You Love To Hate Me

(3 Months Later)

I walked into work. I looked at the empty counter and stood in my spot. It was unusual to have Michelle absent from behind the glass wall. I walked to the back room where the missing Michelle resided with Chad, and another man. This man was unfamiliar to me though. Chad looked up from the two people and at me.

"Maddie it's great that you're here."

"Why is that Chad?" I asked unsurely. The unfamiliar man turned around and looked fairly attractive. He stepped towards me and stuck his hand out.

"Hello Maddie is it? I'm Jimmie." I shook his hand and smiled.

"It's nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine, I have some business to do here in Vegas before I got back to LA." He announced to all of us. We all nodded our heads, and got back to work. Michelle and I took our spots at the counter.

"So how is the divorce going?"

"It's going quite smoothly."

"Well that is good. Has things between Ronnie and you gotten any better?"

"Yeah, it seems like everything is going back to normal. Note to self, never go drinking with Max ever again." I gave Michelle a quick glance.
"You may want to though."

Michelle's cheeks grew a rosy red. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I quickly turned around. Jimmie was standing there with a wide grin on his face. I opened my mouth to talk, but he started talking first.

"I was wondering if you would go to lunch with me today in about 5 minutes."

"Uh, yeah sure," I couldn't think of a formal way to say yes, but he didn't seem to care.

"Good then let's go." He grabbed my hand and we walked out the store's front door. He brought me to his black Volvo, and he opened the passenger side for me. He shut the door and got into the car on his side.

He started the car and sped off down the streets of Vegas. Countless buildings passed us as the silence grew on. I picked at the tear in my shirt and silently scolded myself for not wearing a better shirt. We were leaving the city as houses started becoming more evident. I didn't ask where we were going.

Jimmie's hand swiftly ran over the car's stereo, and he pressed the on button. Music filled our ears, and it was good music. It was the kind of music you would expect from Jimmie. From looks Jimmie was an adult casual punk. He wasn't the one with multicolored hair or countless piercings, but he had quite a few tattoos that I could see. He also had the so called 'punk' clothing down which consisted of tight black pants, and a black dress shirt to make him look like a boss. His hair came down to his shoulders with its various shades of brown throughout it.

He turned into what looked like a resort. I looked helplessly for a sign, but couldn't find one. He parked and shut off the car. He unbuckled his seatbelt and looked at me with a small smile. I unbuckled too, and looked at him.

"Are you ready to go inside?"

"Yeah," I said quieter than I anticipated. He gave me another smile, and opened his door. He got out of the car, and I followed him also getting out on my side. The building had large doors in the front with two smaller doors on what looked like a smaller building attached to the bigger building. We walked to the smaller doors, and entered the building.

A waitress approached us as soon as we walked in. She brought us to a table and we sat down. She handed us the menus and left us. We ordered our drinks and picked out what we were eating. Our waiter took our order and left us again.

"So how long have you owned the store?" I asked striking up a conversation.

"About two years," He said simply.
"I also co-own a music label. No one knows about it though." He laughed.

"What's the label?"

"Epitaph Records, we have some big bands and some smaller ones too."

"You have some good bands. I love your label." I slightly laughed.

"Really," He said trailing into thought while looking at me.
"Maddie, I have a question for you."

"Alright."

"What do you think about moving to Los Angeles?"

"I think I'm too poor to move there." I joked.

"I would pay for everything as long as you do the honors of working for the label."

"You want me to work for your label? As what?"

"As anything you want. You seem like a very approachable person. I think you would do well in anything."

"How long do I have to think about this?" His smile seemed to fade.

"Well I'm leaving in three days. I was hoping you could come with me when I left." I sat back in my seat, and looked off in the distance. I racked my brain for a logical answer. The truth was that I really would love to move to Los Angeles, but I didn't want to leave anyone behind.

I knew the answer.