AVERY
He sat on one of the bar stools, leaning forward to brace his hands on the bar top. He didn’t break eye contact with me the entire time, seeming as though he wanted me to know he was looking at me. Or maybe he just couldn’t stop staring.
It was so strange. Usually, it was a turnoff when guys checked me out and wanted to do it in a way that was obvious. Yet somehow, I found his brazen perusal of me somewhat flattering. Hot even.
He sat directly to the right of me, just few inches away, making it obvious that I would be the one to attend to him. To take his order.
Sucking in a much needed breath and summoning confidence, I turned to him. There was no need to walk closer to him since we weren’t that far apart. “What drink would you like to get?”
He stared at me, his eyes roving over my face. From my hair to my eyes, nose, lips and back again. In fact, he didn’t look like he had listened to a word I said. Although he had heard me because his eyes fell to my lips when I talked.
I waited patiently for him to speak, all the while wondering what was up with him. He was tall, gorgeous, had compelling light grey eyes and possibly the most beautiful man I had ever seen, but was he insane?
“Give me anything.”
Anything?
Okay, get your brain out of the gutter, Avery. The man said to give him any drink. You know that.
Drink. Drink. Drink.
“What if you don’t like it?” I asked him, shocking myself. When I had suddenly grown so confident, I didn’t know.
He just shrugged. I tried to hide my disappointment. I thought he would speak. I wanted to hear his voice. It had been such a long time since a man’s looks, combined with his voice, was so appealing to me. I couldnt even remember the last time I had ever fancied a man. I wasnt even sure that I had.
What would a man like him drink?
I eyed him subtly, taking in his all black clothes. He looked like the type of guy that would only wear the colour black, and it looked so good on him. He had been standing away from the crowd, not with it. Yet somehow, he had managed to draw a lot off attention to him because of his compelling nature. Mine included.
The shirt moulded to his body like it was tailor made for him. And it just might be. They were obviously expensive so I was guessing he had money. In total, what had I arrived at?
He was rich, understated and classy, and liked to stay away from the crowd even if they flocked towards him. That about did it. And, oh, he was gorgeous and hot as hell.
So, the question. What would a man like him drink?
It was only one word that came to my mind. Whiskey. It was in the top counter, along with the other expensive drinks.
I hope he didn’t think that I was just trying to lure him into buying an expensive drink. He had asked me to give him anything anyway, and he sure didn’t look like a man that drank cheap drinks.
I grabbed the bottle, grabbed a clean glass and placed it in front of him. He watched my movements as I filled his glass to the brim and all the while, I tried not to fidget and pour the drink over the side of the glass. I couldn’t focus. Not with him looking at me like that, with those intense grey eyes. They were so starting lily grey. Such an odd shade that I had only seen in coloraturas pencils and not on people.
I put the cap on the drink and turned to stow it away. As I did, another drink came into my mind. Hennessy. If it turned out he didn’t like whiskey, then I would give him Hennessy next. It had to be one of those drinks. I strongly felt so.
He took a sip of the drink without so much as a reaction on his face. I couldnt read him. It was impossible for anyone to read him, and trying to read him would only prove futile. He had this carefully blank face that revealed nothing. If anyone was going to have a shot at reading his emotions, it would be his eyes.
They were intense and well, somewhat expressive. Like how he was looking at me right now, it felt like he was studying me, trying to figure me out. We didn’t know each other, but he seemed to be trying to figure out who I was.
Why not just talk to me? Ask my name?
I wanted him to talk so badly. I didnt even care if he wasnt talking to me. I just wanted to hear his voice. He could talk about the weather, the rainbow, an damn thing.
Before when he had been in the dark, somehow, I knew he was there and I stared, almost unable to look away, until I had poured the drink and made the decision to not look at him anymore. Now that he was sitting here under the light however, it was downright impossible to look away.
He was like a magnet, pulling metals in even when they didn’t want to follow. In this case, it was people.
I caught several girls behind him staring, and even my female co-workers were staring at him. I was sure they wished they were the ones attending to me. I knew they wanted to. In more ways than one.
It made me feel violent. I was never violent. But he made me want to scratch their eyes out so that they wouldn’t look at him anymore. Call me petty but I was glad that he had picked me to take his order simply by sitting here. I was very, very, shamelessly pleased.
He dropped his glass on the bar top and turned those low-lidded eyes on me. I hated how they made me feel. And I hated that he did it.
I hated it because it filled my mind with various thoughts. Inappropriate thoughts that I had no business having at work. Not unless I wanted to make a mess. I also hated it because what was the point in giving me heated looks like that if he wasnt going to do anything about tthem?
He had spent up to ten minutes already, yet all he did was sip his drink and stare at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve. Ugh. I hated it. I’d rather he not look at me at all.
That was a lie of course. His eyes on me was a heady feeling.
My eyes anded on his hair. He had glossy jet black hair that fell to his shoulders on both sides. He didn’t look like the type of man that would take his time to make sure his hair was combed or gelled perfectly. That was the irony of life. It was always the ones that didnt make a big deal of it that got it freely.
I thought about my own hair. I didn’t have the time to style it like most other girls my age. I didn’t care much for it. All I did everyday was to comb it and braid it in two. Sometimes, when the occassion called for it, which was rarely, Mariah, my best friend, would volunteer style my hair and I would let her. It made her happy. Just how it used to make me happy as a child.
“Avery, do you wanna switch for a bit?”
I turned to see my co-worker, Jules, standing behind me. What was she doing over here when her station was all the way over there?
Oh, I knew what she was doing here alright.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “No, I’m perfectly fine right here.”
“Of course, I just thought you might want to switch for a while since there’s so many customers over there and you don’t seem to be doing anything.”
Did I forget to mention that Jules was a total bitch?
“No, thanks.” I smiled sweetly at her and she glared at me for a while before her eyes fell behind me-at the handsome stranger- and I wanted to drag her eyes back to me. She smiled and left.
What the hell was she smiling about?
I narrowed my eyes at her retreating back, wishing that Mariah was here to yell curse words at her because I couldn’t.
I turned back around and my jaw dropped when I saw that the man wasnt there anymore. That was what Jules had been smiling about!
I saw his money under his glass and when I brought it out to count it, I saw that it was way more than he should have paid. A note fell from the middle of the hundred dollar bills and I picked it up.
It said: For the drink you poured.
He paid for the drink that I had been thinking about how to pay for! And he wasnt even here for me to thank him.
I was torn between smiling and collapsing to the floor that he had left me a note, but first things first, I folded said note and kept it in the back pocket of my jeans.