I fell in love with it."
It's silly, and probably a weird time for it to come up, but all Mike can think is that he's pretty sure he could fall in love with her. He keeps it to himself though, asking her to tell him more about her students instead.
"Thanks for the cupcake," he says when she walks him to the door a little later.
She nods, reaching up to smooth her hand over the front of his jacket. "I'm glad you liked it."
"Quinn." He watches her face when she looks up at him, her eyes soft and her lips just slightly parted. "Can I-"
She rises up onto her toes and presses her lips to his before he can ask permission, her fingers clutching at the fabric that she just smoothed. Mike hears himself make a surprised noise, but it only takes a second for him to get over his surprise and sink into it, one hand coming up to thread gently into her hair while the other rests at her waist, steadying. Her lips are soft and taste faintly sweet from the cupcake that she ate, and he shivers when the fingertips of her free hand brush against the side of his neck.
She takes his bottom lip between both of hers, sucking gently for the briefest of seconds before pulling away. The only thing that stops him from saying something - what, he has no idea - is that she presses her lips against his chastely one last time before inhaling shakily, leaning her forehead against his. "Oh," she breathes out, making him tighten the grip he has on her waist.
He stands there for just a moment, breathing with her, before taking a step back, untangling his fingers gently from her hair when she looks up at him. "Good night, Quinn."
He smiles to himself the entire drive home.
Every time Mike talks to Quinn, he learns something new about her.
It sounds stupid, because of course he's learning new things about this girl who he just started really talking to a little over a month ago, but it's how he feels. It's been a while since he dated someone, frankly, and even longer since he dated someone who he hadn't heard about from the friend who set them up or who wasn't already a friend before they decided to try making it into something more. He hasn't gotten to know someone like this since college.
He knows that he's showing her new things about himself all the time, too. There's always the chance that he's going to reveal something that scares her off, inevitably something that he think is innocuous that's some crazy, quirky dealbreaker for her, but he figures it's worth the risk. He's not shy, exactly, but he's always been a quiet guy, and Quinn is surprisingly easy to talk to.
"Did your parents really want you to be a doctor?" she asks one night when they're talking on the phone. They do this a lot, which makes him feel a little like he's back in high school. He likes it though, so he hasn't said anything about it.
"That was the plan until I was a senior in high school."
"What changed?"
"I realized that it didn't matter what they wanted if it meant being miserable for the rest of my life," he answers after a moment. "I'd already applied to Stanford for my mom when I figured that out and started applying to dance schools. She cried when I declined my acceptance."
"That must have been hard."
"Yeah." To this day, it's the only thing that he regrets about the way that things happened. He didn't talk to his dad for nearly two years because of dance, but making his mom cry was worse. She supported his decision, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt to have her dream for him quashed. "My mom was okay with it once she got used to the idea, and my dad's mostly come around, but they'd totally rather be able to tell their friends about their son the surgeon instead of the dancer."
She lets out a little hum. "Could you have been a surgeon?"
He's not bragging when he answers, "Yes. I'd have hated it though."
He pictures what that life would have been like sometimes. He'd still be finishing up with school, working his ass off and paying his dues and making himself totally crazy. The thing is, he knows that he would have been good at it. There have been a couple of lean moments in his dance career when he's considered that it might have been a better choice, the sure thing that made him miserable.
"What about you?" he asks suddenly, feeling a little weird talking about himself so much.
"What about me?" Quinn responds, laughing a little.
"What did you parents want you to be?"
She's quiet for a moment, and Mike worries that he's managed to screw it up. "I'm twenty-five. Ten years ago, I thought I'd be a wife and a mother by now because that was what my parents expected."
"That's intense."
"It feels like that now, but it didn't then. It was what I wanted." He hears her take a deep breath. "I did a lot of things that went against my parents' expectations. It sounds like you understand a little bit about that."
"For a while, I didn't think my dad was ever going to talk to me again," he says, his way of telling her that he does understand what she's saying.
"I went through that with my dad, too," she says quietly. It hangs there between them for a moment, then she clears her throat. "This conversation took a much more serious turn than I expected."
Mike isn't stupid. He can tell that she's just trying to change the subject, but if there's something that she doesn't want to talk about, he isn't going to push her.
"I think I'm going to see if I can try to keep a planter alive on my balcony again this year," he says, trying to talk about the lightest, least important thing that comes to mind.
"Again?" she repeats. He's probably imagining the grateful tone in her voice.
"I have a black thumb. I've killed every plant I've ever had." He listens to Quinn laugh. "I'm serious. I've killed things you aren't supposed to be able to kill. I killed a cactus once."
"Did you overwater it?"
"Someone gave it to me as a gift, so I took the thing to a nursery and had the lady write out care instructions for me. I watered it only when the instructions said to water it. The thing still died."
It's a totally silly thing to talk about, but he likes the way that Quinn sounds when she laughs and starts suggesting different plants for him to try, so he figures that makes it worth it.