Two Be Continued

Chapter 1

       He was 22. He always found himself living by 2's. He brushed his teeth twice a day. His work ended at 2:00, it was the second job he ever had. His girlfriend was his second lover, they shared an apartment, it was his second as well. He always said two's a charm. Anything you could think of, he would normally do by two.

Today he was 23. His work ended earlier, he was fired. He came home early, feeling quite upset. He hoped to go home to his girlfriend so she could cheer him up. She did quite the opposite, he found her with another man. He ran off. Two started to become his nightmare. His girlfriend was a two-timer, he lost his second job, he moved from his second home. He was too scared to even brush his teeth twice a day. He started fearing the number two, but it followed him everywhere.

It had been around two months since he found out. He found himself at a coffee shop.

This time, he asked for one less shot of everything in his coffee. Anyone could guess how many he would normally get. The barista asked for his name so he could write it on the cup.

"Oh- Dante-" He paused, realizing his name was two syllables. "Actually- Just Dan is fine..."

"Coming right up, Dan!" The barista replied, he took an odd while writing on his cup. Dante tried his best to not count the minutes it took for his drink to be prepared, but ended up doing just that. To his relief, it took three minutes, not two. "Coffee for you, Dan!"

Dante waved a thank you to the barista as he picked up the cup. He was scared to look down at the cup in case the barista wrote down his full, two syllable name. Dante sighed in relief seeing he didn't write the full name, but was shocked to see a phone number written on the cup. He hesitated to read it, he read every number in his head to make sure there were no twos.

The number had none, it was just an ordinary phone number. Was the barista interested in him? Or maybe he just wanted to be friends? Dante wouldn't mind a friend, but he didn't know if he was ready to date again. He left the empty coffee cup in his car in case he decided to text him.

By the time Dante was planning to send him a text, it had been two weeks, Dante recorded the number in his phone and decided to wait another week. Would he still want to talk despite him taking so long? He decided to text him the first day of the third week since then.

"Hey, sorry for taking so long to text you, I got nervous. This is Dan, from the coffee shop." He read his text aloud as he typed, the second he sent it he realized it was two sentences long, he gulped. He tried to ignore it. He contemplated sending a second message to lengthen it but... then he would have sent two messages.

What made it worse is that the Barista took two minutes to reply. "Hey! My name is Noah, and don't worry about it! How are you?"

He tried to ignore the fact that his name was two syllables... He needed to stop thinking about that darned number. He read his message over and over again until it registered in his head.

"I'm fine, how are you?"

"Great! I just got out of work!"

Dante held his phone to his chest, trying to think of what to say. His mind was blank besides all of the questions he had.

"Why did you give me your number?" He typed, hoping it wouldn't sound so rude. The three dots popped up at the bottom corner, signifying that Noah was typing. While he waited for a reply, he changed his contact name from 'Barista Guy' to 'Noah'. His phone dinged.

"I'll be honest, I think you're really attractive, and I'm interested in you. If you aren't interested though, I'd love to just be friends! I'm sure you're a pretty cool guy!"