Chapter Two

I had been working every evening into night since Saturday and Tuesday was my first real night off. I considered inviting a couple of the girls over to hang out for the night, maybe sleep over, but Meg was with family until Thursday, and Tiffany and Cynthia both had work. I could go to either of their bars and visit them, maybe meet someone, make a new friend, see where that went. But I was never much of one for hooking up. I liked having boyfriends. Sometimes it was just hard to meet someone I liked enough to want to pursue them. The girls always joked that I made it too hard for the guys I liked to like me back. While sometimes this was true there were times when I just didn’t want a guy in my life interfering with my time with them, and I told them this whenever they brought it up. They always laughed and said that it was one of the many reasons why they loved me so much.

            During most of my day of I spent time in bed with a large cup of coffee and perused the web. Checking out what celebrities were adopting kids, or who had a new scandal being leaked. In all honestly, I didn’t care for most of it, but I didn’t have much else to do since my friends were all busy. So my day consisted of pretty boring day-to-day things until around four thirty when Cynthia called asking me to come up to her bar.  

            “Sure, Cynthia,” I said, happy to have an excuse to get out of my house, “Any particular reason why you want me there?”

            More often than not with Cynthia, she called one of us out to where she was to help her get a guy. Tiffany, Meg, and I all had some pretty great stories from times she called us to her “desperate need.”

            “No, but Tiffany mentioned you had today off so I figure you may as well spend it in a nice place with hot guys and a good friend behind the bar.”

            She had a good point.

            “What should I wear?”

            “Well, you still have that black and white dress I gave you for your fifteenth birthday, right?”

            “Yes, and it does still fit.”

            “Fabulous! Then just wear that and I’ll see you soon.”

            She hung up quick and before going to my closest I got a look at myself in the mirror. Hair in a messy, loose bun. Worn hoodie, and stretchy waist pants without a lot of stretch left in them. Slightly tanned face in need of a good scrub. Well, I could easily turn this around, it was a matter of whether or not I wanted to do the work and make the trip up town to Cynthia’s glass-floor bar. In the end though I allowed myself to clean up and dress up. Who knew? Maybe it would turn out to be worth the work.

*     *     *

            I have to admit, even though Cynthia told us everything she knew about it, even with the pretty good description the place itself was still a surprise. Nearly every surface was somehow reflective, and even though I had never been inside a space shuttle, I was pretty sure this was somewhat what one would feel and or look like, granted it would be significantly smaller. After I got over my initial awe of the room itself, I took notice of the people sitting at the bar and at the dark wood tables surrounded by pristine black leather. They all looked pretty wealthy, if not at least very well off, and at least one of three was definitely trying to get laid.

            Yup, I thought to myself, this is definitely Cynthia. 

            I swear if I didn’t know better I would say that she had heard me thinking because not even two second after that thought did she call me from behind the bar, a few yards away.

            “Corri!” She called, “You made it!”

            I stood on my tip-toes, even though I was wearing heels and this was a needless movement, and waved to her. I was actually really glad I had come out now, it felt good to be in this nice of a place even though I didn’t exactly have much business being there aside from Cynthia being a bartender and having her as a friend. When I sat down I asked her why she had called me up, because as much as I loved her I knew it was for more than just to give me something to do on a Tuesday evening.

            “Oh, Corri,” she sighed, “you know me too well.”

            With that she gestured over her shoulder to one of the other bartenders working, a guy with short, dark hair, lean but muscular, and seemed to be making friends with everyone he was talking to. I couldn’t tell at first, he seemed familiar but I couldn’t know for sure until I saw his face, and when he turned I did know for sure. It was same cute stranger who was at my bar the night of my first shift.

            I felt my skin grow warm again at the sight of him, here, working with on of my best friends. I also felt myself grow jealous, because Cynthia was beautiful and the cute stranger would certainly fall for her over myself. Though if Cynthia liked him, I wanted to be as supportive as possible, so instead of telling her about the other night, I simply bid her good luck, and told her to work fast because he was quite a cute one.

            “I know! Isn’t he?” She smiled, “I mean, he is my boss though.”

            “When has that stopped you before?” I teased. It was meant to be a little hurtful, but she laughed it off and just said, “Yeah, that’s true”.

            I watched her do her runway walk over to him and begin her flirting pattern. I had known her for years, and I had seen her get guy after guy, and it was all thanks to one little pattern she repeated and executed perfectly with every single one, and she could always do it regardless of where she was or what kind of work she was doing, if any. The first thing she did was indirectly interrupt the guy she was interested in, in this case she pretended to be getting a glass from the shelf underneath where the brown-haired guy was mixing a drink for a customer. Then she would make some silly joke about being in the same place and the same time, and how they were in-sync. To which the guy would always laugh, and this time was no exception.          

            For the next twenty minutes or so I watched her flirt with the total stranger I had no explicable reason to like, but yet somehow found myself infatuated with him. At least he was her boss and she knew his name. He seemed to be having a good time with Cynthia, just as I thought, and when she finally excused herself to come over to me and tell me how it went, every tidbit of the conversation, I was more than prepared to hear her say that he had happily accepted her date offer, which was the final step her in her flirting pattern. But oddly, she didn’t look happy when she came over to me.

            “What happened?” I asked, trying to conceal hopefulness that he had said no.

            “Well, I did what I always do,” she said, “but, maybe it just wasn’t enough this time. He said he has a girlfriend he’s committed to, though they don’t see each other much.”

