“Maggie, can you go pay?” Sarah asks handing me a few twenties. She doesn’t even look up from her cell phone. I look out the window, out side its pouring – great!
“Urg, but its pouring,” I moan through clenched teeth. I unlock the passenger side door and step out. With my hood thrown over my face I run through the rain. It’s a short distance between the car and the store doors but im still shivering and soaked to the bone when I step in.
There was a radio on playing some weird 80’s hair band music. The guy behind the counter was tapping his finger on the side of his leg. He had dirty blond hair that fell in his face and he looked at something on the counter. He looked like he could have cared less to be there. I walked over to the back of the store to where the Slurpee machines were.
He started singing with the music. It was like I wasn’t even there. I kept looking back at him to see if maybe he would jump on the counter and do a little dance with the song – he just looked that into it. I grabbed a medium sized cup, still watching him out of the corner of my eye. I put the tops on both of the cups and filled one half way with fruit punch and the other half with coke. I set that one on the counter and grabbed the other one. I pulled the lever and started to fill it with coke. I looked over my shoulder. The guy seemed to be in his own little world. He had grabbed a mop and was singing into the handle, and dancing with it. he looked like he was having so much fun.
I felt something cold running over my hand but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. he walked over to the radio and turned the terrible song up! He was singing with it – I have to admit, he had a pretty nice voice. He picked the mop off the floor and dunked it in a bucket full of water then flung it over the floor as he danced and sang with the music. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
My hand was freezing now, I looked over at it. The Slurpee had spilled over the edge of the cup and was running down my hand. I cursed under my breath and let go of the lever.
“Napkins, napkins. Where are the stupid napkins?” I whispered to myself. I looked around and found them. And to my luck – ha ha – there was only three left. I started to wipe off my hands but only managed to knock over Sarah’s Slurpee, making an even bigger mess. Only me, right?
I bent down to the floor and started to clean up the mess. I could feel my face starting to burn; all I wanted to do was walk out of the store and never come back. With my luck he’ll probably notice my mess and yell at me. just wait, you’ll see.
“Do you need some help with that?” someone asked from behind me. the voice scared me, I tried to get up but hit my head on the counter top. “Ooh, are you okay?”
“Man. Only me. Ouch,” I said, carefully standing up and rubbing the top of my head. I turned around and the mop guy was standing in front of me. “I… uh, made a mess.”
“Yeah you did,” he laughed.
“Im sorry, I wasn’t paying attention and it over flowed and then I knocked it over and… you should really put more napkins in that…thing. Because someone like me might walk in and make an even bigger mess. You know there was only three. Im sorry I really shouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere. Ya’ know? Maybe I should just be put in quarantine because im so prone to accidents,” I look at him and I know I’ve done it again. “Im sorry, I tend to talk a lot when im nervous, it’s a disease im afraid. One that no one but me seems to have. My mother never had that problem and… oh man, im doing it again aren’t i?”
“Yeah,” he smiles.
“Im sorry.”
“So I heard.”
“Im s…” I put my hand over my mouth to keep me from saying it again. He laughs at this, and now im pretty sure he thinks im mentally retarded.
“I’ll be right back, hold on.” He holds up his finger and then disappears behind a door. he returns a few seconds later with a mountain of napkins and paper towels. “im afraid this is all we have, I hope its enough for your mess… I mean look at it, it looks like a tornado came in here or a Slurpee blizzard.”
“Sorry.”
He sets the mountain of napkins on the clean side of the counter and grabs a few off the top, I do the same. We are both on our hands and knees cleaning up the floor.
“you don’t have to help, it is my job ya’ know.”
“Well I feel bad, I mean it looked like you had already cleaned and it’s my mess so I want to help.”
“I’m sorry about…” he points over to his mop that he was dancing with earlier. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
“Oh, yeah no, I usually go un noticed most of the time any way so its no big deal.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I know,” I say nodding, I wasn’t trying to get back at him for saying what he did, I was just telling the truth.
We slopped up the rest of the mess on the floor and I started on the counter. He grabbed his mop and soaked it in the dirty water and cleaned up the area around my feet. I tried to hop out of his way but it didn’t help much. When we were both done I turned and leaned against the counter.
“I think I just gained a pound of arm muscle.” I joke flexing my arm.
“Let me see,” he barely squeezes my arm but his touch sends something through me. “Yup, those are huge!”
“Who knew Slurpee’s weighed so much.”
“yeah, I’ll go ring you up, was there anything else you wanted?”
“uh, yeah my friend wanted to fill up her tank,” I hand him the money she gave me and our hands brush against eachother. He looked at the huge amount of money I had just given him.
“um…how much?”
“uh…” Sarah didn’t say anything about how much money she wanted to put into it. “all of it… I think. I don’t know, she didn’t tell me.”
“alright,” he smiles and we turn away at the same time.
I grab both our Slurpee’s and start to turn back. the floor beneath me is slippery with dirty water and my shoes don’t have the best of grip on the them. I slip and just when I think I’ll make another mess again, two hands grab me around the waist.
“That would have been ugly,” he smiles.
“Thanks,” I say laughing; this day couldn’t have gotten worse.
I turn around to face him and my foot slips again. He doesn’t take his hands off my waist so he caught me again. I was facing him and I could tell that he had blue eyes. They were as blue as the ocean and he smelled like peppermint and stale tobacco smoke.
“Ya’ good?”
“Yeah, I’m alright.” I start to walk again and I can feel his hand on my back.
He walks around the counter as soon as I’m off the wet floor.
“uh… so your Slurpee’s are on me. since you made a mess.”
“oh, no I cant let you…”
“I want to.”
“I can’t…”
“stop! I want to.”
His face is so close to me, his eyes are so intense that I have to lean against the counter as I feel my knees go weak.
“ok,” my voice alters.
“see ya’ around.”
“okay,” I say and turn around.
I pull my hood up and run through the rain again. Sarah is leaning against the car, texting some more, as she fills the tank. I take a swig of my Slurpee and hand her hers which she takes with ready hands. Sarah is either talking about her new boyfriend or texting him whenever I’m around. Sometimes it gets annoying but I like the silence. I’m just afraid to see her get dumped because I know it’s going to happen and she will be crushed. I lean against the side of the car with her. We have been friends for so long that even though we aren’t talking we both seem to know what the other is thinking. Its like a sixth sense, this unspoken conversation. I feel like I’m two or six or thirteen standing next to her in silence.
There is a little click and she looks up from her phone. She puts the nozzle back and tells me to go and get the change. I take another sip of my Slurpee and set it on the passenger seat. I run back through the rain to the store door and jump inside.
He looks up from a magazine from behind the counter and smiles at me. He closes his magazine and leans over the counter to give me my change. There something white sticking out of the pile of one dollar bills. I decide to look at it later. I take it and our fingers brush again.
“my name’s Nick by the way.”
“Maggie… my name’s Maggie.”
He smiles and I slip out the door and into the rain for the fourth time. When I get to the car I pull the white piece of paper out of the wad of cash and look at it.
please do not steal this.
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