Skittles and tea

Chapter One

                                                                         PJ'S POV

Today felt as though it was going to be a very bad day, I was half right. I realised now that I’m out of university YouTube payment isn’t really enough for me to pay my rent. I got a second job at WH Smith’s and it’s an okay job, but today was a pretty shitty day. A crazy woman threw a box of pens at me because she said they were too expensive, as you do. During my lunch break I only got to eat a quarter of my sandwich before I got called back to do shredding for the rest of the afternoon. So today pretty much sucked. I was heading to Costa to order myself some tea, I had my share bag of skittles all ready, ready for the strange looks that the posh people who go to Costa would give me.

 I spotted a nice table right near the back of the shop just as I was ordering, tea doesn’t normally take too long to make here. I went to the table to get my sugar and wooden stirrer and then headed towards that nice looking table. But it was too late, a guy who looked about in his twenties rushed and sat down at the table. I sighed and looked away angrily. “Hey, I’m sorry. Today’s been a pretty hectic day, I just wanted to sit down! You’re more than welcome to join me if you want to” the funny man with brown hair and a Christmas jumper seemed friendly, his voice was quite silky and welcoming. I smiled and sat opposite him.

 “Thank you so much, you’re very kind. I’ve not had the best of days today myself” I sighed, pouring the sugar into my tea and stirring.

“Well, we all have bad days sometimes. What you’ve got to remember is that they’re only days and they’ll be over soon. In the words of the great Dr. Seuss: Today was good, today was fun, tomorrow is another one!”

 We both laughed. That quote didn’t really fit the situation, but he must have said it for the last part ‘tomorrow is another one’ I thought about that for a second and smiled, this perfect stranger seemed to be making me feel better. My stomach flipped when I realised, I haven’t even introduced myself yet!

 “OH!” I shouted, making the stranger jump and almost spill his hot chocolate. “My goodness. How awfully rude of me, I haven’t even introduced myself yet!” The stranger giggled and said it was okay, but I continued. He seemed nice. “My name is PJ.”

“PJ? Nice name! I’m Chris” we shook hands.

“So PJ, what is it that you do?” Chris asked me, I didn’t think I should mention YouTube. He might think it kind of weird that I make my money mostly from making videos on the internet. How do you explain that to somebody?

“I... Work at WH Smith’s” At least that wasn’t a lie.

“Wow, exciting!” He seemed enthusiastic, but I could tell it was sarcasm.

“Yeah, it’s not it absolutely sucks a fuck!” I slammed the table with my fist to be funny, but I made my tea spill everywhere. I jolted up quickly as the tea spilled in my lap and it burned a little bit, I ran to grab some napkins and wiped it all up, as Chris just sat there and chuckled. I sat back down after everything had calmed down and thankfully I still had some tea left. “Oh thank goodness, I didn’t spill the entire thing!” Chris managed to stop chuckling long enough to help me clean up the rest of the tea.

“Thanks” I smiled as we both settled back down.

“So, Chris. That’s what I do. I work at a crappy job and make a complete fool out of myself, what is it that you do?”

Chris giggled and began to explain his job to me.

“Well, this might seem a little strange, but I make videos on YouTube”

My heart skipped a beat.

“You are joking?” I exclaimed.

“No, I’m not. I get paid a bit for it too, a lot of people seem to enjoy my videos! God knows why”

“What a small world! I wasn’t going to say anything before, but I too make videos on YouTube. The pay wasn’t enough to pay my rent so I had to take a second job, but it’s what I love to do! The YouTube thing not the shitty job thing” Chris seemed pleased that he had met another YouTuber, frankly I was too. It was quite nice because now I knew that we’d have a lot to talk about. I took a shot.

“Chris, I have two good friends who also make videos on YouTube, they’re pretty popular and even have their own show on radio 1 together now!”

“Hold that thought!” Chris stopped me. “Are you friends with.... Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil?” He asked, somewhat excitedly.

“Indeed I am! I met Phil first and we became quite good friends, but then he introduced me to Dan and they are both perfectly lovely. Anyway, they’ve invited me to a sleepover at their house on Saturday night, thankfully I don’t have to work on Sunday so I can stay over, you are quite welcome to join us, and I know the boys won’t mind!” Chris’ face lit up.

“Wow, I’d really love too! I actually love Dan and Phil, their videos are hilarious! And I listen to their show every Sunday. Hanging out with other people who make videos on YouTube would actually be a dream come true”

“Great! That’s sorted then!” We shared a smile as I opened my skittles, took a dozen into my hand, shoved them in my gob and took a swig of tea. Chris looked a bit shocked and a little disgusted.

“What.... Was that?” He asked, gulping.

“What was what?” I said quite innocently.

“You just took a whole mouthful of skittles with your tea. Wasn’t that the most awful taste in the entire world?”

“Oh, no. See, when I was little I absolutely adored tea and I was addicted to skittles. One day I had a mouthful of skittles and  my Mum had just made me a mug of tea, I was so happy about it that I took a swig, completely forgetting about my mouthful of skittles. I didn’t wince at the taste, I found myself actually enjoying the taste of skittles and tea. Ever since then, it’s my weird food combination that I just love! Won’t you try it?” I politely offered Chris some skittles, which he took with a sickly look on his face, and then I offered him a sip of tea. He actually tried skittles and tea! I was rather hoping that he’d enjoy it, I was rather sick of being the only person who seemed to enjoy this odd combination. He swallowed his skittles and tea about two minutes after he’d put them in his mouth.

“That’s.... Very interesting. But sort of nice!” He wiped his mouth and I smiled a massive smile at him for actually liking skittles and tea.

“Excellent! Listen, this has been lovely but I better be off. Today has been such an awful day that all I want right now is to build a massive pillow fortress and hide from the world until tomorrow.”

Chris stood up.

“You took the words right out of my mouth”

We both giggled again as I collected my coat from the back of my chair, I shook Chris’ hand. “It was nice meeting you Chris! Follow me on twitter it’s kickthepj, and you keep in touch about the sleepover on Saturday, alright?” Chris nodded and told me that his twitter was Chris_Kendall_ and we went our separate ways. I was actually smiling as I walked home. Sitting there with Chris was the happiest I’d been in a long while.