A/N: okay I know I have like two other stories that I should be working on buuuuuuuuuuut this has been in my Google Docs since NaNoWriMo 14. And I actually reached 50K so there's already like eight written chappies! So basically this will be a story I update every so often (probably when I'm struggling with Writer's Block with Redemption and Pursuit of Happiness lmaoooo) anyways here's a new story, hope you like it and don't forget to Read&Review!

Chapter One: Hello

Out of all the places I could've worked, I chose the place that has the most people on a daily basis.

Back when I was a freshman, the thought of working was almost a sure thing for me. I had gotten a scholarship for my tuition and my room and board, but everything else was out of my reach. I didn't qualify for work-study, and I needed a job quick.

This was the only place hiring.

Working in retail, I've learned how to deal with more ignorance than I've possibly needed to. These entitled rich kids thought they could treat workers any way they wanted to and I was the first person to shut down any classist thoughts. Will liked that about me.

To the students, we were known as "Mini-Walmart." It was probably the most fitting name I've heard. Whatever a college student needed, we sold it. Cheap food, school gear, alcohol, everything. We were open twenty-four hours, but I almost never worked past six. I refused to deal with drunk white kids.

The first couple of weeks of school were always hell. Everyone came in during my shift, trying to get last minutes things for their dorm. It was our version of Black Friday. We usually had to close for an hour in the middle of the night to clean up the place. Everyone hated the beginning of school.

At the moment though, everything seemed to have calmed down and there was practically no one in the store. This was unusual for me, but I wasn't going to start complaining. I leaned against the counter and pulled out my newspaper for the day. This was the only time I had to read it.

"Yo Huey! Wassup, my nig—"

"Finish that word Nick, and I will not hesitate to punch you straight in the mouth," I quickly interrupted before he lost his life today. He shrugged and sat down on the counter next to me. "Did you check all the aisles?"

"Yeah, I kinda cleaned up and shit," he answered, looking down at his phone.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean 'You kinda cleaned up'?" I asked. "You either cleaned or you didn't." He said nothing in response. "You didn't clean anything, did you?"

He shrugged in response.

Unbelievable. Nick was one of the laziest people I've ever met, second only to Riley. He showed up for work late, never did what someone asked him to do, and would leave for hours at the most inconvenient times. He was lucky his father owned the store or his ass would've been fired a long time ago.

I shook my head and continued to read my newspaper. He started to look over my shoulder, trying to read what I was reading. I knew he wanted to say something, so I waited for him to start talking.

"Why are you always reading the paper?"

"I'm sorry?" I questioned.

"Like, every time I see you, you always reading the newspaper. I don't think I've seen you read anything else but a newspaper." I wasn't going to dignify his question with a response. I focused back on the paper in front of me. "Yo, check out the group of girls leaving out through the front."

I paid them no mind because Nick had bad taste in women and I didn't care about anything he had to say. I was just here to get a paycheck and get the fuck out of here. I wasn't here to socialize.

"I'm gonna go talk to them for a minute," he said, jumping down from the counter and running towards the front door. He turned around first. "If my dad asks, tell him I went to the back or something. Just cover for me, Huey."

"Are you serious right now?" I muttered under my breath. Unfortunately for me, Nick was the only other worker scheduled besides me at this time. Which meant I was the only employee in the building right now.

I hated Nick.

I put down my newspaper and started to watch the store. I wasn't going to risk my job because Nick wanted to go chase girls. No one was going to get away with anything on my watch. I had to tell Will when he comes in for the day. It'll probably go through one ear and out the other, but I needed to tell him nevertheless.

I drummed my fingers on the counter while I continued to stare blankly at the wall in front of me. There was now no one in the store but me, and I took the opportunity to start on some of my homework. Might as well make use of the silence.

"Do you think I need a new hoodie?"

I looked up to see two girls walk into the store. The blonde girl said something to the curly haired girl before walking over to the food section of the store. The curly haired girl stayed in the apparel section, which happened to be in front of me.

I couldn't help it; I stared at her.

