The very small, very Christmas-y bundle of silver bells hanging over the door jingled merrily as another customer exited, completely oblivious to the fact that it was actually August and they should probably be on vacation, or doing whatever it is that seasonal decorations usually do with their time off. (Sitting around in those dusty cardboard boxes was probably a front for something much more scandalous.)

Kari exchanged exasperatedly bored glances with Mel. “Another day another-- six dollars!” she exclaimed, as her eyes wandered over to the tip jar.

After glancing around to make sure Tim was no where in sight, they exchanged mid-air high-fives. “Hello, tasty pizza dinner!” Money had been extra tight lately, and for all of its lean, mean grilling machine efforts, tossing things onto her beat-up George Foreman could only keep her satisfied for so long.

Mel glanced down at her watch and then back up at Kari. “Well, it’s that time ...”

“Oh, come on, Mel! You’re going to leave me here, stranded, all alone, just for some hot lunch date?! What happened to bros before hoes?” she play-protested, adding in a little pout for extra effect.

“You know I’ve been trying to meet this guy for months,” Mel replied with her classic Mel sass. When that didn’t work, she turned on the puppy-dog eyes. She knew Kari couldn’t say no to the puppy-dog eyes.

“That’s ... super effective!” Kari whined and accepted defeat. “Fiiine. Get it!”

Mel squealed, tackle-hugged her, and dashed out. Before the back door could even close, Tim’s trademark moustache, followed by the rest of his face, leaned into the kitchen. “I’m taking off too, Teagan — don’t blow anything up this time,” he grunted, nodding towards the milk steamer that she always forgot to turn off properly.

“You, too?!” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Hot date, as well?”

“Shut it, Teagan." He closed the door sternly behind him.

Kari leaned against the counter, propping her chin up on her palm, and gazing out at the now-empty coffee shop.

Of course, gazing would imply that it was a large enough cafe to look around in. She really just zoned out at the wall in front of her.

Her eyes drifted towards the window; the weather was amazing. “Even the birds are bumpin’,” she muttered under her breath, reciting the lyrics to The Best Rap in the Universe. It was a slow day today. Maybe she could just grab her board and--

Pffffffshfffshhhhhffffttttttttt!!!

“Oh, f*ck!” She spun around, eyes wide, to meet the hostile milk steamer that was now sending hot, frothy goodness all over the back counter for the third time this week. There was something about this technology that she clearly didn't understand.

Grabbing for the off switch and getting splattered in the process, she fumbled to power the irate contraption down, but it seemed intent on trying to make her look like a cappuccino.

It wasn’t that Calley liked coffee. It wasn’t that he didn’t. It was more that he had pink hair, a plastic bag full of lime Jell-O, and a need for approximately four more dollars. Six, if he was planning to take the bus back to the Mansion tonight. It wasn’t that he didn’t have money: being a migratory animal shifter had left him with fairly low overhead costs, and he’d once held a very lucrative job. He just wasn’t so good about carrying around his bank card. Another side-effect of the whole shifting thing. And the related loss of his pants, on a frequent basis.

Come to think of it: where was that card? The Mansion? The Sanctuary? Up a tree? Huh. Might be time to report it lost, again.

In any case, Calley was out of cash. The hair, the Jell-O, and the cash shortage were all related. The coffee, not so much. But it did explode as he went past.

…Wait, what?

The young Italian backtracked, and blinked inside the window of Anonymous Street Coffee Shop No. 13. Looked like a locally owned place, given the lack of Astro Moose branding over the counter. Inside, a helpful metal appliance seemed intent on drowning the shop’s lone employee in white foam. Too bad; she seemed like a good little barista, given that tip jar.

That tip jar, full.

That lone employee, otherwise occupied.

The blue-eyed Italian calmly backtracked his way to the door, and slipped inside (with quiet jiggle bell accompaniment). There was a slight delay before he spoke up—something that might go unnoticed by someone fighting the good fight against modern technology.

“You look like a damsel in distress, if I’ve ever seen one,” the twenty-something Italian with the baby blue eyes and very pink hair said, leaning casually against the young lady’s counter.

His elbow was casually blocking her view of the tip jar, or attempting to. The tip jar was empty.

The young man with the pink hair had such a dashing grin.

Wiggle the off-switch? No.

Flip it on and off spastically? Also a no.

Bang on the side of it with her fist? Definitely not; it seemed to make it angrier.

This machine was not backing down. Kari was as much of a fan of explosion-packed, hostile-technology-takes-over-the-world movies as anyone, but she had hoped that an actual robotic uprising would be a little cooler than a milk steamer spitting foam at her. What a rip-off.

