It's Me or Her

Hayden’s Music Shop, the place Luca Tomlinson will now spend the hours of 4-9pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday thanks to the fact that his mother was making him get a job to teach him responsibility or some stupid shit like that.

“Luca, you made it right on time,” Jack Hayden, owner of the music shop said as he walked out of the backroom and saw an awkward looking Luca standing there playing with the hem of his shirt. “Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the young man who will be training you,” he said as he motioned for Luca to follow him and went back in the back room.

Luca knew he should be paying attention to everything the older man was pointing out to him, but he was just too nervous to do anything but look around and hope he didn’t make a fool of himself on his first day. He knew that Daxton, his crush from school worked here and he’d rather not fall flat on his face in front of the guy.

“Alright Luca, this is Daxton, my newest assistant manager and the young man who will be training you for the next few days until you have a handle on things. Daxton, this is our newest hire Luca. I need you to show him the ropes. Think you can do that?” Jack asked as he put a hand on Daxton’s shoulder with a smile.

“Of course,” Daxton said with a bright white smile.

“Thanks Dax,” Jack said returning the smile. “Now I’ve got to go take care of some business so I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he said before turning on his heels and heading into his office in the very back of the store.

“Well Luca, just follow me and we’ll get your training started,” Daxton said before walking forward and leading Luca back out the door and onto the main sales floor. “So is this your first job?”

“Yeah,” Luca said barely above a whisper.

“I kind of figured with how nervous you’re acting,” Daxton said with a laugh, his brown eyes seeming to get brighter. “Don’t worry, once you get the hang of everything you will be super comfortable here; trust me.”

“I’m not too about that,” he said in his usual, quiet voice.

With a silent laugh and a shake of his head, Daxton lead Luca over to the registers that were stationed near the front of the store. As Daxton quickly went on to explaining everything from how to work the register to what foods and drink Jack would allow you to hid under there, Luca took his time to once again look around the store.

Music promo posters lined the walls; some of them were signed by the artist portrayed by them, others looked as though they were once hanging on a building promoting a local show and someone came by and ripped them down. The back corner of the shop, to the right of the back room door there was a small room that was filled with musical instruments all of kinds, some for sale and others just for customers to play if they wanted to. On top of that the walls and aisles were lined with CDs of all genres in as much of an order as they could be.

“So does that all make sense?” Daxton asked, turning to face Luca.

“Wait, what?” Luca squeaked while jumping slightly.

“Does everything I told you about working the register make sense to you?” Taking one look at Luca’s face and Daxton could tell just how confused he was. “You weren’t even listening were you?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Luca squeaked again.

“I know you’re scared and nervous, but you really need to learn this stuff. The quicker you learn it, the quicker you can show up all these other kids,” he said with a laugh making Luca even more nervous.

As much as Luca wanted this to go well enough that he wouldn’t make a complete fool of himself, he didn’t want to ‘show everyone up’ as Daxton said and bring more attention to himself then he needed. Luca wanted nothing more than to get by at this job was a few people noticing him as possible.

“Maybe we should start you off with working in the backroom until you get more comfortable here,” Daxton said before turning to the girl who had been at the counter with them and telling her something before they went back into the backroom. “Now working in the backroom is not that hard to do. All you have to do is sort the shipments we received,” he instructed as he put their latest shipments onto the table.

“How do you sort them?” Luca whispered.

“It’s real easy, I promise,” Daxton said with a smile as he opened a box and pulled out a large pile of CDs for them to sort.



Two weeks later and things were going great. The week before Luca had finally agreed to work the register; Daxton just had to stand next to him the whole time to make sure that he didn’t screw anything up. A week after that and Luca was finally feeling as though he could be left alone at the register without screwing something up.

At the same time Daxton was so proud to see Luca becoming comfortable in his skin. After their first day working together where Luca would practically finch at any loud noise, Daxton was worried he'd quit; but thankfully he had stuck it out and now he was doing such a great job.

“I was thinking we should go out and celebrate,” Daxton said coming up behind Luca and making him jump.

“Celebrate what?” Luca asked quietly, sweeping a piece of blonde hair off his forehead.

“You’ve survived your first two weeks,” the older boy said with excitement.

“Barley,” Luca muttered as he started walking away from the register.

“Either way we’re going out to dinner to celebrate,” he said grabbing his coat out from under the front counter. “Now grab your coat and let’s go.”

After hesitating for a few seconds Luca reached under the counter and grabbed his own coat before quickly following Daxton out of the store and down the street to a nice little Chinese restaurant on the corner.

“Do you always take the new employees out to celebrate their second week?”

“Nope; only the special ones,” he said as he opened the door and lead Luca inside and got them a table.