She thumbed through the women's rack, talking to herself as she looked at our selection. She bobbed her head to a song only she could hear, her curls flowing with her movement.

She was pretty cute.

She held a black hoodie up to examine it more. Her focus went from the hoodie to the person that was looking at her. Me. Her brows furrowed in confusion.

I froze for a second before turning away from her, trying to look at anything that wasn't the girl that just caught me staring at her. I grabbed my open textbook and buried my face into it. I've never felt so hot in my life.

"What are you looking at?" I heard the blonde friend say. She finally came back from whatever she was doing. At good timing, too. "Were you staring at the cashier guy?" she questioned in a low voice.

What?

"No!" another person said nervously. I assumed this was the curly haired girl. Was she looking back at me? Was she checking me out? "I was… just trying to see if they were hiring," she announced.

Well that answered my question.

The blonde girl gasped. "Jazmine, are you crazy? Your dad will kill you if you got a job!"

Jazmine.

I looked back to the girls having a conversation. Jazmine just shrugged in response. She walked forwards to the counter in front of me. She gave me a huge smile. "Do you know if you guys are hiring right now?" she asked me.

Her friend followed her. "Jazzy, seriously. Think about this. Do you really want to be apart of the working class?" she inquired. She said it with so much venom that I had to assume she was a privileged white girl. And I was usually right about these types of things.

"Cindy. I got this. I don't have to listen to my dad all the time," Jazmine hushed. She looked back at me. "So…? Hiring or nah?"

"I mean, we're always looking for people," I answered truthfully. Employees came and went during my time working here so I'm pretty sure Will was looking for some more workers. "You should come back on Monday and my boss will talk to you about it."

She smiled again. "Cool!" she beamed. Her smile was almost infectious. "I'll see you too on Monday maybe?" she asked, almost as if she was hoping that I worked on that day.

"Yeah, I work on Monday too."

"Awesome! So I'll see you and your boss on Monday," she responded. "By the way, my name is Jazmine."

"Huey," I said back.

She shook my hand. "Nice to meet you, Huey."

Her friend watched the encounter, but said nothing as she paid for her food. As her and Jazmine left, she pulled Jazmine close to her body. "What the hell was that?" she confusedly asked as they walked out of the door.

Honestly, I didn't know either. Was she just staring at me to try to get a job? Or... was she just using the job to cover the fact that she was staring at me? And why would her dad be mad if she got a job?

I didn't want to think about it because customers started to come into the store. I didn't want to be distracted by an awfully pretty girl who was flirting with me.

I smirked to myself.

My shift was thirty minutes from being done and I was waiting for the clock out of the day. As I was ringing up a customer, Will walked in the building. I nodded at him as he was walking to his office.

"What's up, Huey my man?" he questioned as he stepped into his office, leaving the door open. "Nothing happened while I was gone did it? No robberies, no thefts to report?"

"Nope," I answered. "Everything went well, surprisingly."

He walked to the front counter and stood by me. He looked around for a second. "Where's Nick?"

"Well, Nick left for about an hour doing god-knows-what, and then I think he went to sleep in one of the dressing rooms," I explained.

"I need to talk to that boy." Will shook his head. "I need to fire him and hire someone more competent than him." He started to walk to where the dressing rooms were located.

"Wait," I stopped him. He turned to look at me. "Speaking of hiring someone, there was someone that came in looking for a job earlier today."

He leaned against the counter and folded his arms. "What do you think about them? Did they seem competent to you? Do you think they'd be a better employee than Nick?"

"Anyone's a better employee than Nick," I declared. Will laughed. "I mean, I think she seems like a nice person and she seems like she would do a good job. Anyway I told her to come and talk to you on Monday."

"Wait. She?" he repeated. I nodded. "This was a girl? Are you sure you aren't saying all these good things about her so you can try to get with her?" he inquired. I felt my face start to redden. Luckily he was too busy distracted by an email to see my face. "I'm just kidding, Huey. Look, if you think she'll be a good fit here, then you can give the first interview. You're practically a manger here anyways."