She was about to employ her next plan of attack, a flurry of colorfully arranged curse words, when a smoothly-delivered line reached her ears through the angry hiss of the appliance.

>> “You look like a damsel in distress, if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Oh, pfft, are you kidding?” she muttered, still facing the rebelling machinery and completely failing to acknowledge the fact that there was a customer in the store, let alone one with hair the color of candy, wielding a sack of Jell-o and stealing her cash. “I’ve got this. This is totally under--” The machine let out a loud splutter, dishing out a another barrage of foam. She let out an angry huff.

“F*ckinglakjsfkillitwithfirekdnvkvjaksfdjld ... !!!” Smacking her hand against the side of the steamer one last time, it finally sputtered into submission. "Ha."

She grabbed two towels from a drawer and tossed one on top of the defeated machine, looking incredibly pleased with herself. As she began to wipe the milk off of her arms with the other, she paused.

Did someone talk to her earlier?

Doesn’t that mean ... ? Oops.

She spun around to meet the very charming smile of a pink-haired boy, leaning against the counter. “Hi! Sorry about that--” She kept her composure, but she could see his arm out of the corner of her eye, and something was off about the way he was holding it.

... In front of her tip jar.

In front of her pizza fund. (Also, Mel’s fund towards a replacement for the iPod she dunked in iced tea earlier that month.)

But more importantly, her pizza fund.

Aw hell no! She had used that move plenty of times before. Actually, perhaps she’d even be impressed by his style, if it weren’t for the fact that he was going to deprive her of a large, cheesy meal, plus tasty re-heatable leftovers. She knew how this worked all too well — maybe karma was finally coming back to bite her in the a**. At least karma was cute.

Still, she wasn't about to lose her tips to some stranger. Game on.

Recovering quickly, she stepped a little closer, resting her hands on the counter, and responded to his dashing grin with the most alluring smile she could manage while covered in the aftermath of the War on Foam.

Maybe she could distract him enough to figure out where he'd hidden the cash (if he'd already taken it), or at least get a better look at the jar — currently, it was her only alternative to jumping the guy and taking back her money by force. If the flirting didn't work, she could always ... Challenge him to a staring contest? Sh*t, this had better work, or she could kiss her personal pizza party goodbye.

“What can I get you?” her mouth said.

"Challenge accepted," said her eyes.

"Pizza!" her stomach added.

Had her eyes just flicked? Maybe a bit, to the side there? Had she stared just a hair too long? Had she suddenly switched from battle barista to the foam’d temptress?

Heh.

The pink haired Italian took this stunning opportunity to straighten himself up like a Customer of Repute™. One hand innocently jangled the renewed funds in his pocket as he studied their price boards; the other swung his bag of Jell-O boxes, to and fro.

“I’ll have… one cookie.” They were fifty cents. As long as he caught the bus after rush hour, he’d still be fine. A positively cherubic smile graced his face as he met her eyes. “Hold the milk.”

>> “Hold the milk.”

Cute. Real cute.

F*ck. It actually was kind of cute.

She crinkled her nose briefly at him, lips curving into an amused little smirk before her features quickly rearranged into a doe-eyed expression befitting an impressionable young barista — a third of which, she wasn’t. But while they were both pretending ...

“Excellent choice, sir.” She smiled a bright, warm smile at him. “Lucky, too — I’m afraid we’re fresh out of milk.”

Oh, yeah. The tip jar was empty, though she pretended not to notice. His free hand was in his pocket ... Maybe there? That’s where most guys kept, well, everything. But still, she half-expected it to be up his sleeve or something. Sneaky guy.

In one fluid motion, she wiped the last bit of evidence from the machinery mishap off of her apron, picked up a small plate and tongs (she sure as h*ll wasn’t going to make it to-go), and dipped into a large jar near the tea selection for the cookie.

Setting it down gently on the counter in front of him, Kari looked with playful defiance into his baby blue eyes, donning a smile to match his.

“That’ll be six dollars and fifty cents, please.”

((ooc: If Kari would have made a grab/done anything to change his actions—let me know! I can re-write. ))

Was that a smile? Aww, that was a smile. Just a little twitch of one, and then she was back under her sweet little shop-keep cover. And he got a Sir, too. Man, Calley hadn’t felt this fancy since… wait, had he ever been called ‘Sir’ before?

The Italian could get used to this gal, and her quick little smiles, too.

