Drown Me In The Flames

There was something about the red jacket and black spikey hair that I just couldn’t resist. My eyes were glued to him for the entire train ride. He and his friend laughed as they were squashed together when the train would jolt forwards and backwards, as I just watched, trying to avoid pushing other passengers. When he laughed his eyes lit up and filled with pure joy. He was exerting happiness and no one seemed to notice or care. I noticed the wrinkles and crinkles in his face and just wanted to run my fingers over the lines on his face. You could see his dimples clearly when he laughed, and oh, they were so cute.

‘Next stop: Southern Star Station’

My stop was Falcon Street Station, to more stops away in the heart of the city, but I saw Spikes and his friend were preparing to get off at this station. I really didn’t want to lose this good-looking guy, and my mind couldn’t come up with any really good excuses not to follow him.

“Now arriving at: Southern Star Station’

I grabbed my small black leather bag by the long strap, and threw it over my shoulder when I definitely knew that Spikes was getting off. The doors of the train opened and made a beeping sound. He was closer to the opening doors than I was, and was basically the second one off the train. Whereas because some people were extremely rude and thought that because they were bigger than others, they can push in front of you, I ended up being one of the people to get off at this stop. I quickly tapped my card and tried to find Spikes and his friend. I had tried to watch them as they got off the train as I pushed my way off, but I had lost sight of them at the last second. I couldn’t find any spikes, but I did see a splash of red that looked extremely similar to the shade of his jacket. I couldn’t let him get away, because damn, he was extremely good-looking and cute, especially when he laughed.

I tried to push my way through the giant of people who were crossing the busy street, but I didn’t seem to get very far forward. Once I had crossed the street, I jogged, the sound of my short heels against the concrete attracted the eyes of many city goers. Some people gave me strange looks but I ignored them, destined to find Spikes. I found it difficult to follow the constantly moving splash of red, but eventually got closer to it. There was no longer a large crowd of people between myself and the red, so it was easier for me to keep my eyes on it.

“Um, excuse me, can you please tell me the time?” A woman in her late 50’s or early 60’s asked me.

“Um, sure,” I pulled the sleeve of my black cardigan to the middle of my forearm to reveal my chunky gold watch, “it’s 10 past 10.”

“Thank you,” the woman smiled and walked away slowly.

I smiled and looked at my watch again, it couldn’t have been 10 past 10.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath at the realisation it was in fact 10:10 and I was late for work. I must have already been 5 minutes late when we were about to stop at Southern Stars Station. I couldn’t be late for work, but I also couldn’t let what I thought was Spikes get away. I decided that if I was already 10 minutes late, another 5-10 minutes wouldn’t hurt me too much, so I continued to follow the red splash. I powered walked after the red, swaying my hips like Kel from Kath & Kim (A/N – um only Aussies will really know this but yeah it’s hilarious), which was getting me closer to the red, but also getting me glares and snickers from the people I walked past.

As I made my way closer to the red, I realised it was definitely Spikes and his friend. They started to slow and look around.

“Yeah, it has to be around here, that’s number 180 so it must be down a little further,” said Spikes’ friend. They were obviously looking for a shop. Spikes laughed at the comment his friend made and they kept walking. They then turned into a shop with giant double doors, covered in posters. They were unreadable, as I was quite a fair way and I didn’t have my glasses on yet. I got closer to the shop they entered and realised it was a music store, fancy guitars and drum kits in the windows. I had no interest to go in and I couldn’t be any later to work so I had to stop my search and head to the café where I worked.

I was already in the city, but the opposite side of my work, and I couldn’t walk there quickly enough, so I went to the closest tram stop and waited for the city loop tram. I was only waiting for about 2 minutes before it arrived. There were no other people at the tram stop but the tram was already packed. I stepped up the two metal steps onto the tram, tapped my card and stood pretty much right in front of the door, hoping not to squish anyone as they tried to walk out. It took me about 5 minutes, 10 minutes faster than if I had walked, to get to the tram stop nearest my work. I quickly tapped my card and jumped of the tram, running towards the café.

I opened the glass door of the café, causing the bell hanging off it to ring. All of the workers in the store looked up from what they were doing and stared at me. I could feel my cheeks getting warmer as my boss walked towards me and shook his head.

“Skylar, you’re 20 minutes late, everyone’s been wondering where you are, as well as myself. The usuals have been complaining because their coffee is not as good as usual because you haven’t made it. One more time and I’ll unfortunately have to let you go, even though you’re one of the head baristas. Please don’t be late again Skylar, for the rest of us.”

The other workers looked up and nodded. I really liked working at the café and didn't want to leave everyone. I gulped, nodded at my boss as I apologised and walked to the back to put my bag away. I put my dark tortoise shell glasses on and placed my bag in my small locker. As soon I put it down, I headed to the giant coffee machine and started to my job, all while thinking about Spikes.