            “Oh… well, what’re you gonna do?”    

            “Give my friend a wonderful night,” she teased.

            And from then on the rest of the night was pretty wonderful. Cynthia didn’t try to hook up with anyone else, though she did get flirted with copiously by the drunk businessmen. I didn’t try to make conversation with anyone, except Cynthia of course, who eventually told me her boss’s name, which was Nathan. That stuck with me for the rest of the night. Every time he looked my direction, I still warmed up, but now that I knew his name it wasn’t as much of a burning like it had been when he was just the brown-haired stranger, as much as it was a gentle, all-around warmth like when you get a good hug. I smiled every time he looked my way, and I’m pretty sure I caught him smiling back a few times.

            All of these little things that I now knew about this seemingly perfect guy, made for a restful, and easy night of sleep.

*     *     *

            It was still dark when I woke up, and according to my desktop alarm clock it was five thirty. I couldn’t help but think of Nathan, even though I really didn’t know him, I really liked him, and I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him. I had dreamt of him the night before, and it wasn’t a really hot dream; it was just he and I talking. Like we were friends. It was just pleasant. The thing that bothered me the most about him though was how every time he looked at me, I could feel my body temperature rise and I still couldn’t understand why. I liked it but at the same time it made me so uncomfortable. It was something no other guy had ever been able to do, and I felt like he was almost looking through me in a way, to a deeper part of me I didn’t even know I had.

            I think I did end up drifting to a semi-sleep state at some point but I don’t think I ever really fell asleep again after I had been up thinking. It was a crazy thing, but I came to the conclusion that I did want to pursue this new guy who seemed to have just been plopped in my life like mashed potatoes on a plastic tray. But as good or bad as he could or couldn’t be, I wanted to know more about him. But I also wanted to stop driving myself crazy thinking about him, so hopefully breakfast with the girls could get my mind off it.

*     *     *

            “Morning sweetie,” I said as I joined Meg at our usual table. Somehow she was always the first one here every morning we planned breakfast.

            “Good morning, Corriana.”

            She seemed awfully perky, and while I was happy I wasn’t usually used to seeing her this happy at breakfast. More often than not she’d be complaining about something Tiffany or Cynthia did the night before that they told her about and I’d have to remind her that they’re our best friends and we do what we have to do to stay together even if sometimes we may not always lie doing it.

            “You seem happy,” I said, “something happen last night that you wanna tell me about?”

            Meg got a small, naughty-looking smile on her face and rolled her eyes like she was contemplating whether to tell me or not.   

            “Oh… did you meet someone?” I asked, suddenly very curious to find out what my friend had done that she couldn’t simply come out and tell me about.           

            “Someone amazing,” she said quietly. I leaned in to listen to her. “He came in to Black Brick last night around eight. He had very light, kind of toasted-marshmallow colored hair, light caramel colored eyes, and he was a little bit nerdy and quiet, but that’s why I felt like I could talk to him so easily.”

            “So? Did you? Talk to him?”

            “Of. Course,” she said very proudly, “turns out he and I have a lot of similar interests, and I’m having dinner with him this Saturday. His name’s Luka.”

            I didn’t want to tell her she was going to be going out with my boss because I knew that would immediately turn her off from him, and I didn’t want to do that to her. She was happy, and I loved that she found someone she really liked. It was a bit funny thought because since I met him I had kind of always thought that he and Meg would make a good couple. And now she was going to be having dinner with her.

            “Well, that’s great for you, Meg. I’m happy for you.”

            It was the truth. And now Cynthia and Tiffany were here so we all started talking about how our first shifts had gone. What kind of people we had met. What we thought of our bosses and such. Of course, when I talked about my boss I tried not to make him sounds too much like the guy Meg had described to me because I still didn’t really want her to know that she was dating my boss, though sooner or later I would tell her. From what Tiffany told us she and her boss got along really well and it seemed like she was actually in to him as more than a boss, which could be bad, but if any of us could pull it off it was Tiff. So, we bid her good luck.

            When Cynthia left we went straight to talking about our plans for her party. It was only two days away now after all.

            “So, we have the key, tacky but lovable decorations, cake, and…” Tiffany listed off all the things with delight. She was definitely proud of herself for this one.

            “Tiff, I have a date on Saturday, but, you think I could bring the guy to her party? I really like him and I want him to meet you guys and…” Meg let her sentence trail off there.

            “It seems a little early if it’s your first date with this guy but, sure! The more the merrier!”

            Meg got a big smile on her face and I smiled at Tiffany in place of saying “Thanks”. Everything was set, and I was more than excited, part of me even kind of hoped that maybe Luka would bring Nathan along, since it would technically be his first date with Meg, and the four of us could get crazy together so I don’t know how comfortable he’d be on his own.

            Stay hopeful, I reminded myself, but be prepared to be disappointed.

Reviews

[Catherine Frain]

I love this book so far. I can not wait to read more, of it. I have run into slight issues, slight spelling mistakes, and some random added in letters, in this chapter- in the line: Then she would make some silly joke about being in the same place and the same time, and how they were s in-sync. I do not believe there should be an "s" in-between were and in-sync. It is a marvelous story so far, and has me pulled into it. Can't wait to see how is goes from here.

[The Butterfly Writer]

Yup. There are probably quite a few of those. I wrote this during NaNoWriMo last year so there may be quite a few little mistakes like that. I'll try to edit them out form now on. Thank you so much for the review though!

[The Butterfly Writer]

From now on*