“Six dollars and fifty cents,” he repeated amiably, patting the front of his shirt and several pockets that didn’t exist. “Six dollars and fifty …” He set the bag of Jell-O on the floor, and pulled a certain collection of bills and change out of his pocket. It was the first chance he’d actually had to count it, and he did so, with a great show of pushing coins around his palm into proper little piles, and tucking bills between fingers for safekeeping. Baby blues kept track of his audience. She wasn’t the type to lunge across counters, was she? Because the money really was right there.

Six dollars. On the dot, plus a penny. That really was a good tip. Was that all today’s, or had she been saving up just for him?

Count complete, Calley went on with the show.

“Let’s see. I need that for the bus,” a dollar fifty back in the pocket.

“And this to—well, we won’t get into that in polite company.” Four dollars, tucked neatly out of sight. “So that just leaves…”

With great gumption, the Italian snatched the cookie and left the two quarters spinning in its place.

The penny? Into the tip jar, of course.

Smile.

((OOC: Oh, that works just fine! d( ^ _ ^ ) Let me know if Calley would've done something to change this next part, though. ))

Kari kept it together as he pulled her missing funds out of his pocket and counted them with a flourish in front of her. She sighed internally; what a tease.

Tempting as it was, she decided not to go with her first instinct: tackling him immediately and getting that glorious wad of loose change back where it belonged. After all, this was a fine, coffee-making establishment she was representing here! It was up to her keep things classy, and it would be very impolite to tackle someone whose name you didn't even know.

Instead, she slipped the quarters into the register and pulled the penny out of the tip jar, flipping it into the air with with a metallic clink. Catching it in her palm, Kari looked up at him again and flashed another pleasant smile. “Thank you very much." Aaand ...

The brunette shot a glance towards the back door: no sign of a mustache. Her gaze flicked over to the entrance: no new customers.

Meeting his eyes again, a mischievous grin flickered across her features.

Well.

She leapt over the counter towards the pink-haired stranger — and landed just close enough that she bumped into him, brushing against the side where her hard-earned tips had slipped out of sight. How convenient.

Catching him by the shoulder, Kari quickly recovered and stepped back, six dollars richer.

“I’m so sorry, sir! I must've tripped.” The barista straightened up, her hand moving casually past her own pocket as she bent to pick up the bag of Jell-O boxes and held it out to him. Alongside that, in her open palm, was a penny. “I really shouldn’t accept this after being that clumsy.”

Gri-- apologetic smile.

She looked behind herself. She looked around the store. She looked back at him.

Suffice it to say that Calley was fore-warned of the coming assault. Just not of its ferocity, nor its wide-pawing molestation. There was bumping. There was brushing. There was squeezing of his sensitive shoulder-regions. And a good thing, too: without that mutually steadying grip, the pink-haired Italian would have gone over backwards. His attempts at skittering back where not very effective when there were hands inside of his clothing.

“You tripped,” the Italian repeated, the alarm smoothing out of his voice by the time he hit the second syllable. “Across the counter.” He felt that clear enunciation was necessary, here. “Into my pants.”

Not, actually, that he was complaining. Now that the initial knee-jerk recoil to having someone hurl themselves at his vulnerable person was over. A grin spread across his face as he accepted the offered Jell-O bag.

“Could you do that again, when we’ve got an audience? It would really help my reputation.”

That, friends, was a reverse-theft well played. The cat ears on his head gave an admiring twitch: touché.

Yeah, cat ears. Black with kitten fuzz, mostly, but also a little more pink-tipped than usual. Call them a reaction to shock. The Italian cat boy didn’t even seem aware of the change. Really, the barista should be happy he hadn’t accidentally shifted her. Startling Calley had become an interesting phenomenon, lately.

He plucked the penny out of her hand, and dropped it right into the tip jar where it belonged.

She shrugged coyly. “Funny when that happens, isn’t it?”

Another fleeting nose crinkle flashed across her face as she said it, but this time the smirk on her lips stuck around, broadening into a beaming smile.

>> “Could you do that again, when we’ve got an audience? It would really help my reputation.”

Kari grinned, shooting him a skeptical look. “Your reputation of having random coffee shop girls trip into your pants?” After a very brief moment of thoughtful consideration about the request, she grinned and added, “Maybe. If you play your cards right.”

They should really at least be on a ... well, any-name basis before she promised more pants-related contact, though. Come on; how unladylike. As he turned back from dropping the lone penny back into the tip jar, she smiled and opened her mouth to ask when — ears happened. Cat ears. Pink and black. Sticking up through his candy-colored hair.

The h*ll? Had he been wearing those the whole time?

The beginnings of a quizzical stare-down with the almost-thief’s surprising new appendages, which she assumed were fake, were interrupted when they kind of ... twitched. Just the way a real cat’s would.

