An obvious out-of-towner walked in and sat at a table in my section, of course. As my eyes met his from afar, my toes began to heat. The warm tingle quickly spread through me like wildfire. My cheeks flushed as I became light-headed. I felt embraced in a warm blanket of strength and protection, but yet, he instantly terrified me. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about him was a warning. I really couldn’t decide if I wanted to run as fast as I could away from him or have my way with him on the top of the closest table, not caring who witnessed the humiliating, confusing public display of affection.
As I inched closer, I noticed something about him was unmistakable. I stopped in mid-stride and stared at him. There was something familiar about his black, curly hair, which fell just past his shoulders. His hair was crazy thick. I could play with him-I mean his hair-all night. My body tensed from the flood of excitement and anticipation. Those black eyes were so familiar, like they had burned into my soul long ago. I knew him. The feelings that stirred deep inside my soul told me that I had seen him a million times before, but that wasn’t reality. I had never met this man. I would’ve remembered that silky, caramel skin accompanied by perfectly sculpted muscles. I quickly convinced myself to pull it together. I found myself at his table as if my feet floated toward him of their own accord.
“What can I get ‘cha?” I asked impatiently. An unexplainable anxiety engulfed me. I didn’t want to stick around and chat, yet a very powerful part of me did - a part of me that I had never known before this moment. No part of me held the desire to stick around any customer ever… except for him. Something about him sent tingles down my spine, chills throughout my body, my knees to go weak, and my brain to stop working. I yearned for him. I really had to have every part of him right then and there. I wanted to witness how bad his bed hair was in the morning. I had an intense urge to find out if he read the paper over coffee in the morning. Does he even drink coffee? Maybe he is an herbal tea kind of guy, I wondered. I convinced myself to end the absurd thoughts. I was going way overboard. Besides, I already knew the answers. He was a coffee guy. How I knew, I had no idea. I must have been going psycho. I mean, uh, physic.
I took a deep breath and I told myself that this guy, this unbelievably alluring man, was just like any other customer. I’ll treat him like every other jerk, I thought to myself. My shoulders automatically shrugged in response to my internal dialog.
“Hello, Vanessa,” he said, drawing my name out. All of my senses woke in response to his voice. Damn, the tingling started again. I collapsed a little, grabbing the table to keep myself upright as my knees gave way. “We finally meet.” A smug, dark smile spread across his face. It was a smile that left me pondering his intentions yet craving his everything. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.
Okay, calm down. He’s just like all of the other dumbasses, I thought to myself as an attempt to calm my nerves down.
When I was confident that I would be able to, at least somewhat, control my shaky voice, I said, “Um… yeah.” My voice betrayed me. I was trying to show boredom, not the excitement blasting through my veins. “What can I get ‘cha?” I repeated, still making a terrible attempt to seem unaffected. I touched my pencil to my chin as I glanced at the ceiling trying to avoid his intense gaze; my foot vigorously tapping the floor. I took a few seconds to regain control of myself.
It wasn’t his comment that fazed me. A lot of customers said crap like that to try and get my attention. They thought they were cool and mysterious. Yeah, right. They assumed I was all about partying because I worked at a bar. I was just paying the bills. As a rule, I didn’t drink or “hang” with the customers.
Two things scared me: the dark glint in his black eyes. Seriously, black eyes equaled scary. Who has black eyes? Also, the insane attraction I felt toward him. His expression told me he knew too much about me, personal things, not just the name on my name tag, which actually read “Ginger.” Joe had us draw stage names from a hat. He felt it would be fun for the out-of-town customers to think they knew our names. Most bar employees do not wear identification or provide names for obvious reasons. I guess knowing too much about a person is as easy as turning to the computer these days. Personally, I rebelled against the internet. I didn’t have websites or personal pages posted on the internet, giving away my life. I realized my information was still out there somewhere anyway, though, readily available with a few keystrokes, which was actually really scary.
“I’ll have a beer if you’ll have a seat, um,” he leaned toward me to read my name tag. With a dramatic southern accent, he continued, “Ginger.” His smile was cocky, dark… sexy. Secretly, he made me feel a sense of excitement and belonging like I was home. That alone scared me the most.
“Fine, a beer it is. Any particular brand or brew? I’m too busy to sit. As you can see, my section is packed.” I allowed my eyes to gaze around the bar, hoping he would pick
