The Untitled Piper Watson Project

The Chance Encounter

Piper's POV~

        After having lunch with Jen, I made my way to the closest Barnes & Noble which was in the middle of downtown Boston. I parked my Volkswagen Beetle as close as I could get and walked the rest of the way, As soon as I entered the bookstore I made my way to the Young Adult section and found my works. My books were all side by side on the shelf, but unfortunately for me, they haven't been completely restocked. I spot the closest worker who's shelving books and stalk over to him. "Are you restocking copies of the works of Piper Watson?" I immediately get to the point. The worker hesitates before checking the list on his clipboard. "No, ma'am. Not today." It takes every muscle in my body to stay still and not take my anger out on this kid. "And why not? If you don't restock every month like you're supposed to, then no one buys my books, and I don't get my money." The worker just stares at me in confusion. I sigh in exasperation and grab Spy Games off the shelf and flip to the "about the author" section in the back. I show him the picture of me and then he gets it. "You're Piper Watson!" his face lights up. "I'm a big fan, really. I read your blog every day." This still doesn't satisfy me. "Is there anything you can do?" I ask, trying to be a bit nicer since this worker was also a fan. He frowns. "I earn minimum wage. I don't get a say in stuff like that." Great. No restock, no sales, no income. "Never mind then." I muttered. Then I turned back to my books and started to look through them for the usual misprint, typos, etc. I wasn't done here yet. 

        As I searched through each copy I found more and more errors. I also found myself yelling at the same poor Barnes & Noble worker who tried helping me earlier. "Who is responsible for these misprints?" I demanded. "If it was up to me, all of you would be unemployed!" The worker begins to look terrified. "I'm very sorry, Ms. Watson, but there's nothing I can do." I slam the book I was holding closed and throw it back on the shelf. "And what have you done so far? Nothing." The worker looks more and more scared the more I go off on him. "Would you...would you like to talk to my manager?" He finally asks. I laugh emotionless. "I would love nothing more than to talk to someone who is in charge, yes. Because you have been nothing but useless since I came here and since you haven't suggested I talk to your manager earlier it makes me think you were dropped on your head as an infant. Go get your manager." He starts to walk away when I stop him. "You know what? Don't get your manager. I'll be back here in two weeks---" I pause to read his name tag. "---Phil. And when I do, there better be a full stock of my books on the shelf because if there aren't, I will find out where you live and I will drive to your house and I will wait until you're sleeping and I'll go into your bedroom and rip your spinal cords out through your asshole. And then I'm going to cut off your dick and shove it down your fucking throat. Remember that two weeks from now, Phil." Phil's face becomes pale and he quickly walks away to probably puke or quit. I'm about to turn to leave when there's a boy blocking my way. He looks around my age (24) and he's holding out a cup of coffee. "Ma'am, I couldn't help but notice you were in distress and I thought you might need this."

Mack's POV~

        Let's get some things straight about me. Never have I ever been the one to have girlfriends in high school, or went on dates or clubbing or anything like that. I went to Barnes & Noble and went automatically to the Starbucks in the back to get another coffee. I was in line when I saw a girl with red hair like cherries and lipstick to match completely flip out on this worker. A normal person would look at this sight and call her things. But I'm not a normal person. This may sound strange, but she reminded me of me. I was never the guy who got the girl but I was always the guy who lost his cool and had a short temper. Well, not always. Only after the incident. Anyway, I saw this girl and I thought that if she was like me, maybe I had a chance. Me and normal people don't mix. But hey, normal's boring. So I told the lady at Starbucks to make it two and I bought the mystery girl a coffee. I walked over to her as slowly as possible and the worker she was giving death threats to finally walked away. This was it. I turned on my swagger and sauntered over to her and stuck the coffee out in her direction and made eye contact with her brown orbs. "Ma'am," I said, as coolly as possible, "I couldn't help but notice you were in distress and I thought you might need this." 

***

        "Thank you." she says shyly, grabbing the coffee. "Allow me to introduce myself." I say, without allowing a second of awkward silence. "I"m Mackenzie Gibbons. Mack, if you will." "Hi," she says. She has a cute high pitched voice. "I'm Piper Watson." I look on the shelf we're standing next to and sure enough I see three different books written by a Piper Watson. "Are you that Piper Watson?" I ask, gesturing to the books. She nods. "I"m sorry you saw me go ballistic on that poor guy. Phil needs his spinal cords." I grinned. "It's okay. I'm sure he needs his dick, too." she laughs. She has a cute laugh. I laugh because she laughs. Then I have an idea. "Piper, would you like to see a card trick?" I can tell she wasn't expecting an odd question like that but she says "Yeah, I'd love to." I pull out the deck of cards from my back pocket (I never leave my house without them because they're necessary for survival) and shuffle it. I spread out the cards and lean them face down toward Piper. "Pick a card, any card." She chuckles. "Cute." She said I was cute, good Lord help me. She picks a card and looks at it. "Okay, now put it back in the deck." I order. She puts it back and I turn the deck around and search for the upside down card. As I'm looking through the deck, Piper speaks. "Would you like to read my books?" she asks. "Yeah," I reply, "I'm sure you're a good writer." She grabs the three from the shelf. "The first is Retaliation, second is Welcome to Moon Palace and third is Spy Games." she tells me. "I prefer you read in order. So you can see how my writing improves overtime." I start blushing like crazy. I think at last I find her card in the deck. "Is this your card?" I ask, pulling out a King of Hearts. Piper grins. "Nope." then she reaches into her back pocket and pulls out an Ace of Spades. "It was an Ace of Spades." she says nonchalantly. I gape at her. "How did you do that?" She leans in close to me and whispers "Magic." 

        After the card trick situation, we got ready to leave and Piper insisted on buying me the books. "You bought me the coffee." she said. "It's only fair that I buy these for you." I walked her to her car and she pulled a pen out of her jacket. She took Retaliation and scribbled some things in before handing it back to me. "You can call me when you're done with it." she says shyly. "My house phone's the best way since I"m always home. I don't like taking calls on my cell. But if you aren't the 'talking on the phone' type then I put my cell anyway and you can text me, if you want. God, I'm rambling, I'm gonna stop." She's still cute when she rambles. I smile at her. "I had fun hanging out with you." She unlocks her car door and opens it. "Bye, Mack." "Bye." I watched her drive away and I still have that smile on my face all the way home.