“That’ll be eight fifty,” I informed the old woman that was checking out in my line. My smile had long disappeared hours ago, I think that working at a convenience store melts your brain. Every day I go home, I have to listen to a full hour of music just to help myself feel on balance again.
It doesn’t help when I have to go from one long day of work to one even longer Crew practice. I can’t even begin to think what it’s going to feel like when I have to go back to school.
“What fifty?” she asked, looking at me with her magnified eyes behind her glasses. I forced myself not to strangle the old, smelly woman as I cleared my throat.
“Eight,” I said, annunciating it as best I could, “fifty.”
She then proceeded to pay me in nickels.
I had a quick flash of my boss telling me that we couldn’t take large payments in all coins, but it’s been a rough day, fuck my boss.
I didn’t even bother to count it all after she had finally laid the large mountain of nickels in front of me. No wonder old ladies carry around those big, antique purses. How else will they fit all their change in there?
“Thank you,” she said, then squinted at the name tag on my chest, “Amanda.”
The lady beamed at me like she had just given me the gift of life, then grabbed her bag with a frail hand.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered, wishing I didn’t have to wear this stupid tag. I felt like I was getting the ol’ elevator eyes every day.
As soon as she shuffled off, I noticed someone else walk into the small store.
Official count of who was in this room: 3. Me, an old fat guy, and a mystery hoodie guy. My suspicion was instantly aroused, usually when guys walk into a store looking shady, with their hoodies up and you can tell they’re making an effort not to look at you behind the cash register, they’re up to something.
I leaned into the counter, watching him shuffle to the back of the store. My fingers tapped against the keyboard beside me in a bored way as I tried to look uninterested.
Glancing out the big windows that made up the front of our store, I could see a small, beat up car waiting to the side. A guy that looked a bit older than me was looking into the store, at the guy with the hoodie. Two other people were chilling in the back seat, talking.
I felt my stomach twist a little bit, this was just a bad situation waiting to happen.
Call me suspicious, but I have mace behind the counter just in case someone tries to steal something.
As I whistled gently along to an old, overplayed song on the radio, I watched the hoodie kid out of the corner of my eye.
That’s when he slipped the bottle of vodka he had been examining into his sleeve.
My breath came in sharp, I hated situations like these. I’m not little miss goody-goody, but I wasn’t exactly pleased when the money that the store seemed to be short of every month came out of the employees checks.
Which is just downright fucking unfair.
I felt the anger slowly well in me from the tip of my toes to my shoulders.
No jackass shop-lifter was going to get the money out of my hard worked paycheck. He glanced around, at which time I pretended to be completely engrossed in straightening the nearby shelf of lottery tickets. When he was sure I wasn’t looking, he risked putting a bottle in each pocket of his hoodie.
I clenched my fists, suddenly starting to wonder what I was going to do. I was SO close to just calling him out right now, but then he’d probably just run. I had to be proactive.
It wasn’t until he finally started quickly making his way out of the store that I reacted. As soon as his thieving little hand pressed the door open, I hurdled over the front counter, my mind completely blank except for the one impulse to just stop him He was already halfway to his car, and that’s when his friends noticed me.
“Holy shit!” the one in the driver’s seat called, a big smile on his face, “She’s gaining on you, Jack!”
He turned his head just in time to see me hurling through the air at him.
I hit him with a thud, and we both toppled heavily to the ground. My knees grazed uncomfortably against the ground, but the only thing I could focus on was beating up this jerk who thought he was smarter than me.
“What the fuck!?” I heard him say from under me. I wasted no time, straddling him as he lay on the ground, I started trying to hit him.
“That! Comes! Out! Of! My! Paycheck! Jackass!” I exclaimed, hitting him with each word. The guys in the car were all cracking up, I heard them get out of the car as I continued to try and beat the shit out of a guy who was much taller than me. His arms flew up, trying to stop me from hitting him.
It wasn’t until he had a hold of both of my hands that I got a full look at his face.
He was laughing, shaking his head, and my heart plummeted to the ground.
I was sitting on Jack Barakat.
I had jumped Jack Barakat.
I had hit Jack Barakat.
My mind froze as I tried to slowly think of what to do next, there’s no way my friends were going to believe this. I glanced up, feeling like my blood was stopping in my veins as I slowly realized I was surrounded by three members of All Time Low, sitting on the fourth.
This would be one of those moments I wish I could control the surprise on my face. I must have looked like I just had a bucket of ice poured down my back.
“You can jump, for such a little girl,” one I recognized as Alex said, he held out a hand to help me up. I found it within myself to reach up and grab his hand as I tried not to step on Jack.
