AH collections

How convenient

Jermyan
Word count: 3441
Chapters: 1

Ryan carried boxes to their designated spots. It was truck night, his oh-so-favorite night of the week at the convenience store. Thankfully, this week, the truck had everything which meant Ryan wouldn't get yelled at by the boss in the morning. He got lost in his thoughts, remembering the exhausting speech he got last week about the truck missing a whole box of cigarettes.

The jarring sound of the door chime brought Ryan back to the present.

"Goddamn I need some kind of food!" a voice burst through the store.

"At least we're done getting everything in the house. What are we sleeping on tonight though? The bed is stuck behind a shit ton of boxes and I am not moving anymore of them." a second voice followed.

Ryan shot up from his crouched position, quickly pulling his long sleeves down. No need to show off his two names. He spotted the two customers as they made their way to the sodas. With a sigh, he made his way back to the counter on the opposite end of the store. He hoped they didn't take too long. He wanted to finish putting up the inventory before five am. He leaned against the cigarette shelves, eyes following the two men. The taller one finally glanced over and spotted Ryan.

"Hey! You guys keep any hot food on at night?"

The guy got closer as he spoke to Ryan. Ryan tilted his head, suddenly enamored by the freckles adorning the guy, and didn't respond.

"Uh, you alright?" he gave Ryan a quizzical look.

"Sorry, I was somewhere else." Ryan shrugged. " I cleaned out the hot stuff about half an hour ago and I don't put anything new out 'til five."

"Shit. Why we move to a small ass town that doesn't have at least a McDonald's is lost on me." the guy said running his hands through his loose curls.

"Hey Michael!" the shorter guy yelled from one of the aisles.

"What, Jeremy?" Michael said as he walked away.

"They got those weird candy we had in Mexico."

Michael threw an arm around Jeremy's shoulder, taking the candy from him.

Ryan went stock still, his hands coming up to touch his forearms. Would fate be that nice to him? He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. It could have been a coincidence.

Ryan jolted as items were set on the counter. He hadn't even realized he had zoned out that much. The hand remained on the soda, as Jeremy turned to talk with Michael again, giving Ryan a moment to stare unbelieving at the name on it. In thin cursive script resided his name. His heart clenched.

"You alright?"

Ryan glanced up. "Yeah, I'm good. I like the blue in your hair." He blurted out, a horrible attempt at small talk.

"Oh thanks man, I just did it." Jeremy ran a hand through it, a big smile spreading across his face.

"You did it like a week ago, babe." Michael huffed, lightly pushing Jeremy out of the way as he sat his stuff down.

Ryan took a glance, trying to spot the name. He nearly missed it, but he managed to catch the big bold sans serif that adorned Michael's arm.

"You see a lot of names come through?" Michael said, having caught Ryan's stare.

Ryan's face went red. "Uh, yeah, quite a lot. But I haven't seen many that carry the same name at the same time." He motioned back and forth between the two.

Jeremy laughed. "Yeah, that's actually how we got together."

Ryan gave them a questioning look. "What?"