Aria's Mistake

3

Aria beamed at the person standing at the back of the line; it was the drunken guy from last night, with of course three girls around him. The girls were just all over him and had given themselves cheaply to him. Blake leaned in and whispered to Aria.

"Forget it girl. That's Aiden Stone; he's never without at least two girls on his arm."

Aria looked at the guy, why did that name sound so familiar she thought then she whispered back.

"I met him last night after work, he was a bit drunk, but nice all the same" she said and smiled at him just as it reached his turn.

"What can I do for you?" she asked him. Aiden looked at her for a second.

"Two nonfat lattes, one chi-latte, one bottle water and a black coffee" he said smiling at the four girls. Aria wrote it down and gave the order to Blake, then looked at Aiden again.

"That will be $14,70" she said, taking the cash and pushing a few buttons on the register.

"So how are you today?" she asked. Aiden looked at her and gave her the money.

"Good thanks" he said then he turned to the other girls. That wasn't the response Aria was expecting, his reply had been too blunt and sounded like she was a first-time acquaintance.

"Let's go wait over there" he said and walked to a table. Aria looked a bit stunned after him, had he really been that drunk? She shook it off and put her smile on again and took the next person's order.

"I thought you said you knew him?" Blake asked after Aiden and the girls had left. Aria shrugged.

"I guess not" she said with a sigh. Blake put an arm around her shoulder.

"Forget about him, don't let that bother you because I have great news" she said. Aria grinned.

"What?" she asked,

"Curious?" Blake asked jovially.

"I got a room!" she screamed.

"Apparently your aunt has some friends at the school and she pulled some strings," Aria was happy for Blake. She deserved it.

"That's awesome news" she said and gave her a tight, warm hug. Suddenly Carrie walked in leisurely.

"Good to see you two are getting along" she smiled. Aria looked up and saw her.

"Aunt Carrie" she ran over to her and gave her a big hug. Carrie hugged her back.

"So how is it going? Has Blake been nice to you?" she asked teasing. Aria giggled.

"The best" she gave Blake a warm look.

"Now get back to work" she giggled while throwing the apron to Aria's face. Aria gasped and started cleaning, it had become habitual to the extent that she could clean the tables, attend to customers without even breaking a sweat. She picked up some napkins that were lying on a table, probably the table Aiden stone and his girls had been some minutes ago. She was about to throw them away when she saw something written on one of them. "Text me" and a phone number was written under. Was that for her? Or maybe for Blake, or maybe it was for someone else that just didn't want to speak to the receiver in the presence of others in the Café. She looked around then she decided to put it in the trash.

Later that day when they finally closed Blake looked over at the trash can, it was flowing over, and she went over to get the trash when some fell out.

"Ugh" she sighed as she bent down to get one of the napkin that had fell off the trash can. She picked it up and was about to throw it back in when she noticed something written on it.

"Aria, why did you throw this out?" she asked showing the napkin to her as well as what was written on it. Aria looked over her shoulder.

"Because I didn't know who it was from." She said and turned back to cleaning tables. Blake rolled her eyes; she was not satisfied with that response.

"What if it was that rich hot guy, what if its Aiden's number?" she said looking at the number amazed. Aria giggled. "Uhhm . . . Really?" She doubted Blake's suggestion.

"And why would he leave his number?" Blake asked, but Aria had to admit that she had thought of the same thing.

"Just Google it." she told Blake. Well that was a visible suggestion.

"Good idea" she took up her phone and Googled the number, but nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. In fact the owner couldn't be identified.

"It's an unknown number" she said disappointedly. She looked at who wasn't even paying attention to her. She looked under the counter just to see Aria's i-Phone, she grabbed it and started to type in a message.

"Who are you?" she texted and added the number. Aria turned around when she didn't hear more babbling from Blake "what are you doing?" she asked. Blake smiled

"Nothing" she said before pressing the send button. Aria walked over and grabbed her phone.

"What did you do!" she gasped and looked at the screen "What if it's a freak!" she said before putting the phone down. Blake giggled. She was lucky she had pressed the send button before Aria could grab the phone from her.

"Don't worry" she said before getting the rest of the trash and walking out. Aria rolled her eyes and walked over, grabbed a chair and placed it on top of the table. She was about to grab the next chair when her phone biped. She hesitated, but sooner or later she would have to read it anyway. She walked over and grabbed the phone "who are you?" the text said. Aria rolled her eyes again and put the phone down. Blake walked back in.

"Did he answer?" she asked excitedly. Aria nodded. But she was startled at how Blake had already labeled the number as that belonging to Aiden Stone.

"He. . . How do you know if it's even a guy? Maybe it's a girl" she said. Blake grabbed Aria's phone from the table where she had kept it. Blake was surprised that Aria didn't struggle to get it back like before.

"What did it say?" she said, at the same time trying to open the phone.

"You put it on password protection? Seriously?" she said a bit irritated. Aria giggled. That was probably the best move she could take after Blake had sent a text to an unknown number.

"Yeah, I don't do stuff like that. Send messages to people I don't know!" she said and took her phone back.

It was just the same text you sent" she added. Blake was about to answer, but Aria's phone beeped again.

"Did you answer?" she asked looking at the screen a bit shocked. Aria looked down at the screen and got scared.

"No, I did not!" she said before reading the text again.

"Party tonight, you should come, Aria" Blake looked at Aria.

"Then how does he know your name?" she said freaked. Aria knew that this had been a bad idea especially for someone like Blake who couldn't mind her business.

"I'll just ignore it, he will give up!" she said before she saved the number as freak. Blake looked at Aria and felt a bit bad because she was the one who had sent the first message, it would have been better if the napkin that had the number was in the trash-can.

"We can walk back to the dorms together" She told Aria.