"Oh" was all I could muster up. I did feel like a manager sometimes when I was working on a lot of things at once. Especially when Nick was nowhere to be found. "Yeah, I'll do that."

"Huey, when's the last time you've gotten to leave early?" he asked when he finally looked up again. I shrugged. I don't think I ever got to leave early. "Consider it a gift for finding another potential employee."

"But I didn't find—" I stopped myself before I ruined this for me. "Thanks Will," I humbly thanked.

"No problem. You deserve it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go talk to my lazy son."

I grabbed all my things and clocked out before Will could change his mind. Not that he would anyways; he always stuck to his word. I made my way across the street to find myself back on campus. A few minutes later, I was in my dorm complex.

I took the stairs up to my floor, where I ran into Hiro. He stopped to talk to me.

"Hey man, what's up?" I greeted.

"Nothing, going to get some notes from this girl in my class," he replied. "Have you talked to Caesar?"

I shook my head. "Not since this morning, no," I replied. "Why? Something wrong?"

"Nah, he was telling me about something and I was wondering if he told you yet," he said. He started to walk again. "I'm pretty sure he'll tell you about it soon enough," he added as he walked down the stairs.

Okay, that was weird, even for Hiro's standard. Caesar hadn't mentioned to anything to me all day. I checked my phone. I hadn't gotten any texts from him recently. Maybe he'll say what he had to say when I got to the dorm.

I unlocked my door to see Maliyah on Caesar's bed, watching our TV. I threw my backpack on my bed. "Hey Mali," I greeted. She threw a peace sign back at me. "Where's Caesar?" I asked.

"Went to go talk to Tia. Officially off."

I grunted in response. They played this game way too often for me to get interested in their relationship. I took the news with a grain of salt and sat down on my bed.

"Do you know if Ceez wants to tell me something?" I asked Maliyah. She looked confusedly at me. "I ran into Hiro and he asked me if Caesar talked to me yet."

"Probably wants to ask you about the party that's going on tonight," she answered without even glancing in my direction. "He wants you to go for some reason."

I raised an eyebrow. Why the hell would he want me to go a party? Me, of all people. I only went to parties on rare occasions and even then I didn't stay for long.

"He can forget about it then," I answered, grabbing a book from the desk. I turned to the dog-eared page. "I'm not going out tonight."

The front door unlocked and Caesar walked in. He looked at Maliyah and I staring at him. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Look, here's your chance to tell him now," Maliyah said to me.

"Tell me what?" Caesar inquired as he sat down in his desk chair. He looked at me. "Tell me what?" he repeated with more venom, now wanting to know what was going on between them.

"I'm not going to whatever party you're planning on dragging me to," I answered swiftly.

"What part—"

"I already told him Ceez," Maliyah interrupted. Caesar pushed her in her shoulder. "What? You should be mad at Hiro! He was the first one to fuck up and say something!"

"I thought we agreed to wait until I told him and eased him into it!"

"Tell that to Hiro!"

"What are you three scheming?" I was tired of listening to them argue about whatever they were bickering about; I needed to find out what the hell was happening. They stared at me as if I had two heads. Maybe they didn't hear me the first time. "What are you guys trying to do?"

Caesar looked at Maliyah, then back at me. "We were… just trying to get you to come out…" he answered sheepishly. "You know, it's been a while…" I rolled my eyes and went back to my book. "Come on, Huey everybody knows you haven't gone out since Celeste."

I wondered why Caesar brought up Celeste. It wasn't like I went out to parties while I was with her. In fact, I probably stayed in more. I never liked going out, and Celeste just gave me a reason to say no.

But she wasn't here anymore. My reason was gone.

Now, Caesar felt a need to help me get over her. I wasn't moping over her, crying myself to sleep over the loss. I kept going, as did she, with my life. I was fine: with or without her. But he still felt a need.

Maliyah smacked Caesar's arm. "Don't be rude," she muttered at him. She looked at me with sad eyes. Does she feel sorry for me? "Huey, we just want what's best for you. And we think it'll be best if you went out with us."

"What?"

