Pretzel Girl

"Barf shake"

Daniels POV:

It was my first week modeling and selling clothes at Poshes, and it wasn't going very well. My sister was high school sweet hearts with the manager, they met up again later in college, and that's when she decided to hook me up with the job, even though I really didn't fit in there.

Those kinds of stores with those kinds of people are the crowds that my sister fits in with, and she thought she was taking me under her wing when she introduced me to both. I was brought way out of my comfort zone. No. My comfort zone was demolished. Obliterated. Erased from existence when the application was sent in.

Before I knew it, I was a whole new person with what seemed like a whole new life. My sister cleaned out my closet until only articles of clothing a Poshes model would wear were hanging from the rack. Every day she picks out an outfit that fits in perfectly with that environment, and completely transforms me into something I'm not.

My days at work were now spent folding clothing, standing outside shirtless, or in clothes that I felt weird in, and talking to people that I would rather not waste my breath on. I've never sold clothes before, much less modeled them. But both were simple tasks. Fold the clothes neatly and make sure the stands catch people's eye. Puff your chest, stand up straight, and flex. The only hard part was keeping my attitude in line.

I'm not used to so much attention being drawn to me, and I don't like it at all.

The people who work and shop here have lots of money and like attention. I live in a family of 8, and I'm one of the shyest people you could meet. It takes all of my will power not to close in on myself and disappear for a number of hours.

Standing outside of the store shirtless, to be stared at by younger teenage girls is the last thing I would have picked as a job. Not to mention, they are all stuck up.

Which is probably  why she stuck out so much to me...

It was by far the worst day of my week. Bubbly, over confident girls clung to me within my first two hours, and I was beyond hungry. But, then again, when am I not?

My sister packed me a sissy lunch of a nasty colored protein shake and clif bar. Now, I may not be highly knowledgeable on this type of stuff, but last time I checked, all guys eat incredibly unhealthy food, model or not. I don't care if I have abs, I like food better than my appearance.

To prove a point, mainly to the big sis but also to myself, I dumped the barf shake into the toilet and left the store to find some "real" food.

 

By "real" food, I meant something soaring in the amount of calories and extremely fattening, and I knew a pretzel would be a perfect match. You can change the looks, but you can't change the appetite.

One thing was missing from my little rebellion. The person that was supposed to be selling me my weapon, my high carb treat. But no, instead, she was laying upside down in the back of the little stand. She was giggling really weirdly while taking selfies, and not good ones, might I add.

I guess I caught her off guard because when she saw me, her phone dropped onto her nose, and she dropped onto the floor along with the chair.

The look on her face when she reached the counter set me into uncontrollable laughter until I saw that she wasn't laughing with me. She really was embarrassed. But she made me at the least, smile. And I really needed that.

Normally, it takes a lot of time for me to feel comfortable and be myself around someone I just met, but I didn't feel the need to close myself off, seeing that she was just as awkward as me. By the time I was leaving "So and So's Pretzels", I had made an acquaintance of her, along with adding a little teasing in-between the lines, just for fun.

She didn't seem interested when I was in my model state. In fact, she seemed pretty annoyed. But once I changed into my dorky Napolean Dynamite shirt, she must've sensed that I'm not the usual protein drinking, muscle ripping, heart throbbing hunk that they show in their commercials.

I felt like I needed to prove to her that I wasn't really one of them.

And finding her interesting, I left without paying in order to see her the next day.

Charming, I know.