A Place on My Pillow

“Polly! I have to go take care of my granddaughter. Poor thing has the flu and my daughter can’t miss any more work. Will you mind the store for a few extra hours? Darren will be in soon to stock. All you need to do is ring people up, if they come in. Will that be okay? I’ll pay you overtime!” Millie begged, coming out from the backroom where the phone rested. They kept all of their belongings in little cubbies in that room, as well as books people had put on hold until they have some spare cash. They would keep all kinds of things back there, crafts for Millie’s grandkids and food in case they got hungry. If something needed a place, that’s where it went.

“Go. Go. Take care of your grandbaby. Which one’s sick?”

“Lyda,” Millie answered, pulling her coat on and then grabbed her bag from behind the register.

“Aww, poor Lyda. Do you want me to cash out and do the reports too so you can stay with her all night?”

“Would you? Oh my, what did I do to deserve you, Pollyanna Salisbury! You are my own personal angel. Thank you!”

She hurried to Polly and pressed a kiss into her cheek.

“Call me if you have a question. ‘Risa’s phone number is on the cork board.”

With that, Millie grabbed her keys and left, heading towards her daughter’s home for the night. Polly was alone in the store, not for the first time however. Millie trusted the blonde-haired girl, and liked the fact that Polly was a quick study. Millie quickly taught her how to inventory and how to stock books, followed by cashing out the register at night, closing the store and even doing Millie’s business reports for that night. Polly enjoyed the job and would do anything to help out her eccentric little boss with the pink hair.
She cleaned idly, waiting for any customers. When none came, she turned her attention to waiting for Darren, the mysterious coworker that she had never met before. Millie had said he’d been on leave for some reason, Polly recalled. But then again, Polly also thought, she had been very insistent on being vague about the whole situation surrounding Darren and his “leave”. Now, Polly was always one to see the best in people. But when you’re taking vacations that even your boss, who is an old gossip, doesn’t want to talk about, that’s a little sketchy. Beyond a little sketchy.

It set her teeth on edge, actually.

“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII,” Polly sang obnoxiously, “am so bored with being here alone. I would much rather be on the phone, except not because I hate the phone. I hate the pho-oh-oooooooooone.”

“That’s not nice. What did the phone ever do to you?” a soft bass replied from the back door. Polly jumped off her seat behind the counter but didn’t quite get her feet underneath her in time. She slammed onto her half-folded leg and yelped in pain. The speaker rushed to her side.

“Are you alright? I didn’t mean to startle you that much,” he apologized.

“It’s okay. I should’ve known the minute I got so bored that I started singing, you’d show up.”

He smirked and helped her up.

“Can you walk on it? Your ankle, I mean.”

He let her go and watched as she hobbled slowly forward, her balance off and her steps cautious.

“It hurts,” she whined. He helped her back, keeping her weight off the injured ankle. Once settled into the chair behind the cash register, Polly stopped and got a good look at the tall, dark and handsome stranger. He was just that too, tall, olive-skinned with a mop of ebony-colored waves atop his head. He had dark eyes, a brown so dark that you could not tell where his iris ended and his pupil began. He had chiseled features as well, coupled with a pair of full lips and long, dark lashes. Across his broad chest, he wore a simple black t-shirt, over a pair of regular old faded jeans. And he was staring right back at Pollyanna, as if checking her out in return.

“I’m Polly,” she finally said, extending her hand. He took it graciously and bat those long lashes at her.

“Darren,” he replied. She smiled and withdrew her hand.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Darren, but you’re late.”

He glanced at the clock behind the register desk and nodded.

“So I am. I should go sign in then.”

“Yeah, get to work,” she said, winking at him. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, although she had a pretty good guess. The sociopath had had dark eyes like that, so dark you couldn’t read any emotion from them. Mystery surrounded them. She was a sucker for a good mystery.

She watched as the dark-haired coworker slipped into the backroom and turned her attention to the ring of the front bell.

“Pollyanna!” someone yelled through the store.

“I’m back here, you idgit. Keep your voice down,” she replied, as Alex popped around a bookshelf.

“I figured you’d still be here, so I brought you dinner!” he said, placing the lunch pail he was carrying in front of her.

