What Do You Mean?

Chapter One

"I'll take a vanilla latte to go, please," the middle aged woman said in a pert voice as she rummaged through her purse trying to find what I assumed to be her money.

A lot of the customers annoyed me, but this was the only job I knew of that paid the bills and kept me alive, even if that meant I lived in a one bedroom apartment in the dead center of New York.

"Here you go," I handed her the drink and took the cash.

As I was opening the register, someone walked up to the counter and began to speak. Except, I only could comprehend the first few words.

"I'll take uhm, a..."

The deep voice continued to talk, but I was completely not focused on anything other than how utterly attractive the man in front of me was. He had sandy brown hair and eyes that reminded me of the hot chocolate we served in the winter. His jaw was sharply defined and I was finding it to be an impossible task not to stare.

"Miss? Hello?"

The man was waving his hand in front of my face, and that broke me out of the trance he had me set in. Talk about embarrassing.

I expected him to be annoyed or short with me, because I had completely just ignored what he said. But he didn't. He looked at me in almost the same way I was looking at him. I knew I shouldn't have been thinking that way about another guy, because I was already in a relationship.

But the way he smirked at me and repeated his order slowly, and the way the words dripped off of his perfectly pink lips made everything else go blurry.

I almost burnt myself twice making his coffee, and I hoped to whatever god above that he didn't see me. I turned around to give him his beverage, and prayed that he would quickly pay and leave. I had already made myself look like an idiot in front of him, and his attractiveness was distracting, and quite frankly, made me feel guilty.

Before I could even speak, he opened his mouth and started talking.

"My name's Justin, but people call me J a lot," he started. I had no idea where this was going and I wanted it to be over very soon.

"I know this is weird, but..well, shit. Okay, my friend is having this party later and you look kinda miserable here making coffee for snooty business people, so I guess I was wondering if you wanted to come."

What? Was he legitimately inviting me to a party? I couldn't go. I couldn't accept his offer. I knew what kinds of things went on at parties, especially with guys like him. And I wasn't about to do something awful like get smashed and cheat on my wonderful boyfriend with a fraternity douche bag who's name I wouldn't even know.

"I really can't. I have to work late tonight, and my boss has already been on my ass lately and I just can't. Thank you for the invite though."

"You're really concerned about losing a job at a place like this? C'mon, one night won't hurt."

I wanted to say no, so badly. I just wanted to get back to making my coffees and pastries. Every part of me was screaming for me to say no.

Until he was three inches from my face.

"Anywhere is better than a shit hole like this," he spoke in a raspy tone.

"What do you mean?" My voice came out almost in a whisper. I don't understand why he was making me so nervous.

"I mean, that you should come with me to my friend's party. It's gonna be a good time," he smirked while leaning in very closely across the counter.

Despite every instinct yelling at me, directing me to decline the invitation to some random party, I couldn't.

I nodded my head.

The smile on his face grew very wide, displaying his perfect teeth.

"I'm probably going to need your number, Luna, is it?"

I smiled shyly as he read my silver name tag clipped to the left side of my shirt. He handed me his phone and I entered my number, internally punching myself for doing so.

"I'll text you later. And don't worry, it's gonna be really fun, I promise," he grinned at me one last time before grabbing the paper cup and slipping out of the front door, back into the October air.

I really did feel bad about agreeing. What was I supposed to tell Nathan? He would obviously not be okay with me going, but a small part of me liked the idea of rebelling against what he wanted. At times, yes, he was a little controlling. But we had been together for a little over a year and I loved him anyways.

Still, I had a tiny desire to do something secretive, because lately I felt like my life was very stagnant. I had next to no friends, my parents lived out of state, and the only person I ever saw was Nathan. So the idea of meeting new people and doing something "crazy" started to sound better by the second. I still knew it was an absolutely awful idea, but I was okay with that.

Little did I know, that party would be the start of the craziest part of my life.