Perks of the Job

Chapter Three

When I entered the break room Nick was already there. He was sitting down at the back of the room and was tapping a pencil against the table as he stared at a piece of paper in front of him. I punched out for my break and took a seat across from him, though he didn't seem to notice me. I pulled out my iPod and plugged in the headphones to drown out the terribly irritating Christmas music that the store was playing through its speakers.

The heavy drumming and loud guitar filled my ears as I shut out the world around me, including Nick. He still had his eyes glued to the page in front of him and I resisted the urge to stare.

I'd never been alone with him before and this was the first time I'd really gotten the chance to get a good look at him. He kept his head low but I could still see his sleepy, blue eyes and the strong features of his face. His blonde hair was neatly cut short and didn't seem to have any particular style except 'messy' which seemed to work on him.

It would be a total lie to say that I didn't think he was cute, because I did, but I did my best to disregard it. For one, he was my co-worker and working relationships were never a good idea. Furthermore, he seemed to have absolutely no interest in even knowing me, so why get my hopes up?

To say that break was awkward would be an understatement. Nick and I didn't say a word to each other, barely even giving one another the time of day. The only thing that saved me from complete and total discomfort was the fact that I had brought my iPod. Most people knew better than to talk to someone who was listening to music, so avoiding conversation was relatively easy.

Still there was a part of me that wanted to just speak up and say, 'hello,' the entire time, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. By the end of the break, neither of us had said a word to each other and we both left the break room still not having spoken.

I went back to the fitting room and continued marking items that were in the box on the countertop. It was the most boring thing I think I'd ever have to do, but admittedly, if I didn't have anything to do at all, it would be even worse. Imagine standing in the same spot for four hours and barely talking to a single soul; that was what it would be like without tagging the clothes. I'll take what I get.

I was just finishing up the box of jeans I was given to tag when Delia came over. She was an older woman who came into the fitting room on occasion to pick up returned clothes and put away the new items I've tagged. "Hola niñeta," Delia spoke in Spanish before transitioning into English. It's not that I didn't understand Spanish, it was just that English was easier. "How are you doing?"

Delia was a sweet lady with no husband and no kids. She never told me why she'd never settled down, but she always seemed happy nonetheless. "I'm good, how are you?"

"Good, mommy. You have clothes for me to put away?" I nodded and pushed out the rack with the jeans I'd just tagged and Delia took it from me. She smiled and pushed the rack out of the fitting room to go put the clothes away with all the others on the sales floor.

With my mark ups gone, I was left with nothing to do until closing, but lucky for me I only had about half an hour left.

The time passed relatively slowly and uneventfully. I organized some shelves around me while checking my watch just about every five minutes. When the time came, I shut off the lights of the fitting room and went to go clock out.

I entered the code to open the break room door and went over to the computer to punch out for the day. Once my time was recorded, I went into the locker area to get my jacket, and who's the first person I see? Nick.

He had just slipped on his jacket and was fastening the buttons when he saw me come over. He looked up and smiled to me, but didn't say anything. I opened my locker to put away my name tag before grabbing my hoodie and tossing it on.

Just as Nick fastened his last button, I grew a pair. "I don't think we've met before," I said rather suddenly, catching him a bit off guard. He looked up from his jacket and his blue eyes met my brown ones. Now I was stuck. If he wasn't going to say anything, all I'd really done was make things awkward.

"I don't think we have," he said, smirking slightly before extending his hand for me to take, which I did with slight caution. As we shook hands, he finally introduced himself. "I'm Nick."

"Evan," I replied to him. "Nice to meet you." We'd let go of our hands, but I could still feel the little rush the contact of our skin had given me. I found it strange that I'd barely known him for two minutes and he was already having this effect on me.

"You too," he answered, genuinely seeming to have been pleased with me finally introducing myself. "I hope to see you around."

"Yeah, sure." Boy, that was a lame answer.

Nick smiled to me once more and said goodbye before leaving for the day. I was surprised at how nice he was; for some reason, I'd previously thought him to be more condescending than he really was. I didn't know if this would be a problem or not. He was nice, which was a good thing, but that just made me more intrigued by him which was . . .