Simple Submission

Chapter 2-revised

Chapter 2

The following morning Ethan walked into The Daily Grind, just as the breakfast rush was getting underway.  He saw the little chit at the register, her light brown hair sticking out from under her cap giving her a frazzled appearance. 

When she saw him her eyes narrowed and he was slightly taken aback. He hadn't expected that response.  Despite the go to hell look, she was polite.

"Good morning sir, how may I help you?" her voice was crisp and to the point. She was not breathless like yesterday, interesting.

"Plain black coffee and a blueberry bagel, toasted." he repeated his order from the day before. "Will that be a problem..." he smirked raising an eyebrow looking at her name tag "Aubrey?"

Her eyes flashed with defiance, "No sir not at all," she turned to one of her co-workers, "one toasted blueberry bagel, please."

"Oh, have you lost your toaster privileges?" He couldn't resist goading her.

"No! I just have other things to take care of at the moment."

"That will be $6.50," she said flatly.

He handed her his credit card which she swiped abruptly then reached over and took a cup from the stack handing it, and his card back to him.

"The coffee is just over there sir, have a great day!" she said a little too brightly indicating the coffee bar he had used the day before.

This morning he had brought his laptop becaue his first meeting wasn't scheduled until about 11:00am.  He decided to log in and play some counterstrike. Wi-Fi was not ideal for gaming but it made for a great way to kill a couple of hours. As long as he kept buying coffee he didn't figure it would be a problem with the establishment.

Gaming tended to be a night time activity so there were only a few people online so early in the morning.  He logged in to his favorite server glad that GeekFury_02 was absent since he would have gotten his ass kicked on such a slow connection.   He would get his revenge though, his office was equipped with a T1 connection and he would use it to his advantage.

*         *         *

With the breakfast rush over, the staff that came in from five a.m. to open until nine a.m. began to filter out.  Aubrey cleaned up the workstations that her part-time co-workers vacated and began running inventory.  Prince Smirky was sitting at his table ensconced in his laptop probably doing financials or something else as equally boring.  She saw that he was done with his bagel and went to collect his plate.

With some surprise she saw that he was playing Counter Strike.  She leaned over to take his plate but could not see who he was logged in as.  She knew the screen name of every CS player in the area and was curious to put a face to a name.

"Who do you play as?"  Aubrey asked, leaning close to him still looking at the screen.

He looked up at her, startled, receiving a bullet to the face for his momentary lapse in concentration.  The respawn countdown began.

"Do you play?" he asked, raising his smirky eyebrow at her.

"I've been known to," she said with some pride, female gamers tended to be few and far between.

"Hmm, you are full of surprises Aubrey, I’m TexasMaster30, and you?"

Her jaw dropped and she began to laugh hysterically, the target of her ire last night and the cause of it were one in the same. Oh sweet, sweet irony.

She grinned mischievously, "I thought you were a fat old man who lived in your mom's basement.  GeekFury_02, a.k.a. Aubrey Lisette pleased to meet you." She extended her hand.