Her mouth issued a small squeak of surprise (one of her more embarrassing reflexes when caught off-guard), and she covered it quickly with a hand. What she failed to cover, however, was what her eyes did at about that same moment: light up like a pair of old-school flashbulbs. Nearby, a crash and subsequent light, tinkling sound announced that the tip jar was now in pieces. She winced. Luckily, she could probably fix that before Manager-man came back.

But, more importantly: a mutant, just like she was. This was new. The playful smirk was back, and Kari raised an eyebrow at him.

“So, did I just nearly scare you into a different species, or ... ?”

Squeaks were always better than screams. Not that Calley’s power attracting much screaming, on a general basis—ignoring that incident with the punching, and the tiger, and the cop.

Even better than squeaks, though, were light bulb eyes. That’s right, friends: for the low low cost of showing yours, all the x-ladies will show you theirs. And Calley had thought he had a good party trick going. Though he did jump, just a bit, as that glass jar awfully close to his recently retracted hand decided that life wasn’t worth living anymore. Little close for comfort. Just sayin’.

>> “So, did I just nearly scare you into a different species, or ... ?”

“Pfft,” the Italian pffted, with great pffidity. “Startled, me? Are you kidding? Cat ears are like the Cadillac convertibles of mutations. Cruising around town is its own excuse, if you’ve got these.” Aforementioned ears angled back as he spoke, in a thoroughly slick manner. Startled? Him? Pfft, and pfft again.

“Wanna touch, Ms. Explode-a-Jar?” He offered, bowing his head just a smidge forward, grin thoroughly in place. The ears wiggled invitingly. “I can do a tail, too.” Among other things.

>> “Startled, me? Are you kidding? Cat ears are like the Cadillac convertibles of mutations. Cruising around town is its own excuse, if you’ve got these.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Kari nodded along at his very convincing pfft like a scientist at a Sasquatch convention before grinning up at him again. “I definitely don’t doubt the Cadillac thing, though; I bet you have all the girls swooning with those.”

As it turned out, whipping out some glass manipulation, on the other hand, didn’t really do much for your game, especially since it ended up with broken glasses instead of broken ice way more often than not — a lesson she’d already learned a couple of (very fuzzy) nights out. The good news? After the last one, Jason the Incorrigible Perv never made a grab at her a** again.

As the pink-haired shifter’s ears waved an invitation at her, she laughed lightly. “Don’t mind if I do, sir.”

Her hand came up gingerly at first, and Kari smiled at him questioningly. Touching a cat’s ears was a first, but a cat-boy’s — not so much, actually. Do you pet them like you would a cat’s? Or pet them like ... uh, never mind. Let’s go with cat. Reaching up, she gave him a gentle rub behind his pink-and-black ears. “What soft ears you have,” she teased softly.

“A tail, too? That's pretty impressive, but I don’t know if you know: not only can I break things with bad timing, but I can also put together a mean flower vase. It doesn't do very much for the cuddly factor, though, sadly.” Pausing, she glanced over at the pile of shards crushing her one-cent tip. “And ... I'd probably have to start with that first.”

Ah, so she definitely didn’t doubt the Cadillac thing. Implying that she did doubt certain other things. Oh, ye unbeliever. Doubt not cat boys, for in them was merged both the innocence of cats and of boys.

The petting was a little on the awkward side, but fully acceptable. About a 5.5, on a scale of 1 to 10. A little maybe-laugh, maybe-purr flickered in his throat.

>> “What soft ears you have.”

“All the better to…” He coughed, and discretely straightened up. “Well. If you’re going to be putting that thing back together, I—as your security consultant—must recommend some changes to its design.”

He gestured with his hands. “Could you do a sort of…” More gesturing. Eloquently. “Cone-thing, for the mouth? Because that might help keep errant hands out of it.” The ears twitched in time to his half-grin. “Just sayin’. And if you can bust it open and put it back together any time you want, you won’t have any trouble getting the money out, but everyone else will.” A slight head tilt, and ears swiveled forward. “Or, err, do your co-workers not know about your deep dark secret?”

Not that he was judging, if they didn’t: that would be pretty rich, coming from the guy who spent half his time pretending to be a regular old stray cat, or that birdie up in a tree.

There was a brief, light rumble from his throat. Either he was mocking her, or he was ... purring? Do cat boys purr? Interesting ... she thought, somewhat deviously. That would be something to test out again at a later date, perhaps. Kari took a moment to briefly wonder about the effectiveness of catnip on cat-people. What fun.

