Burning Lessons

Chapter 3

Juliana

This bitch is getting off my nerves. It's been about a week and a half and Sadie still hasn't payed me her part of the rent and has the nerve to invite her obnoxious friends and completely destroy the apartment. I'm not one to ruin the fun but if you are going to destroy the apartment that I had invested 70% of furniture, I expect it your share of rent and and help around.

It's kind of hard to prepare lesson plans and field trips when your freeloader of a roommate is being obnoxious and doesn't know boundaries. I've decided I have had enough of this and went to the coffee shop that is around 15 minutes away from our apartment.

This local coffee shop was a family owned business and it was next to a local bookstore. The owners decided to partner up and remodeled it into a big coffee bookstore called ' ledger brewery'.

I opened the door and went up to the front counter.

"Can I get an oat milk shaken espresso". I said while getting my wallet out of my bag.

"Is it for here or to go?"

"For here please", I paid the lady and went down to sit at a table waiting for my coffee.

One thing I enjoy about this shop is that in store order you always receive a one of a kind mug, but unfortunately you have to return it. Although I have been tempted to just accidentally put one in my bag.

I pull out my laptop, my binder, and stationary items. Currently I am currently working on a field trip for the kiddos. We either go to a science museum or a first responder station. I was in the middle of researching cost effective trips when I saw a body in my peripheral vision. I look up to see Ozzy, the tattoo artist from last week."You're Juliana right? I'm Ozzy. I tattooed you last week." He extends his hand to give me a hand shake and a warm smile. I returned the handshake and looked up to his light brown eyes and smiled "yeah I remembered, how are you? Do you want to take a seat?" I gestured to him to take a seat.

He then sits down on the chair and puts his laptop and his tablet "I've been doing really well, a bunch of workload but it's nothing I can't handle."

"And you handle the tattoo parlor?"

"Yeah well Leo and I run it but we have other artists who worked there."

"'World duos' so do you have tattoo parlors across the globe?"

He chuckles, "No, um 'World Duos come from our middle names, my full name is Ozzy Atlas Benjamín Castillo and his name is Leonardo Tierra Olivas"

Even his name is hot.

"Ozzy not short for something?"

"No my original name was supposed to be Atlas but my mom life was saved by a doctor named Ozzy during her childbirth with me and as a token of appreciation my parents named me after him."

"I like it, It's different from the usual names."

"Yeah well my grandparents weren't to fond of my name since they couldn't pronounce it. But what about you? What's your full name? "He put his hand under his chin and kept eye contact with me. He's wearing a dark navy blue LAFD shirt and black cargo pants. I could see his forearm that was muscular and full of tattoos. Focus Julie.

"Juliana Araceli Morales"

"Juliana"

The way my name rolls off his tongue when we said my name in a Spanish pronunciation also had me melting in my seat.

"Yeah but everyone calls me Julie. I enjoy hiking and I went to this escape room the other day. The theme was wild west theme, one the players started this timer, and the timer was this trap that was left behind by bandits and we almost lost the game and if we lost the game I would've lost it on him."

"Well accidents happen. "

"Yeah I know that but it was a red button and that is to not press it because it belongs to the notorious bandit, and knowing that he still presses it."

"Don't tell me you associate with this guy, so you go to a lot of escape rooms?"

"Not really, I tend to travel, hike and read. Sometimes I try new things, so I went to an escape room but I think soon I want to try french cooking, boxing or play piano. I used to play when I was younger but I just lost my passion a while back and I think I want to learn again."

He smiled.

"Why are you smiling?"

"Because you're cute when you talk about your passions in life."

I shamelessly blushed. "What do you like to do when you are not working?"

" I like to go to the gym, skydive, futbol" he sipped on his coffee, his mug was a jack skeleton.

"Sky dive?"

"Oh yeah, I have always skydived at the end of the year ever since I was 18. It's exhilarating, you should add it to your bucket list of things to do?"

"Yeah but what if your parachute doesn't open, then you are completely fucked."

"Always check your equipment, go with a companion or pray you go out quickly." Yeah but wouldn't you feel the impact before you die?

"What are you working on?" I pointed to the tablet he had on his closed laptop. I can see a ton of photos on it

"A training course for our regimen and another training course for our cadets that are still in the academy."

"What about you? What are you working on?" He pointed to my planner and laptop.

"I'm trying to plan a field trip for the kids and I'm trying to decide which one is more cost effective, a first responder station or a science museum" I sipped on my coffee. My mug has an angry unicorn and it says 'Todays not the day and I will shank you with my horn'. Coincidentally this is how I feel.

"Well why don't you talk to my Caption at the station? Sometimes there aren't any fires so we have other jobs like EMT, paramedic, engineers or we have a day of cleaning the station or playing basketball... so we can make plans for our station so we can have a team there helping out with the kids. Besides, our most important mission is to give back to the community we are in." He takes a sip on his coffee cup.

"What happens if there's an emergency and you happen to be the closest station?"

"We have two other teams in the station so if anything happens there's always them unless we absolutely need to come in ."

"Okay I'll drop by the station sometime this week. Thank you, this means a lot." I can't help but to think about him being in uniform and seeing him work... the dream. A very intimate dream.

We both sat there doing our own thing but enjoying each others company. All you could hear are keyboard clicking, pen scribbles, highlighters touching the papers.

"Do you mind if I borrow some of your stationary items?" He pointed to my pencil bag filled with highlighters, tabs, sticky notes, pencils and pens. "Oh no, go right ahead." I picked up my bag and it was in between us so we both had access to it.

We spent the next 30 minutes finishing up our work, until I noticed the time which was almost 8 am. "Hey, my class starts in about half an hour."

"No worries, they just texted me back to the station" When I started to pack up my things, Ozzy grabbed our mugs and went to return them to the counter. We picked up our stuff and Ozzy opened the door for me. Right when I waved goodbye to him and almost turned my body completely around, I felt his large, calloused hand hold mine.

I turned around to face him, not letting his hand go. "I was wondering if I could get your number, maybe we could go out sometime... If you're totally up for it." I could see the tip

I smiled and grabbed my phone in my pocket and gave it to him to put his number in. "I would love to go out with you."

We both exchanged numbers. "Alright I'll see you around."