"Come on man, it'll be fun if you came out with us!" he offered, trying to convince me to out with them. I stared at him and gave him a harder scowl. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No."

I didn't what he said nor did I care about what he was gonna say; there was no chance in hell was going to convince me to leave this dorm room. A party was just another excuse for dumb niggas to drink and get dumber and slutty girls to get sluttier. I didn't want to have any part in that.

"Come on, Huey!" Maliyah whined.

"No."

Caesar threw his hands in the air in defeat. Maliyah huffed with a pout on her face. I didn't care about how they felt. Celeste wasn't the cause of any of my problems and I didn't need to "go out" to forget about her.

I ignored them and went back to my book. "I'm fine with staying here for the night," I announced while I turned a page. "You guys can go out if you want to."

"But we wanna go with you," Maliyah whined again.

"Let me think about it. No," I replied without taking a breath. I needed to work on my research paper for Early American Law that was due on Tuesday. I didn't have time to deal with idiotic college students. "Now, unless you want to do my homework for me, I have work to do."

"But you could meet the girl of your dreams at this party!"

I stopped reading my page. I briefly thought about the girl from earlier today, Jazmine. It was a long shot that I would even see her there. But maybe I could get something out of it. I sat up in my bed and looked at both of them. "I only want to go for an hour," I offered.

They both looked at me, looked at each other, then looked back at me. They were always on a brother-sister wavelength and it never ceased to freak me out.

"That's fine," Caesar smiled.

"And," I added, swinging my legs over the bed to where my feet were touching the ground. "You two niggas can't bother me for the rest of the time while I'm finishing my paper. So until Tuesday, I don't hear from you guys."

"Deal," Maliyah said.

"It's a small party with some people from the soccer team. Nothing big," Caesar explained to me. I shrugged. "I'm gonna make sure you stay for the full hour. Imma have spies watching you and shit."

I rolled my eyes at him.

Even though I had to make a deal with the both of them to get them to stop bothering me, I had to admit it was a little nice to finally get out of the dorm room. I usually never left the room except for classes and work.

"You gotta tell Hiro that we actually succeeded," Maliyah laughed to Caesar.

I shrugged them both off. When I wanted to, I could actually be fun.

I hated parties.

As I'm walking with Maliyah and Caesar to the sight of the party, I wondered if the deal was really worth it. College Park was still a little warm at nights, so my choice of a black hoodie wasn't the best choice of clothing. I was only going to be here for an hour so I didn't care entirely too much.

"Alright Mali, I don't want to get all crazy and shit. This is your first college party and I want you to be safe," Caesar explained sweetly to his little sister. "I don't wanna have to fight a nigga tonight."

"Who said this was my first college party?" she answered with a snort, walking ahead of us into the packed house.

Caesar looked over at me. "What the hell?" he snapped. "What did she just say?"

"You have to think: she did hang out with my brother all the time," I smirked. He tried to smack me in my arm, but I moved out of the way. "I'm just stating facts!"

"Yo, forreal I don't wanna hear about Mali and your brother," he shot back, leading me into the party. He shivered a little bit. "It freaks me the fuck out just thinking about it."

We both walked into the party, and immediately Caesar was in his natural habitat. "Party!" he yelled out, making everyone around cheer in response.
I rolled my eyes at Caesar's outburst. There were way too many people in this confined space, it reeked of alcohol and sweat, and I'm pretty sure two people were already passed out in the corner. I shook my head. Niggas.

"The hour starts now!" I yelled at him, pointing at my watch in case he couldn't hear me over the loud music.

He nodded his head to let me know he understood me. Someone bumped into me, and I turned around quickly to see who it was. They were gone when I turned around and when I faced forward again, so was Caesar. I sighed loudly. He'd already abandoned me to go party. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

I had fifty five minutes to go.

I leaned against the wall, looking towards the entire living room. I mentally counted down the minutes. I promised sixty minutes, and so far it had been seven. I glanced over my shoulder to see Caesar talking to a girl. He probably wouldn't know if I decided to leave a few minutes early.