In the meantime, though, she really did need to put the tip jar back together. Luckily, it was nearly 3, and about closing time — well, according to Kari Time, anyways. Risking someone walking in while her eyes were glowing didn’t seem like the choice plan, even to her.

The glass manipulator laughed lightly at the pink-haired cat-boy as he addressed with great detail the ideal shape for a new tip jar, flipping the tattered business sign to display a solemn “closed” to dejected caffeine addicts everywhere — well, the ones on East 65th between 5th and Park Avenue, anyways. There were a lot of coffee shops (and ones that had employees with better work ethics) around there.

>> “Or, err, do your co-workers not know about your deep dark secret?”

Her expression changed unwittingly for a brief moment as she bit a corner of her lip and took a minute and uncharacteristically sober glance towards the window. In a flash it was gone, though, and it was back to eye contact and her face’s usual, quite smirky, programming.

“Nah, I figured everyone would be better off if they didn’t have to worry about me busting all of their windows whenever I sneeze.” That and the fact that last time someone knew about it, her whole life quite literally went up in flames. She shrugged strategically. “ ... I’ve gotten a lot better about that, anyways,” the brunette added with a sly smile.

Wandering over to the tip jar, she faced away from the windows as her eyes lit up again. The glass on the counter lifted itself up cooperatively, clinking musically. Her brows knitted together in concentration for a moment as they liquified and molded back together into something much like their former glory days of cash-holding jar-ness. The pieces fused together and twisted slowly into the much gestured-about conical shape.

Her eyes glowed more dimly now as the rest of the jar fell gently back to the table, completely solid, but not before a small, quarter-sized piece had pulled off and drifted into her open palm.

“Your turn to touch, if you want,” she half-grinned, offering the putty-like little blob out to him. It was kind of fun to do this in front of someone for a change.

“What about you? I feel like I would’ve heard about you by now if you really did cruise around town with those bad boys up all the time.”

Ah. Still in the closet, then.

…An expression being applied to the barista. Referencing her mutation, though it was usually in reference to a state of unannounced gay or gay-related tendencies. Which was not the manner in which he was using it. Because no one in this coffee shop was gay, unless it was her, in which case he would be cool with that because there was nothing wrong with being gay in theory.

The Italian’s ears pressed themselves flat down, then swiveled forwards as her display commenced.

Very slick. The jar was a little thinner now, and vastly improved by his own ingenuity, but it looked like something factory-made. Maybe even smoother than that.

And then it was show and tell time. The ears stood on point as he leaned over, blinking at the liquid blob of glass. His finger circled, hovered, circled…

“It’s not hot, is it?” He asked.

Though he didn’t actually give her time to reply, before he went in for the poke. His finger sprang back: then he poked again, more firmly. The blob gave. It was room temperature, and smooth. Not really wet like water: it might have just been her power’s influence, but it didn’t stick to his finger when he moved it away. It was more like… jelly, maybe?

“That,” he declared, his nose a scant few inches from her fingertips, “is cool. Is it only glass you can manipulate like that?” Disassembly, reassembly, telekinesis, and some sort of melting-point voodoo: that’s what Calley was getting out of this display. It was a lot like what Cafas could do with metals, actually.

The Jell-O bag gave a plastic crinkle as he straightened back up, flashing a grin.

“I’ve cruised around a time or two. Mostly, though, it doesn’t pay to stir up a commotion. So I just look more like... this.”

Calley pointed at his shoulder. A moment later, a ginger-stripped tomcat was lazily draped there, its forehead just brushing his fingertip. Calley’s form of shifting wasn’t instantaneous: he’d met a man who could just about see it, once. But to anyone without super senses… it was as close as it came.

“Makes for a great party trick, too.” He said.

>> “Is it only glass you can manipulate like that?”

“Yup, that’s it!” Kari shrugged again. Mutated genes do the darndest things.

Actually, she had tried to manipulate plastic instead of glass once, but all she got out of it was a good ten seconds of squinting awkwardly at an iPhone case.

The blob of glass into her hand collected itself into a marble, and she dropped it in her pocket. Her eyes dimmed and her irises returned to their usual hazel-ish, brown-ish hue as she blinked at the cat that was now on the pink-haired boy’s shoulder.

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, and she raised her eyebrows, eyes flickering from the very chill little feline to him and back. “Double cat.” What does it mean?!

She grinned in a somewhat dorky fashion, like an ancient Greece enthusiast looking at an old coin in a museum — something she’d been known to do on occasion, also.

The brunette made an impressed sort of pfft. “I bet! So you can be more than one ... animal you ... at once? The sneaking around you do must be bada**.”