On his third week of work is when everything started changing for Luca. Not only had Daxton been taking him out to dinner after work, on the nights Luca worked, but Daxton had told them they were going out for a very special dinner that night, and we couldn’t wait.

“Ready for tonight?” Daxton asked as he came up behind Luca, scaring him slightly as he wrapped his arms around the small boy’s waist.

“Yes,” Luca squeaked, feeling uneasy about the people in the shop looking at him. “What is so special about tonight anyways?”

"You’ll just have to wait and see.”

For the next three hours of his shift Luca couldn’t help but think about what might happen that night. Yes, he had a crush on Daxton, and yes the older boy was being so kind to him since he started working there, but there was no way he could like him back. Daxton was one of the ‘cool kids’ and Luca was one of the ‘emo kids’ so there was no way they could ever be together; right?



Three and a half hours later and Luca was in the backroom pulling on his coat still trying to figure out where Daxton might be taking him.

“I hear you’re going out to dinner with Daxton again tonight. It’s so great to see that you two are becoming such great friends,” Jack said with a smile as he came over and patted the young boys back.

“Yeah, me too. I was kind of afraid I wouldn’t make any friends here,” Luca said with a shrug. “At least it’s nice to know someone wants to talk to me.”

“Well it looks like Daxton’s on his way back here, so you two boys have fun tonight and I’ll see you Monday,” the old man said before walking back into his office.

“Let’s go,” Daxton said as he punched out for the day and threw on his coat.

“So are you ever going to tell me what’s so special about tonight?” Luca asked once again, not liking the idea of a surprise.

“You’re not going to stop asking me until I tell you, are you?” the older boy asked before looking over to see Luca nodding his head. “Fine, I was going to ask you a very important question.”

“And that question being,” Luca said prompting Daxton to continue when he paused.

“If you’d be my boyfriend,” Daxton smiled. “So what do you say?”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“One hundred percent. So… you’re really hurting my ego by not answering.”

“Yes,” Luca whispered quietly, scared that this wasn’t really happening.

“Well then babe, let’s go get some dinner,” Daxton said throwing his arm around Luca’s shoulder, pulling him close and leading them to a nearby restaurant.



A month later and Luca couldn’t have been happier. Not only had he been working at the music job for almost two months and had yet to make a fool of himself, but also he had been dating Daxton for a month and he felt as though nothing could go wrong. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when he worked Daxton would take him out for dinner afterwards and then on Saturday they would be spending the whole day together unless Daxton had to cover for Jack. For Luca nothing could go wrong, his life was just so great right now.

“Excuse me; is Daxton here,” a voice said from behind Luca making him spin around after jumping slightly.

“Yeah, let me page him for you real quick,” Luca said before picking up the phone and calling Dax upfront.

“What’s up b-Luca,” Daxton said as he walked upfront and saw Luca standing behind the counter with a girl with bright reddish pink hair in front of him.

“This girl was looking for you,” he said with a smile.

“Alright, I’ll take care of this, why don’t you go in back and finish sorting the new shipment for me,” the older boy said before walking over to the register. “I’ll cover for you out here.”

“Okay,” Luca said looking between the two, slightly confused by how antsy and nervous Daxton looked. “Just page me if you need me,” he said before walking into the back, looking over his shoulder at the two every few steps.

"Where’s Daxton?” Allie, a co-worker that had been working with Daxton asked as Luca walked into the backroom.

“He’s talking to some girl up front and told me to come back here,” Luca said with a shrug. “So where are we at?”

“What did the girl look like?” Allie asked ignoring Luca’s question.

“Um, really pretty with reddish pink hair. Why does it matter?”

“Aimée’s back,” the girl said excitedly making to go out the backroom and out front.

“Who’s Aimée?”

“Dax’s girlfriend; she’s been on vacation with her family for the past two months. I’m so glad she’s back,” Allie said before running out of the room and out to hug her friend who just got back.

Following Allie out the door, Luca looked out just in time to see Allie break apart the two who were currently too busy making out to notice the customers at the counter that wanted to check out.

“Aimée, why didn’t you tell me you were back?” Allie said running over and hugging her best friend, breaking her apart from Daxton and allowing him to go wait on the impatient customers.

Walking back into the backroom, Luca quickly made his way into Jack’s office.

“I’m not feeling too well. Is it okay if I go home early?” he asked walking into the room to see the old man typing away at his desk.

“Of course, rest up,” the man said letting Luca go.

Grabbing his coat, Luca quickly punched out and quickly walked out of the store, ignoring the questioning looks from his co-workers and his supposed boyfriend.

“Who’s the new guy?” Aimée asked as Luca ran past them.

“That’s Luca, he’s such a sweetie pie,” Allie said with a smile. “He’s barely worked here two months, but he’s quickly becoming a great friend of Dax and myself. I’m sure once you official meet him you will love him too.”

