Chapter 3
Mike's never driven past the limits of his own city before and suddenly he's on a three day road trip. On his own for the first time in his life – three months ahead of schedule.
When he finally arrives in the small town where Alex lives, his first stop is at the guy's apartment. He's not home but a neighbor is kind enough to tell Mike where he works. It's a local dessert shop called Emily's and she's sure he must be there. In the few conversations she's tried to hold with him, she's never known him to be doing anything else with his life.
It doesn't take Mike too much time to find the place and when he does, he parks outside of the shop and just sits there, looking towards the large windows of the quaint storefront. He rarely gets nervous, but he is. No use in procrastinating though. He told his grandmother he'd be back in less than two weeks, so he has to get a move on.
He opens the glass door, his presence announced with a jingle of an attached bell and he's relieved when he notices he's the only one there. There are no customers. No one at the counter, no one sitting in the row of tables lining the wall to his left. Another minute in which to quell his rattling nerves. He tries to look normal, like he's supposed to be there, and act as if he wants to buy a pastry.
"Can I help you?"
A man's voice. That's a good sign. Mike looks up and connects with perhaps the saddest eyes he's ever seen. "Um," he stutters.
"Do you need more time?"
"I, uh…Are you Alex?" Mike instantly feels a wave of heat rush over him because the guy is clearly wearing a name tag that says Alex.
Alex nods.
"I've been looking for you."
Alex crinkles his brow. "You have?"
"Yes, I have to tell you something," Mike says rather dramatically, stepping closer to the display case, but as he stares into those sad eyes, hopeless and waiting, he realizes his grandmother was right. Alex isn't going to believe him. Who in their right mind would? He, himself, barely believed the outlandish tale. And now that he's really thinking about it, it might even be worse if he did believe him. "I mean…I have to…ask you something."
"Okay."
"Do you, I mean…" Mike runs his hand through his hair, trying to come up with something to say and then he notices a Help Wanted sign taped to the inside of the door. The bright sun is shining straight through it contrasting the black text with the white paper so intensely it's as if the letters were intended to be backwards. "Are there any job openings?"
"Oh, actually we are a bit short-handed."
"Better than being long-footed!" Mike laughs out loud, at first because his body was in desperate need of the release and then he laughs because Alex isn't laughing and he doesn't know how else to handle the awkward situation he's just created.
Alex becomes a bit sadder than he had been and just stares at Mike, like he's trying to figure out where such an odd creature came from. But then he tells him to wait a second while he grabs an application.
Mike wants to slap himself for making such a lousy first impression and on top of that, he thinks he might have accidentally gotten a job in a town he was only supposed to be in for two, maybe three days top. And now he'll have to find a place to stay, and buy clothes and food, and actually live there! He thinks of just running back to his car and driving away before Alex has a chance to notice. But if he wants to tell the guy something he just drove halfway across the country to say, then maybe staying in town isn't such a bad idea after all. If he befriends him and gains his trust, then he can tell him and they can figure something out. Yes. This could work.
Alex hands Mike the application and Mike sits at one of the tables and fills it out. His hand is a bit shaky at first because he can feel Alex watching him, but he's able to power through. When he's finished, he takes it back up to the counter and pushes it towards Alex and for some reason he can't stop himself from being so weird. Instead of letting go and pulling his hand back like any normal human being would – like he would do any other day of the week, in any other situation – he doesn't move his hand. Feels like it's been glued down. Because of this, when Alex goes to collect the piece of paper, his hand lands on top of Mike's.
Mike looks up and freezes. Now his whole body seems to be stuck.
"Are you done with this?"
"Yep," Mike sputters, finally letting go. He starts to walk away as if he's in some sort of trance and then he snaps back around. "What are my chances?"
"To be honest, we really are in need of someone to man the counter, so if you can get a handle on this talking thing, I don't see why you can't start tomorrow."
"Absolutely. I'll practice all night," Mike says, unable to censor his ridiculous responses.
"All right then…" Alex looks down to the application. "Mike," he says, enunciating the name as if he's pronouncing it for the first time…as if he's annoyed. "I'll run it by the boss and give you a call tonight to confirm and let you know what time to be here in the morning."
Mike grins and leaves feeling relieved that it worked out and then he hears the last thing he said to Alex and can't help mumbling it out loud as he's walking to his car. "I'll practice all night? What is wrong with me?" But he doesn't have too much time to dwell on it because now he has to figure out where he's going to sleep.
