The First [COMPLETED✔️]

The First Step to A New Life

A new chapter in my life is beginning. My name is Ashley. I'm twenty-one years old, trying to figure myself out. I've been settling in my new place for about a month now. I live in an apartment. I work at a pizza place not far from the apartment  I'm staying at. It's in a square complex where there are other stores as well. With the hours my job has been giving me so I can make as money as I can, I never had much time to unpack my stuff or go exploring my new home. Speaking of work, I should probably get ready.

After twenty minutes of showering and throwing on my uniform, I grabbed my purse and set of keys. I locked my door with my pass key and headed to go down on the elevator. Once I made it down to the lobby and headed outside, I got in my car and drove myself to work. I hope today isn't as busy but it's better than sitting in my room all the time. 5 minutes later, I pulled in the shopping complex and park my car in front of the store. The bell rang as soon as I opened the door and my coworker, Sam, smiles at me as soon as she saw me. I guess she's like a friend to me since she was the first person that I met and we talk a lot whenever we work together. Work might not be so bad after all.

"Ashley, start making pizza boxes. We have a lot of deliveries today and not a lot of pizza boxes for them to be put in!" My boss orders me.

"Yes, sir". I rolled my eyes at myself and began to put my bag down behind the counter and headed to the back, doing my job. Around noon, the place gets busy. Lots of people my age or maybe a little bit older show up a lot with their friends. It's like their hang out spot near the end of the weeks. I made about thirty boxes so far and I'm running out of space. I'm sure that's enough boxes for now until I probably have to make more later. I put them on the top shelf above the oven so the cookers can just grab the box and slide the pizza into the box after taking them out of the oven. A group of young, even cute guys walked in and sat down at a bench area at the corner near the door. My boss comes to the front of the store as I'm finishing piling up the boxes and tells me what my next task is.

"Ashley, go take that order at table 5. You're our new waiter. Here's your name tag and apron. Good luck."

This is my chance to go over to the cute guy's table and maybe start a conversation with them. Oh, boy. I'm nervous a little but be professional. I had to tell myself this before I make a fool of myself. I grabbed a pen from the cup holder next to the register and a pad. As soon as I approached to the table, I started to forget what I was going to say when this one boy noticed me and caught me off guard by him staring at me, smiling even. "Hi", I began. "Welcome to Pizza Pizza Place. My name is Ashley and I'll be your waiter this afternoon. Could I offer you guys something to drink first?"

"I'll have ice tea with lemonade", one boy said. He had light blue eyes with a hint of grey in them, jet black hair. He looks like he could be a baseball athlete and he had nice biceps, too.

"I'll have a Pepsi", another boy said. This one had green eyes, dirty blonde hair, and his eyelashes are like perfect and long, too.

"I'll just have a water please". The cute boy who was staring at me is extremely cute. Brown eyes, brunette hair that spikes up at the top, perfect white teeth and a smile to go with that, too. He looks like he has soft pink lips along.

"Okay, I'll be right back with the drinks and then, I'll take your order." I close the pad and shoved it in the pocket along with the pen and began to walk behind the counter getting the drinks ready.

"Dude. Chase, you got to stop staring." His one friend, Rob snaps his fingers in front of his face.

Chase, that's his name, shakes his head after getting lost in his thoughts and apologizes for getting distracted. "Have you guys seen her around? We've been to this pizza place for a while now and I've never seen her before."

Tyler, his other friend, says, "Nah, man. Maybe she's just a new employee or new to town, even."

"Or she probably got lost and has no where to go", Rob suggested a pretty pathetic story.

"Rob, you're crazy. No one will believe that", Chase points out.

I come back with a tray on one hand and started to place the drinks down in front of them and dropped 3 straws on the table. I set the tray behind me, pulled the pen and pad out, flipping to the page with their drink orders had already been written down, and proceeded to write down their order. "Are you guys ready to order now?"

"I think so, right, guys?" Tyler asks. Chase and rob nodded their heads. "I'll start", Tyler begins. "I'll have 2 slices of pepperoni pizza with ranch dressing dazzled on there." Rob glances at the menu real quick and figured out what he wanted to order. "I'll have the meatball hero sandwich with fries."

I wrote as fast and as neat as I can do and I looked up at the cute boy who wouldn't stop smiling at me and raised my eyebrow. "So what about you?"

He looks up at me, holds his eye contact by staring at my face, and opens his mouth to speak. "I'll just have a salad with a slice of cheese pizza." I wrote that order down as he spoke, close the pad and dropped it in my pocket. "Thank you, guys. Your food should be ready in about 15 minutes. Let me know if you need anything else." I turned around to the table behind to grab the tray and started to head my way behind the counter. Tyler playfully slaps Chase's arm and whispers, "Ask her".

"Ashley!" He yells loud enough to grab my attention. I turned back around to walk back to their table saying, "Yes?"

"We had a question and wanted to ask you." Chase continued.

"We as in all 3 of you boys or did you have a question?" I pointed at the cute boy.

"No, we were all curious. You see, we come here a lot and we never seen you before. So are you like a new employee or something?"

Wow, they noticed I'm new. No one that comes to this place knew I was new. Maybe they are interesting in me or getting to know me. "Actually, yeah, I'm new in general. I moved here about a month ago and just started working at this job 2 weeks ago. I'm the new girl" and chuckled, nervously.

"I told you, Rob, that your story of getting lost was stupid", Chase protested.

"And I told you", Tyler begins, "That she could've been the new girl."

"Wait, so you guys were talking about me behind my back?" I jumped in on the conversation.

"Kind of", Tyler starts. "Let us introduce ourselves. I'm Tyler" and he points at himself. "This is Rob" and points across him. Rob gives a small wave to me. "And this boy who won't stop staring at you" and puts his arm around his friend, "This is Chase. He's kind of interested in you."

"But you guys don't know me that well."

"So, let's get to know each other", Chase suggests.

"Maybe after my shift ends. I end at 4 today." The bell rang indicating that the food is done. "Your order might be ready. We can talk about this later when you're done."

"Okay".

I went to the counter to bring the food over to Chase's table. I set everything up in front of them and told them to enjoy their meal. I went back to the counter and started to bill their order so they can see their receipt afterwords. Then, I made more boxes and help answer the phone calls as well for the delivery orders.

After 20 minutes, they finished eating and I handed them the receipt. I greeted them hoping they enjoy the rest of the day. "Oh, wait!" Chase cries out.

I turned around and spoke. "Yeah?"

"Here", and he hands me a folded piece of paper.

"What is this?"

"Open it and find out."

I turned around before he noticed that my cheeks were turning pink. I unfolded the piece of paper and saw his name and phone number written down on it. I'll have to save it on my phone. Once I turned to ask if he wanted my number, they all left and put my tip money on the counter. It's a twenty dollar tip. That's my first and huge tip I've ever received. I might be okay living in this town. On my own.