“Well I can’t wait to actually meet him then,” she said with a smile before turning to Daxton. “So do you want to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate my homecoming?”

“I would love to, but I have to get home right away tonight,” he lied after looking down at his phone and seeing Luca’s text message that said ‘we need to talk NOW’.

"Why, what's wrong? Is everything okay at home?” she asked getting worried.

“Don’t worry everything’s fine. I just promised I would babysit Tony so that mom and dad could have a late dinner out.”

“I don’t think they would mind me tagging along, so why don’t I bring a pizza by,” she suggested.

“Aimée, don’t worry about it. I think Tony and I need to have some brother bonding time.”

“But baby, I just got home. Don’t you think Tony would want to see me again,” she said trying to use her infamous puppy dog eyes to try and get Daxton to see things her way.



On Sunday afternoon, two days after Luca found out Daxton’s little secret, two day of Daxton ignoring Luca’s texts and calls; Daxton finally decided to go by Luca’s house to talk to him and get everything over with.

“Finally decided to talk to me?” Luca asked with his eyes flaming as he opened the front door to see his boyfriend, or more likely soon to be ex-boyfriend.

“It’s not what you think.”

“What’s not what I think? The fact that you have a girlfriend, or the fact that you’ve basically made me the other woman for the last few weeks.”

“Luca…”

“No, you’ve been lying to me for weeks. Why would you even work so hard to get me to go out with you if you had a girlfriend?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Want to tell me how it’s complicated?”

“I’ve been with Aimée for almost two years, I thought I loved her and that she might be the one. But then I met you and I started questioning things, and started falling for you, so I just had to ask you out.”

“If you really were questioning things you should have broken up with her before asking me out. That’s what a real man would have done,” Luca said getting ready to slam the still open door in Daxton’s face.

“Luca please,” Daxton started looking heartbroken.

“You’re going to have to decide if you want to be with me or her. But I don’t want to hear from you again until you decide,” he said before shutting the door and ignoring the knocks on his door.



“Afternoon Luca, how’s your day been so far?” Daxton asked Monday afternoon when Luca walked into the music shop and headed to the back to put away his coat, completely ignoring Daxton. “Are you just going to ignore me?”

Without a word, Luca kept walking and put his coat away before going to find Allie to ask her where he was supposed to be working that day.

“You’re scheduled to work in back with Daxton, I’m going to be running the counter and why aren’t you asking Daxton this?” she said as she put her name badge on.

“Because I’m not,” he said with a shrug not offering up any more information. “Do you want to switch jobs? I know you prefer to be at the counter.”

“Okay, something is up and I need to know what it is,” she said as she threw her hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Daxton and he’s going to run the counter while we talk.” With that said she walked out of the backroom and left Luca alone to think about everything.



“You are such a fucking idiot,” Allie said hours later once Luca had left for the day, leaving her alone with Daxton.

“Excuse me?” Daxton asked turning around to face Allie.

“You my friend are a fucking idiot. How could you hurt such a sweet boy like Luca, and my best friend; do her feelings mean nothing to you? I thought you loved her.”

“He told you didn’t he?” Daxton asked.

“Yes, he told me what a piece of shit you are; just as he should have. Seriously; how long did you think you could keep this up? I mean Aimée comes in here all the time. They were bound to find out about each other eventually. You need to man up and make a chose, and do it quick before you hurt two innocent people.”

“You don’t think I already know that? I messed up and I need to fix it. I just don’t know how to yet, but trust me when I say I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Figure it out fast Daxton. You have 24 hours before I tell Aimée everything.”

“Fine,” he said before grabbing his coat and storming out of the music shop in hopes of figuring things out.



I’m sorry it had to be this way; I’m sorry I had to end things between us this way, but it’s for the best. Clearly we weren’t meant to be. If we were none of this would have happened and we would have been happy. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me one day, but if you don’t I completely understand why. Like I said… I’m sorry.

Hitting the end button on his phones display Daxton set the phone in the cup holder of his car and quickly grabbed the flowers off his passenger seat. With a sigh he quickly opened the door and stepped out of the car before his fear could stop him.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you again?

“You told me you didn’t want to see me again until I made a decision, and I have.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah Luca, I chose you. If I really was meant to be with Aimée I wouldn’t have ever gone after you, so clearly you’re the one for me. You just have to say yes. So what do you say?” he said with a smile as he held up the bouquet of tiger lilies; Luca’s favorite flower.

“Screw up again and I’m gone,” he said with a small smile as he grabbed the flowers and lifted them to his nose.

“I won’t screw up again. Promise,” the older boy said with a bright smile before placing a kiss on Luca’s lips and following the boy into the house once Luca had grabbed his hand and tugged Daxton after himself.