My Escapade

I swung the door open, and the smell of coffee and noise of people assaulted my senses. I breathed in deeply through my nose. I stepped in line. “Hey, Anthony!” I greeted the young man behind the counter. I had been coming to the coffee shop, The Black Kettle (which sounds kind of gothic, but it’s not. It’s like a slightly darker, more creative version of Starbucks), ever since I had started my job at The Times.

Anthony, a tall, handsome, Hispanic boy with disheveled curly hair and eyes that did all the flirting for him, smiled at me. “Hey, Rory. The usual?” He was wearing a white shirt underneath his black apron, which sported a big black kettle on one of the pockets.

“You got it,” I confirmed.

He nodded and entered the amount into the register. He held his hand out, knowing that I already had the money prepared, exact change and everything. “You are definitely my favorite customer.” He winked.

I flashed him a smile, then walked over to the other side of the room, where the “Pick-Up” counter was. My coffee was handed to me a couple of minutes later, sporting a big smiley face drawn in Sharpie. I rolled my eyes, smiling, and waved to Anthony as I exited the coffee shop.

I’ll admit, Anthony was cute, and dating had been brought up a couple of times whenever we talked outside of The Black Kettle, but there was one little problem.

One, itty bitty, hot, ridiculous, stupid, crazy problem.

I still hadn’t gotten over my high school crush.

And oh, it gets worse.

This boy, Jaxin, just happened to be in a band. Said band, The Escapade, just happened to famous worldwide after a few years of playing local while harboring those big-city dreams.

And I’d know, because Jaxin and I? We used to be best friends.

Now, before you get all, “How cliché. Let me guess, he dumped you as a friend and moved on and got famous without you,” no. It didn’t happen like that. Jaxin… I couldn’t stand the hold he had on me. He slowly started becoming a jerk, started to ignore me. So I left our small town of Warner Robins, Georgia, packed up my bags and moved to New York City, where there were plenty of jobs, colleges, opportunities… and boys.

Not that it had made a difference. Because my escapade was rendered futile when Jaxin’s band managed to catch a break. Soon, they were everywhere.

He was everywhere.