Day 7 – Sweetener (Ariana Grande)

A/N: Slight AU of high school Klaine who didn't meet the way they did in canon.

Kurt picked up his phone, smiling when he saw Mercedes' name lighting up the screen. "Hey, Cedes," he answered, flopping backwards on his bed.

"Oh, hi, Kurt! I didn't think you'd pick up. I was going to leave you a message about meeting up at the mall this weekend. Wait…why are you answering? Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Kurt sighed. "Yeah, about that. Do you think the Lima Bean is hiring?" he asked sheepishly.

"Kurt! What happened to your job at Starbucks?"

Kurt had been working at the coffee mecca to earn some money for his inevitable move to New York in the fall. It wasn't his first choice, but the hours were flexible, the pay wasn't too bad, and if he couldn't work in theater or fashion, then coffee was the next best thing.

"You know Blaine?"

"Blaine, Blaine? The cute guy from Dalton who just so happens to prefer the Starbucks where you work to the hundred or so locations closer to his own school? The one who has been flirting with you for three months now? The one you're too afraid to ask on a date but whom you cannot stop talking about? That Blaine?" Mercedes teased.

"Har de har har. You know, Miss Jones. You are wasting your time singing. You should go into standup comedy," Kurt snarked back.

Mercedes chuckled fondly. "Okay, Kurt. I'll stop. So what about Blaine?"

Kurt took a deep breath and threw his free hand over his eyes, reliving the afternoon's events.

"Hey there, Kurt," the very handsome Blaine Anderson greeted Kurt brightly.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite customer!" Kurt replied. "What shall we be ordering today?"

Blaine laughed as he always did when Kurt asked for his order. "Same as usual, of course."

"One medium drip coming up," Kurt rang up the order, processed Blaine's payment, and stepped to the side to prepare the beverage. It was an unspoken rule among the other baristas that Kurt was to take care of Blaine, and woe betide anyone who tried to pour that boy's medium drip.

Kurt handed the cup to Blaine with a smile. "I hope you have a great day," he offered.

"It just got a thousand percent better, so I'm off to a good start," Blaine responded with a wink.

Getting his heart under control, Kurt turned to go back to work. Within seconds, he heard a familiar voice. "Excuse me?"

He took the couple of steps back to the side counter and asked Blaine, "Is there something wrong? Is it not hot enough? Too hot?" he rambled.

"No, no. Nothing like that. You're out of sweetener," Blaine explained.

"Oh. I can take care of that." Kurt held his hand out to take the cup back. Blaine moved to hand it over, but when Kurt slipped his fingers around the cup, Blaine surprised him by putting his hand over Kurt's. Kurt still couldn't understand what came over him in that instant that made him do what he did next.

"I can sweeten it for you," he offered, fully taking the cup from Blaine. Without losing eye contact, he raised the cup to his lips and…

"…andthenikissedhiscup."

"Run that last part by me again?" Mercedes demanded.

He repeated more intelligibly, "And then I kissed his cup."

"Oh my god, Kurt!" Mercedes squealed. Fortunately, Kurt had anticipated her response and held the phone away from his ear. "I can't believe you did that! Way to go, boo! What did he say? What did you say? And why does any of that mean you are home from work early?"

Kurt scoffed. "Apparently, putting one's lips on someone else's cup is 'unhygenic' and 'behavior unbefitting a barista,' so they fired me. It might have had something to do with the fact that the health inspector was there at the time, too," he mused.

"Aw, sweetie. I'm sorry," Mercedes consoled, but Kurt could hear her fighting back a laugh on the other end of the line.

Kurt dropped his hand from his eyes, staring at the ceiling as a bemused grin spread across his face. "I'm not. I finally got his number."

A/N: I wasn't going to go with a coffee theme, but once I typed the title and artist, and noticed I had both "sweetener" and "grande" in there, how could I resist? I'm not overly happy with this one – I think I've hit the mid-challenge slump. That's a thing, right?