I was a man of my word, though, so I was going to endure about fifty more minutes of this… whatever this was to get my Caesar and Maliyah free weekend.

I watched all the people that were in front of me. There was a white girl trying to twerk, two people making out in the middle of the floor and an overly excited frat boy was who jumping around everywhere offbeat with the music.

This was ridiculous; I didn't belong here. I looked down at my watch. Forty minutes.

I had been to one of Caesar's soccer teammates party before. Last year, me and Celeste sat on one of the couches and talked about every white person that passed our way. We didn't care who heard us because we were practically dragged here by Caesar so he could get friendly with all the upperclassmen soccer players.

Now I was by myself.

I looked back down at my watch to see that I had about thirty minutes left. Time was moving by slow because I was alone and I wasn't having fun. I went to go walk outside and get some fresh air. I leaned against the railing of the front porch. I pulled out my phone and unlocked it quickly. I hovered my thumb over her name. I looked up for a second before looking down again, but I needed to do a double take.

Oh my God, it's her.

She was walking from the side of the house. I assumed she just came from the backyard.

I felt my whole body stiffen. I had a brief thought that I would see her at the party, but I'd never assumed that I'd actually see her here.

"Cindy!" she called out.

The only other person outside was me, but she hadn't seen me yet.

She walked from the side of the house and over in the front lawn, looking around the darkness of the outside for her friend. She locked eyes with me. Her face was searching as if she was trying to figure out where she knew me from. She snapped her fingers. "Huey. From Mini-Walmart."

"Yeah," I nodded.

"You wouldn't happen to have seen Cindy walked by here, would you?" she asked me. "Short white girl, blonde hair, wearing a skimpy dress?" I shook my head no. "Darn, she was supposed to take me back to the dorm. But I can't find her anywhere."

My mouth felt dry. As if I was about to say something stupid and I couldn't stop myself. My mouth worked before my brain could process it. "I could walk you to your dorm," I blurted out. I stopped and looked down at the ground. Why the hell did I say that?

She stared at me, and then she laughed at me. "No offense Huey, but I don't really know you that well."

She had a point she had only met me a few hours earlier and I was hastily asking to take her home. If I was her, I would be skeptical about the situation too. I nodded my head. I understood where she was coming from.

"Yeah, sorry. That was a stupid solution," I recovered.

She smiled at me and looked up at the sky. "But, I am wearing cutoff shorts and a muscle tee that makes me very vulnerable," she started. I raised an eyebrow at her. "You seem better than the guys in there. And I don't want to walk alone. There are bad people out there." She walked up to me. "Okay, you can walk me home. But don't try anything!" she said as she walked forward.

"I'll keep my hands in my pocket then," I offered as I moved up next to her.

We walked to her dorm in silence. She was texting furiously on her phone while I was just enjoying the outdoors. The University of Maryland campus looked really nice at night, with all of the light illuminating the old buildings. I appreciated the beauty of the campus, even when others really didn't.

"Do you even remember my name?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Jazmine," I replied a little too quickly. She didn't seemed to notice.

She started to skip around as we continued to the other side of the campus. "I know this is weird, but can we stop by the McDonald's by campus? I am starving."

It was weird but I shrugged in response. "It's whatever to me," I replied. We made a quick left and hurried crossed the streets of incoming traffic to get to the fast food restaurant across the street from campus.

I followed behind her as she made her way to the register. She looked at the menu for a while. "Can I have a… um…" she started, looking over all her choices. "I think I just have a medium fries and a Oreo Mcflurry."

The cashier told her the total but I pulled out my wallet and handed her a five before Jazmine could say anything.

"You didn't have to do that," she reminded me. "I could've paid for it myself."

I shrugged again as I got my change. "You can just pay me back," I weakly responded, walking to a table. She grabbed her "meal" and followed right behind me. She looked mad when she sat down. "What?"

"Why did you do that?" she hotly questioned.

"Jazmine, it's fine. It's a three dollar meal," I shot back. I leaned against the hard booth chair. "It's nothing serious."

"Is this a date?"