“Whoa, check out the muscles on her arms,” Zack said, pointing to my biceps. I glanced at my arm, then back at them. It’s like their faces were magnets or something. I can’t tell you how obsessed I am with this band.
It’s almost unhealthy.
“I do Crew,” I mumbled, wiping the gravel from the cement off my knees. I reached down and helped Jack up, gulping down the major impulse to scream.
“I can’t believe you got caught, Jack,” Alex said, shaking his head at his friend. Jack laughed, shaking his head and putting his hoodie down.
“She’s a quick one. Usually, I’m much better at this,” he said to me, you could hear the embarrassment in his voice.
“Oh really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him and crossing my arms.
“Dammit, Jack, you’re the idiot that gets caught, and now you’re making all of us feel like bastards,” Alex said, a smirk on his lips. I looked from one face to another. I sort of wish I just hadn’t made a fool out of myself and tackled one of their bandmates.
Jack shrugged, looking incredulously at me for a moment before turning his attention back to his bitching friend.
“I’ll make it up to her,” he said, then turned my way, “I have an idea.”
“Jack, she probably doesn’t want to do the no pants dance with you, you stole from the foundations of which she works. That’s not exactly a turn-on,” Zack said, scuffling at the ground beneath his feet.
I looked at Jack, feeling a slow, stupid smile stretch across my face.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded a bit of a fiasco with Jack.
“What if instead of paying for the drinks-” he started.
“No way!” I laughed, “You stole like, fifty dollars worth! I may be a fan of your music, but I’m not a total schlep.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” he smiled, putting his hands on my shoulders, “Then you come with us to the party we’re going to, and you can enjoy the drinks with us.”
I tried my best to frown up at him like it was some kind of ridiculous idea, but the cute glinting in his eye made it impossible for me to look serious right now.
“No fucking way,” I said dryly, setting my jaw, “I still have to work.”
“We’ll wait until your shift’s over,” Jack said, as if that solved everything. I loved the way his hair was completely mussed, and I think sometime during our fall he had scraped his chin, but it was cute.
“You see, we don’t exactly have money right now,” Alex said, trying to sound like Mr. Smooth, “We left out wallets-”
“In your purses back home?” I asked, cutting him off.
“Ooh, she’s funny,” Jack said, putting his arm around me and turning us to face the guys, “You really should come with us, I have a good feeling about this.”
I sighed, looking from face to face, not able to shake the fact that I was having an actual conversation with these guys.
“So,” I asked, feeling the slow build-up of excitement start bubbling in my stomach, “Where are we going?”
“So that’s how I met this jackass right here,” I grinned, looking at Jack. He smiled, putting his arm around me to pull me closer, giving me a small kiss on my temple while balancing his drink with his other hand.
“Jack likes Amanda,” he said simply, making Sarah laugh from across us. I could just hear her laugh from over the party going on around us. If there was one thing I’ve learned about the guys this summer, it’s that they like their house parties.
“It’s not that romantic, but-” I started, even though, for some reason, I was totally turned on by the fact that within the first couple seconds of our relationship, I had been on top of him.
“Oh, I think it’s cute,” Sarah said, shaking her head then taking a long sip of her drink. Sarah was a little nervous, Alex just sort of brought her then threw her in with the mix of us. He kept on coming and going, coming and going, I’m sure it was driving Sarah insane, but she seemed pretty happy just to be here. I was impressed with how she was handling everything.
“Sarah!” Alex called from the couch, he patted it and gave her a wicked look, “Come here.”
Sarah rolled her eyes, but couldn’t contain her grin as she excused herself and went over to see him.
I looked at Jack, who seemed pretty happy to just stare at me.
“What?” I asked him, smoothing my hand over his abs.
Jack kissed my nose, making a small “boop” noise as he did it. He seemed lost in his own mind a moment, I could practically see the thoughts slowly making their way around his brain. I reached over and lightly pressed his hair out of his face.
“Hey, Amanda,” he said, looking slightly mischievous. “If I stole your bottle-” he put his beer bottle to the ground and grabbed mine, “And put it in my pocket, would you still chase and tackle me if I ran?”
I laughed, “Depends where you run. If you run outside, no, because it’s fucking cold.”
Jack shrugged, like he was weighing his options.
“What if I run into a certain bedroom?”
“I’ll give you a five second’s start,” I said quickly, pushing away from him and prompting him to get up.
“And you won’t hit me because I stole it when you catch me?” he asked, as if THAT was the deciding question. I shook my head.
“I’ll only hit you if you want me to,” I said smartly, winking at him. He grinned, chuckling a bit, then suddenly darted off into the crowd. I laughed, caught off-guard as I sprinted after him.
I’m glad I hadn’t brought my mace when I ran after him, because this could have been a completely different story.
