When Mal receives the third number in a day as a tip, she knows something is wrong. She also knows it probably is Jay's fault, so it's him she confronts, when the coffeeshop they work for is empty, the general student populace who goes there in class or whatever.
"So you've finally caught on?", he scowls, and she awaits for her answer. "Shit, man, I got this sweet bet with Ben that you were going to notice on like, fifth time or something."
"Notice what, exactly?", Mal drawled, crossing her arms, and it's like Jay just got Christmas in a bag.
"So you didn't notice? Sweet, man, thanks!", he says, bolting upright, and Mal is confused until Carlos - God bless his sweet little heart - sighs, coming over from the back.
"They wrote on the suggestion board.", Carlos answers, and Mall goes to check what the hell has been making her get numbers as tips.
And there is her answer, written in Ben's fancy calligraphy (of course it's fancy, he's rich or something like that), pronouncing that today's barista was "hella fucking gay", "desesperatly single", and that today's suggestion was "you give me your number".
Mal vaguely wondered if she could get away from murdering her two friends, but then the bell over the door rang, and she had two seconds, tops, to get her ass behind the balcon and a smile on her face. She miss the girl's look at the board and smile, while Jay and Calos do not.
"Hi, welcome to Auradon's, what will be your order?", Mal asks, hearing Carlos sigh on the background, probably elbowing Jay, and she finally gets a look at the girl in front of her.
"Hi!", she answers, analyzing with brown eyes the menu behind Mal's head, blue hair put up in a complicated braid. "I want…"
She proceeds to list what sounds like a perfect path to diabetes, and Mal notes it down while still trying to keep her eyes respectfully in the girl.
How come no one had told her Aphrodite (was it Aphrodite the most beautiful?) had come back and was asking for a lot of sugar right off the bat? Mal barely knew her and she was half in love.
"Sure. Can I get your name, ma'am?", Mal asks, already regretting the words coming out of her mouth. The girl smiles.
"My name's Evie, and if you give me five seconds and a promise to call later I can get you my number."
Mal blinks once, then twice. The girl (Evie) keeps smiling, so she just nods quietly, puts down her name (and if maybe she also puts on her number, it's no one business. Right? Right?) and passes the coffee cup to a grinning Jay, while the girl slips a small piece of folded paper to Mal, and goes to wait her drink/sugar bomb.
When Evie's gone, Mal shoots a glare at Jay's direction before putting the slip in her pocket.
"I lost the battle, but I won the war.", Jay proclaims, approaching Mal with cat-like silence. "Soo, I may have saw some veery familiar numbers on Evie's cup. Anything to say 'bout that? And do you plan on calling?"
"That you probably should pay Ben whatever you owe him.", she answered, simply. Mal wasn't about to tell him that yes, she was going to call.