I smirked slightly at that. "I can treat you to a better date than McDonald's," I smoothly answered. She smiled at me.

"Well, one time my ex-boyfriend thought a nice date for two year anniversary was Taco Bell," she confided. She shoved a spoonful of the ice cream in her mouth. "He went out with his friends and got high and when it came time to take me on a date, he really want some hard shelled tacos and he really could go for some right about then."

She laughed a little at her story, so I laughed a little too. That had to be the worst date I'd ever heard of.

"But, this isn't really a date so it doesn't count," she added on. She looked at phone and started to text with one hand. "Cindy just texted me back. She said her phone was on silent so she couldn't hear me calling her. Can you believe her?"

I didn't know what to say. I shrugged.

"I told her I'm already home. Had to lie a little bit," she said. She took another spoonful of her Mcflurry. "Oh, by the way, did you ask your boss about the job?"

I nodded. "I have to give you an interview on Monday," I told her.

"Give it to me right now."

My eyebrow arched. "I'm sorry?"

She put down her McFlurry and wiped her mouth. She looked at me. "We're here right now. You can give me the interview and not have to wait." She smiled widely. "I'm ready."

"I'm not going to give you an interview inside a McDonald's," I objected. She pouted slightly. "It's after midnight and we both just came from a party. Do you really think this is the best time for an interview?"

"Come on, Huey," she whined. "I'm gonna be really nervous on Monday and I just want to get it over with."

"You're persistent about this."

"You should add that in the interview," she quipped. I smirked. "See? I'm warming up to you already. You should just go ahead and give me the job."

I folded my arms across my chest. I was going to play along with her little game. "Okay… what makes you qualified to work at Mini-Walmart?"

"I'm a hard-worker, I'm friendly, and I'll take on any task that you'll give me," she answered smoothly. "I did a lot of volunteer work at Goodwill and places like that, so I know how a retail environment works."

"Did you plan all this out?" I inquired. "That was a really good answer."

She smiled and shook her head. "Come on, ask me more questions!" she commanded. "I want to get this job!"

"You're hired," I replied.

Her eyes widened. "You didn't even give me a good interview!" I shrugged and looked down at my watch. We have been here for about half an hour. She lowered then lowered her eyes at me. "Who put you up to this? Do you know who I am?"

"What?" I said. "Am I supposed to know who you are?" I've never seen her before today. Was she someone popular or something? "I just want to give you the job because you know you're more than qualified and I sort of hate my co-worker so hopefully you'll replace him."

"Oh." She finished her food in quietness, her cheeks inflamed in embarrassment. "I'm ready to go," she announced after a slightly uncomfortable silence.

We both walked out of the restaurant and made our way to her dorm hall. The once bouncy girl was reserved to herself. "You okay?" I finally asked.

"Yeah, except for the fact that I made myself looked dumb," she snorted. "I don't know why you would have hired me for other reasons."

I wanted her to indulge on what she meant by that, but I decided not to push it. It wasn't my business anyways, and if she wanted to tell me, she would've already explained herself. Instead, I just nodded my head.

She led the way until we arrived at one of the apartment complexes right across the street from campus. It was one of the more expensive places to live around campus. I stared at her. Who was she?

She turned to face when we walked around to the building where her apartment was located. "Thanks for offering to take me home Huey," she noted. "And buying my dinner. Even though you didn't have to do that."

"It's no big deal," I retorted.

She gave me a hug and walked up the steps to her apartment, before turned back around. "What time should I come on Monday?" she asked.

"I still need to talk to Will— my boss first," I told her. She walked back to me. "I have to see if he wants to interview you too or whatever." Jazmine pulled a marker out of back pocket and grabbed my arm. "Why do you have a Sharpie with you?"

"So I can give guys my number," she replied with no haste.

"Do you give out your number often?"

She finished writing on my wrist and looked up at me. "Only to the ones I deem worthy of my number," she smirked. I cleared my throat."Text me all the details when you get them, kay?" I nodded as she went up to her apartment.

I felt a little bit special walking back to my dorm.