Shirley

When he decides to get a girlfriend, it’s a Thursday.

He’s at work, and Shirley Temple is front and center. She’s been trying to flirt with him since she sat down. It’s a clear crash and burn, but apparently she doesn’t know it yet; she’s still monologuing sarcastically about a class she’s taking and not going to a party. Of course, not only is she drinking a Shirley Temple in a bar—she had to be another one of those uppity Asian Stanford students, too.

In any case, Shirley Temple’s still talking, and it’s pissing him off. He only has three other customers right now, and none of them need anything. If he had a girlfriend he could say that and be done with it, but he doesn’t, and he can’t lie worth a damn. So he just cleans the tarnished bar counter and keeps glancing over and pretending to listen like the pushover he is.

After five more minutes, he reaches a breaking point. Her advances have become a borderline excuse to finally start smoking again—just to avoid listening to her go on about synapses and whatever other scientific drabble she’s trying to impress him with. He may be a bartender, but he's not crazy enough—or conceited enough—to pretend his tolerance for rambling is that much higher than anyone else's.

He clears his throat, taking a breath and stepping toward her, but his gaze falls on the cell phone she’s holding to her ear. Where did that come from?

Oh. She’s talking on the phone. To someone else.

Very observant, dipshit.

...Maybe I am crazy.

Before she can see him standing there gaping like a fish, he grabs the rag and starts cleaning the bar. Again. He glances up a few times to make sure she hasn’t noticed, but she’s oblivious, straight black hair falling neatly into her face. She’s cute, he realizes, maybe even beautiful, in a fragile way.

When Shirley Temple ends her call and stands to leave a few minutes later, she pauses to pull something from her book bag. It’s not until she sets the money down by her empty glass that he realizes it’s a tip. A big tip, from a college student.

“Thanks,” he says, and maybe she’s interested after all. She looks up to meet his eyes and he’s surprised by the intensity in hers, dark brown and intelligent. He feels strangely vulnerable.

“You’re welcome,” she says, smiling. He finds his gaze drawn to her mouth: thin pink lips and white teeth. “I saw you looking at me earlier, by the way. You’re not very subtle.”

His eyebrows go up and he shrugs with a smug grin. “Wasn’t trying to be,” he says, and it's true. Shirley Temple just chuckles and rolls her eyes, shifting her bag up higher on her shoulder. Then she waves a goodbye, turns, and before he can say more, she’s gone. He’s surprised to find he’s slightly pissed he didn’t even get her real name.

There was just something about her. He’s not sure what. Frankly, he’d been planning to reject her ten minutes earlier, but now for some reason he’s thinking about her, silky hair and delicate face and expressive eyes—

He didn’t even know he was into Asian girls, not to mention pretentious Asian college girls like... Shirley. Whoever she is. But he’ll never see her again, right? Why is he even thinking about this?

He pockets the tip she gave him and starts wiping her section of the bar clean. Goodbye, Shirley.

Yeah, he’s definitely getting a girlfriend.

-

Thursday is not a good day. She needs to study for her Chem final but Angela wants to talk about Neuro, and her car is parked in such an inconvenient spot that she ends up walking to downtown Palo Alto to escape. It isn’t really that far, but she ran something like six miles yesterday, and her quads burn with every step.

So it’s not looking like a great day. Not so far, anyway. She finds herself going to a rather dilapidated bar she never would’ve set foot in otherwise just because she’s too tired to walk farther.

She’s not of age yet, but thankfully she isn’t carded at the door. It isn’t crowded, either, so she sits at the bar right away. The bartender is really hot in an undeniable sort of way, with unkempt dark brown hair, stubble, and a slim muscular build beneath his faded T-shirt, but she can tell just from looking at him he’s not really her type, nor is she his. He’s probably messy and arrogant, the kind of guy who smokes and avoids anything more serious than a one-night stand. She isn’t planning on one of those in the near future.

She orders a Shirley Temple. Partly it’s to avoid sounding stupid to Bartender Guy (there are consequences to wearing no nametag), because the only other non-alcoholic drinks that come to mind are water, milk, and lemonade. She also kind of secretly loves Shirley Temples.

She wonders how old he is. To work in a bar he must be at least 21, but he doesn’t look much older than that. She’s considering starting a conversation and asking him when her phone rings. Of course. She doesn’t even bother to ask who it is.

“Hi. Oh, come on,” she mutters quietly into the mouthpiece. “Is it really that important? No, I’m not on the lawn—or at Fraiche—what? Angela, you know my Neuro isn’t till next week.” They talk for a while—well, she does most of the talking, considering her friend’s frenzied state. At some point she glances up and has to force her eyes away when she sees Bartender Guy cleaning the bar counter, the muscles in his arms tensing under the strain. She curses the universe and hopes he isn’t paying attention to her boring-as-hell conversation. Angela even manages to bring up a party this weekend, which she’s obviously not going to because, as she’s said ten times, she has Chem on Monday.

Bartender Guy must think she’s really lame. But maybe not, because she notices him looking her way occasionally, and he doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Come to think of it, he’s been cleaning the bar for a good ten minutes. Is that normal?

Angela must notice she’s getting distracted, because soon they’re hanging up and she’s feeling awkward with her hands free. They aren’t idle for long, though. Within seconds she finds them holding a pad of sticky notes and a pen in her lap. She scrawls down her cell number almost automatically, and then it’s on the bar counter and she’s not even sure why.

There’s just something about him.

Her face burns under imagined scrutiny as she eyes it. Too conspicuous. When she stands to go she tips generously, making sure to set it atop her number, just for subtlety. They talk briefly; he’s charming and cocky like she expected. But when their eyes meet they catch and hold and she sees it again, that something. It gets under her skin, prodding.

Walking back to Stanford, she finds she’s glad she left her number.

Apparently he is, too, because he calls her the next day.