Trying to live #Wattys2024

Chapter 26 (Edited)

"When will he come over? What is he doing?" Rose asked, her left leg bouncing up and down. I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off. "Never mind, I'll see for myself."

She turned around and gasped. "Oh my god! He's talking to a girl with a pixie cut!" Then she asked, "Should I get one too?"

Rose touched her hair, measuring its length. I had to look over her shoulder to see what she meant.

Dean was indeed talking to someone. Obviously, he was taking an order, but something told me this wasn't a girl with a pixie cut. "That's a guy."

Rose stopped inspecting her hair and glanced sideways at me. "I ...I knew that."

Really, I thought. "Why can't you just go over there?" I pointed at Dean behind the cash register. "Order something and talk to him."

"We stay here," she hissed at me. I know I shouldn't have given her the side-eye, but sometimes she acted so ridiculously that she deserved my judgmental look. "Dean should come over to me, and he will when he sees you cleaning the same spot. Then he'll talk to me, and the love story will begin."

Rose looked dreamily into the distance.

And why not?

She was right—exactly a few seconds later, Dean started walking over to us with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Get to your position," Rose whispered urgently.

I didn't tell her that I had been in my position the last couple of minutes. I just stopped wiping the counter. I didn't want to ruin her plan, so we both started casually talking about ...well, nothing. Our whole conversation didn't make sense because we always stopped midway through a sentence and started new ones.

But that was the plan—Dean would come over when he saw that I was actually doing nothing except talking to Rose. He would get annoyed. Rose would pretend she didn't notice him, and when she did, Dean would be so mesmerized by her beauty and presence (her words) that he would start talking to her. Of course, I had to start a conversation with Dean so that Rose could jump in and make him talk to her.

It sounded like a perfect plan.

It wasn't.

The moment Dean came over, he said, "You're cleaning the same spot over and over again."

Jeez, why was he so rude?

I looked at Rose, who still laughed at nothing. I opened my mouth, but Rose was faster. "Oh Dean, you're here? I hadn't seen you."

She flipped her hair back and smiled at him.

"I work here," he said flatly.

Those were the only words Dean said. Rose's smile now looked forced. I didn't think she was expecting this dismissive behavior from a guy. On top of that, Dean was really rude when he opened his mouth. What crawled up his back today that made him so pissed off?

I tried to help Rose out. "Rose is going to produce and direct her own play at school," I said, hoping to lighten the tension between a girl and her crush.

"No wonder, if you go to that school," Dean replied with clear distaste for LW Prep. Of course, the opportunity to write, produce, and direct a play was huge and you couldn't do it everywhere, but I didn't think he would have such a problem with it. I mean, Dean's in college.

Out of the blue, a hand shot up past me and grabbed Dean's hand. I was pretty sure Dean and I wore the same shocked expression on our faces.

The next move by Rose didn't make the situation better. "You can be a part of it," she blurted out.