Here And Now

19. Delulu was the Solulu

Weston

I remember the first time I saw April. I suppose every man remembers the first time he saw the love of his life.

Only problem was, she didn't see me.

I was a senior in college while she was sophomore.

It was Christmas break.

I had parked my car outside a cafe near campus. I was going to buy a hot latte before hitting the road on my way to my parents' home.

When I walked inside the Cafe it was still so incredibly cold that I had to pull my coat tighter around my body.

"Hi, can I get a regular latte with oat milk? Thanks. Name's West." I smile at the barista.

"That will be four fifty, your coffee will be at counter number three." She glances past me at the next customer.

Well, people are awfully chilly around here, I had thought.

I thought about how once I got home, I'd be writing a review on how bad the service was here.

I smiled internally at that thought as I came to stand in front of the delivery counter.

A girl was turned the other way, mixing all the ingredients to make my coffee.

She was a short petite thing.

But that wasn't the first thing I noticed about her. Her luscious, vibrant red locks of hair that spilled out of her ponytail as she pranced around the kitchen were.

Next, I noticed was the awfully dark green Christmas themed sweater.

Slowly a smile tugged on my lips.

This girl stood out like a sore thumb in this dark depressed cafe.

The smile, however, had slipped right off my face when she turned around and I got to glimpse her face for the first time.

If the sweater was the darkest shade of green, it did wonders to bring out the lightest shade of green in her eyes.

Her eyes were turned up in a default smile, yet it seemed so genuine. It was.

Her auburn bangs fell into her eyes from time to time, and I watched foolishly as she bit down on her full red lips and tried to sweep them aside with the help of her wrist. Since her hand was busy holding a latte.

Latte. Cafe. Public.

I suddenly snapped out of it when she put the latte down in front of me.

"One regular latte with oak milk for West."

I was standing right in front of her but I seemed to have forgotten how to speak.

I had simply never seen a girl so beautiful ever before.

Sure, being on the basketball team meant I had a lot of girls trying to sleep with me every Friday night party. Hell, everyday even.

And while I liked them a lot, you can never make a wife out of someone who opens her legs for a guy on the first hello.

Not to mention, none were as beautiful as this princess in front of me.

This girl was the type of girl every boy wishes to marry one day. Beautiful, beautiful and beautiful.

So while I was busy staring at her face, I never paid attention to the fact that I was probably at my lowest.

I was wearing a dirty, old, white hoodie, a winter coat with my roommate's dog hair all over it and my nose was red with the cold that I accumulated last night.