Have You Got A Favorite?

Chapter 1

This town sucks, this store sucks, and most of all, the job that Frank has at said store sucks. He despises it, although it sucks a lot less when the few cute people in this town need groceries.

Frank is a stocker and cashier at a local grocery store in Montclair, New Jersey. It's owned by some guy he has never met, and while it isn't a family business, it's not a corporate chain like Walmart.

Frank is in his last year of school, and his mom thought it was important that Frank get some experience under his belt before he graduates. So here he is, working as a stocker. You know, the person who puts the items on the shelves and arranges them to not look like shit. He was also a cashier when needed, which basically meant all he had to do was stand up front and look pretty.

He works damn near every day, which is ridiculous to expect of a high schooler, but the managers didn't care. He sometimes goes straight from school to the store to work. Being there every day, though, means that he can sometimes recognize the regulars- and there were several.

Jared, a big bulky biker with long brown greasy hair comes in at least once a week for two gallons of milk. Frank has spoken to him on several occasions, asking him about a new tattoo, his bike, and where he got those really cool leather boots. They wave at each other every time they meet, and eventually Frank did ask why he bought so much milk as he was checking his items out at the register. Jared simply said he loves milk. Frank joked back, saying something about how two gallons a week must get expensive. Jared heartily laughed as he grabbed his milk and walked away. While he was walking away though, Jared said one thing that stuck in Frank's mind.

"There are worse things I could be addicted to."

Another regular was an old woman he has never actually spoken to. She comes in every other day for various items, but she never gets a lot. Whatever she grabs seems to get her by for the next couple days, then she's back again for more. Frank deduced that she is probably retired and has nothing else to do.

There is one person who frequents, though, that Frank adores. It's a boy the same height as Frank, and he looks just about the same age. He comes in on average every four days. Frank knows this because- well, he could never forget such a pretty face. The first day he saw him, Frank was literally swooning over how adorable he was.

He was dressed in a pale purple sweater and paint-stained black skinny jeans that accentuated the curves of his thighs and hips. Frank caught a glimpse of him from the end of the aisle he was standing at.

It was the poptart aisle.

Whenever he came into the store, Frank noticed that he chose a different flavor of poptarts each time, and that was the only thing he would get.

He only saw him every once in a while- he knew it was often, but Frank didn't pay too much attention at first (he didn't want to seem creepy). Yet when this adorable fucker spotted him at the end of the aisle one day, he smiled, innocently waved, and unintentionally fluttered his lashes in a way that made Frank's lungs collapse.

Frank's gaze was stuck on his round eyes and black hair that was messily parted on one side and cascaded down to his shoulders. Frank smiled and nodded his head back at the boy before he walked onto the next aisle, mentally kicking himself for being noticed. He panicked, thinking the boy thought he was a weirdo-creep, an ugly weirdo-creep with a greasy faux hawk and red-dye sides with a hideous work polo on. He then realized he was being an idiot, and started to count down the days until he saw him again.

By now, Frank had worked out that every time the boy would run out of poptarts, he would come here to get another box. Frank, since that incident, has been nearer to the boy, but still has never spoken to him. One night he was on his knees stocking the oreos, which was right across the aisle from the poptarts, when the mystery boy came down the aisle once again. Frank didn't realize it was him at first until he turned around and looked up at the back of the figure before him. He was wearing a baggy t-shirt with a Joy Division logo on it (with tour dates on the back) and black ripped skinny jeans, and oh god did he look good or what.