The New Kid

Chapter 6

The manager of the Full Mug was waiting patiently for me at one of the booths even though I was a few minutes early. I looked over at Christian and shrugged my shoulders a bit with a look of hopefulness in my eyes. "Good luck," he said before taking off to buy a coffee. 

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Not fifteen minutes later, my interview was complete. I was feeling pretty good about it and I was told I'd receive a call tomorrow afternoon or evening with their decision after interviewing one more candidate. I was actually pretty excited. 

The manager had given me a voucher for a free coffee, so I ordered a caramel-latte. I spotted Christian at one of the back tables, a table for two. Each table was dimly lit by vintage-looking lamps. It was quite soothing. "May I join you?" I asked in an overly-polite way. Christian looked up from a book he had his nose stuck in, probably from the wide collection of books on the shelves here. He nodded his head, and I sat across from him. I tilt my head to the side a little to catch a glimpse of what Christian is reading. It's a poetry book. Interesting. 

"So..." he drawled, putting down the cover, "How'd it go?" I couldn't help but let a smile form on my face. I tugged at my oversized sweater, it hugged my neck too tightly. "You know Christian, I felt really good about it. The manager seems cool too." He smiled back with his knock-out smile, "Thatta girl. Nice job. I think my practice round helped." I rolled my eyes, "Oh, that's gotta be it." 

I checked my phone for the time and realized how late it had gotten. Christian and I had started down the trail of talking about what we wanted to do after high school. I told him the truth, which was, I hadn't given college much thought yet - but that I loved sketching, so a school of the arts would make sense. He, on the other hand, and not surprisingly, wanted very much to receive a football scholarship and study to be a physical therapist.  He was pretty sure about what he wanted. I couldn't help but find that slightly attractive. Well, more attractive than I cared to admit. I was also slightly envious.

"Should we head out? It's later than I thought." I say. "Yeah, yeah we probably should," he sighed in a content kind of way. That made my heart happy. He gazed at me a moment, and when my eyes met his I rested them on his face too - I lingered on his lips, but flicked my eyes up and away when I realized I was doing that. I abruptly stood up to break the silence, took my last swig of latte, and enthusiastically said, "Let's go then!" I blamed the caffeine for my uncanny enthusiasm.

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After dropping Christian back off at the school lot, I turned up my radio. I was happy. I was . . . crushing, hard. Of course, the current song playing was "Clarity" by Zedd. The song had a whole new meaning for me all of a sudden. I got home, parked Robin - in a great parallel park I might add - and practically skipped inside like a happy, little girl who just got three scoops of her favorite ice-cream. Except for my sweet tooth was for Christian. 

My mom caught wind of my cheeriness, but before she could interrogate me, I ran upstairs to change out of my jeans and into some sweatpants. Typical me.

I flung myself onto my bed. I rested my chin in my hands and thought about those deep, green eyes. Christian seemed too good to be true.