“Awwww, thanks, Lex,” Polly gushed, pulling it towards her. She opened it and extracted three off-brand containers. One held salad, complete with croutons and cucumbers, just the way she liked. Another was filled with mushroom rice, homemade and a Cady-only recipe. The last held a large hunk of Alex’s famous meatloaf, which was honestly the best meatloaf that Polly had ever tasted. This too was a secret recipe, handed down from generation to generation and tweaked by each person. But Alex’s was by far the best, at least in Polly’s opinion. At the bottom of the pail, there was a small bottle of her favorite dressing and a sandwich bag housing three chocolate chip cookies, from the store. Polly didn’t trust the twins to bake. They could make rice and meatloaf but the minute you trust them with anything more complicated, like brownies or cake for example, they could burn the house down.

“This is perfect. Thank you!”

“Well, I just figured since you’re pulling extra hours for Millie, you deserve a nice home cooked meal.”

“Come over here so I can kiss you,” Polly said. He blushed but rounded the counter. She pulled him into a hug and pressed a quick kiss into his lips. It was the first kiss they’d shared, although it was just a friendly peck on the lips.

“Do you want to stick around or,” she said softly, trailing off as she looked up at him. Those eyes. He smiled but shook his head.

“I can’t. I promised Cady I’d watch her stupid chick flick marathon. She made me promise I’d do whatever she wants for the next week.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I snapped at her one night.”

“That wasn’t nice.”

“I didn’t mean it. She was talking so loudly and I was so tired. Honestly, that girl has no inside voice when you’re trying to sleep.”

Polly had noticed that.

“Well, go have fun. I’ll be home late tonight,” Polly replied. He headed off, glancing back at her once more before shelves blocked his view.

“Who was that?” Darren asked, appearing from the back room.

“My roommate.”

“Looked more like your husband.”

Polly laughed.

“No, we’re just friends.”

“Could’ve fooled me. He brought you food and you kissed him, and you asked him to stay but he had to go be with someone else,” he said.

“His sister,” Polly cut him off. He cocked his eyebrow up.

“You were quick to correct me, Pollyanna. Do you like him?”

“No,” Polly said slower, as not to raise even more doubt in Darren’s mind. “He’s just a friend.”

He shrugged and went to do his job, grabbing a box of books from behind the counter. Polly put his comment out of mind and grabbed the fork that Alex had packed her. She dug in and grinned at that secret flavor of the meatloaf that taunted her taste buds. He refused to tell her what it was, claiming that the only way she would find out is if she married him, or magically turned into his daughter. She had promised him neither would happen.

“You would make a cute married couple,” Darren said, passing her with the empty box some time later. “But I bet we’d make an even cuter couple.”

“Who, you and Alex? I doubt it. He’s not gay. I mean, he has some tendencies, but he’s not gay.”

“I wasn’t talking about me and Alex.”

Polly wasn’t stupid, she knew he was talking about him and her, the two of them. But she wasn’t interested. Well, she was but she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to want him, especially not the way she did. It was a primal kind of want, like being turned on for all the wrong reasons. He was sexy but it was that obvious way that Polly wasn’t normally attracted to. The worst part about all of it was that he knew he was attractive, and he was cocky about it. He almost strutted about, like he owned the world and he could go anywhere. He had this self-confident glint in his eyes, much like the sociopath’s, that said that he could get any girl that he wanted, that he could get them out of their clothes with one simple look. That look drove Polly crazy because he thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, God’s gift to women.

“Oh?” she asked, playing dumb anyway.

“You. Me. Get where I’m going with this?” he asked, leaning over the counter to stare at her. It made her uncomfortable, skin crawling under his intense stare. It wasn’t creepy though. It was how close he’d gotten to her, with that look like he wanted to strip her of her clothes and make her wish she’d never met him. She bet that he was the one-night-stand kind of guy, the tease ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. And in the worst way, she was excited by this.

“I believe so,” she responded, trying not to lead him on.

“Interested?”

“No. I don’t date guys like you,” she said flatly, turning back to her dinner. She opened the small bottle of dressing and poured some onto her salad. She kept her attention on the food as she heard Darren’s steps leading away. She sat back momentarily and stared at the door as she also heard slamming. She’d made him mad. It was going to be a long night.