His name is not James

yellow sunrise

chapter one

My mind was in three million places at once. I found it quite difficult to focus on the customer in front of me when my surroundings were busy. The tune of a guitar could be heard from the other side of the room, people trying to make their way in from the street, people laughing and chatting, orders flew around and it was difficult to concentrate. 

But even though it was a mess around me, I had never been happier. This was my dream, this was it, this is what I'd been dreaming of. 

Me and my friend Charity had opened this coffee shop a couple of months ago. It had not been a huge success until now. Gold chandeliers were hanging from the ceiling, creating a certain atmosphere, and the lush tables made their mark. Book shelves of different vintage colours covered the walls with old books inside of them. We had focused on making the atmosphere nice, to create the trademark for our coffee shop. Now, we started to focus on the people, and it was a huge success.

Charity was making hot drinks behind me, listening with one ear of what the next order would be. The coffee machine was running hot as another americano was coming through the machine. 

Our small corner coffee shop had never been this busy, and as manic as it was, this was exactly what we wanted. It was a special night for both of us. We had the idea of opening the shop on evenings and pulling out certain events. Tonight was the premiere of an 'open mic' night. As lame as it sounds, it worked. 

People sat down, removing their big jackets and scarfs. Chatting over the candles, they were all looking around the room, as if it was the first time they were around. Which, probably was the case. It was a new start. I could tell that something new was starting and I was dead excited. This was gonna be a new start to all of this. I tucked a string of my hair behind my ear as I tried to hear what the beanie-guy wanted in his drink. He smiled at me and was clearly in a good mood. Me too mate.

Time passed, and the que slowed down towards 7:30. Charity removed her apron, had a quick look in the mirror, adjusting her ash black hair and grabbed the mic from the stage. We had managed to build a small stage with some pallets from Charity's dads job, and screwed some wood together. I had an old mic lying around at home, and somehow we managed to pull it all together. It wasn't high quality, but hey - you have to start somewhere. During the week, we had received emails about people who wanted to perform during the night. Well, two. The first one was one of the girls from high school, who still insisted she was made to be a singer. We weren't as sure. But we knew she could keep a tune, so we asked her if she wanted to set the night off.

"Welcome to our brand new open mic night!" Charity expected major cheering from the 40-something-people in the room, but was a tiny bit discouraged when there was a 10-something-people awkwardly clapping. She cleared her throat to recover quickly 

"We are so happy you are all here tonight, we have a few people coming up to sing for you. Feel free to grab a coffee, hang out, have fun - and if you feel spontaneous, ask us in the back, and we'll make your performance happen tonight." Everyone in the room started nudging certain people. Interesting. "For now, welcome Amanda Bradshaw!" Amanda went up on stage, a bit too eager and smiley. I turned my attention to the coffee machines and started cleaning up. The big rush of people had died out, which gave us some time to clean up. I was wiping down the coffee machine when I heard a male voice coming through the speaker.

"Hello? 1,2 is this on?" a group in the corner laughed at him and made jokes. Must be his friends. 

"Shut up guys" he turned his attention away from them with a small smirk on his face. Definitely his friends. 

"I usually only play, I don't sing myself, but then someone said they would give me 20 pounds if I did, so here I go" without one single second of pause, he started playing the guitar like a flipping professional.