Chapter six

For some reason I had managed to get Saturday as my day off. I had been doing some exploring of the city during the week after work. So, I was quite worn out and was looking forward to spending two whole days relaxing, the weekend was nothing special. I ended up watching some movies, from my massive collection, that I had of course seen a million times before. I refreshed tumblr about one million times. I talked to Anna, she was still super excited about my Dan situation, even more so when I told her about that Friday. I also texted with Ally, her life was much more interesting than mine though. While she was at parties socializing I was plumped down on my couch working on the permanent outline of my but witch had started to form on the cushion where I normally sat.

Lucy was such an accommodating manager; she had asked me when I preferred working so she could set me up for the most convenient shifts. Obviously I requested morning sifts since that's when Dan had been coming inn.

Monday morning was horrible; I still hadn't gotten quite used to getting up so early after sleeping late all summer. I hoped it would get better soon. When I got to work I was still a little groggy.

My spirits lightened when I saw Dan come in to the shop though. He was wearing black skinny jeans, but today he was actually wearing a light blue T-shirt. As always his fringe was impeccable, he was just as much of a perfectionist as I was. I was working the cash register.

He reached the front of the line of customers. "Hey, Sarah right?" he asked grinning, obviously pleased with himself. Oh my goodness Dan remembered my name. I quickly had to think of a good response.

"You don't have such a bad memory yourself" I replied playfully. "The usual?" I asked. I had spotted the obvious pattern of his order.

"So, you've probably started recognizing the orders of all your regulars then?" he smiled.

"Well, some customers are more memorable than others" I winked. I was so happy with my reply; it was so suggestive jet so subtle.

Dan looked down at his wallet to dig out money to pay, but I could clearly see that he was blushing. Looking up at me again he paid and I handed him his change, lightly brushing his fingers as I pulled my hand back.

"Uh, I'll just have a seat then" he stated, looking down again.

Unusually there were quite a few customers in the shop so I had enough to do. In fact I was so busy that I didn't even realize that Dan had left until I looked up and he was gone. I looked outside the shop, but he wasn't there either. Fiona, one of my colleagues who I had become a little friendly with told me later during our lunch break that Dan had walked out while I was helping another customer. She also said that he had looked at me while walking away from the shop, apparently he looked pretty disappointed. Could that be because I didn't look up at him? That was at least Fiona's theory.

On Tuesday morning I developed a bit of a calf. Lucy had told me when I started that if didn't feel well, at all, to just call in sick. That was better than infecting customers, and the shop had tons of replacements anyway. I decided against calling in sick that morning though, my calf was controllable enough. The calf lightened even more up when I got to work.

Dan was a little earlier today, there were very few customers and no one was standing by the cash register at the moment. I was clearing tables, I started toward the counter, but noticed that another colleague of mine was also moving inn. We reached opposite ends of the counter; the cash register was dead center. We stood there for a few seconds in a deathly serious staring competition. Finally I broke eye contact and rushed over to the cash register before my colleague could react. I reached the cash register and looked up at Dan who luckily hadn't noticed our little stair off competition. He had been looking down at his phone.

"Hello Dan" I said cheerfully, his presence bringing a smile to my face.

He looked up to find me smiling expectantly "Oh, hey" he replied looking back down at his phone.

"The usual then?" I asked.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed at his phone. He looked up at me, and I must have looked a little surprised because he went on "Oh, sorry about that, just some girl" he said rolling his eyes and looking exasperated. "But yeah, I'll have the usual" he said.

He paid, but only put the money on the counter so we didn't get to touch. I did the same with his change. So, there was another girl he was thinking about. He wasn't interested in me at all, just as I had expected. Oh well. No, not just oh well. I had let all of my friends build up my expectations, I hated when I did that. If I had just listened to myself and not read too much into Dan's gestures I wouldn't have gotten as disappointed that there was someone else.

Dan retrieved his order and left the shop without looking up at me once. I must have looked a bit like a sad puppy as I followed him with my eyes the whole time, till he disappeared behind the brick wall. All I wanted to do was run back to my flat, jump on my bed and just cry into my pillow for a while. The rest of the day I walked around the shop in a bit of a daze trying to concentrate on my work, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Dan and how little he had paid attention to me earlier.