bring your intern to work day. july 14th.

kit named this post, inadvertently.


it's making me sick.


this is a little thing known as transference. being perfectly aware of this fact doesn't curb it. not in the least.


so that night out, intern and i spent a chunk of time talking.

i kept it professional in the beginning, talking to him about work. money, job requirements, opportunities.

it was fine. he knew that he had to crunch some numbers to see if it all pans out for him to give up a great paying job to have a cake job.


so then a song came on. i don't remember which one now, but i made the move to go dance and he followed suit.


and now it's fuzzy, but at another point, we sat talking about life and relationships. i must have talked to him for thirty minutes.

i had positioned myself back in the days of his internship to help him find a nice girl to make his girlfriend.

and even though i don't want to be his girlfriend, i kinda like being in the spot i'm in now.

i asked him what his type is. what he looks for in a girl.

and he did say at one point that i was making him feel awkward, in asking all these questions. blonde or brunette? skinny or thick or something in between?

he said that physicality doesn't factor in too much. it's not about what the person looks like. that he likes nerdy girls, who are smart, and are as into music as he is.

i try not to take it as flirting, because i highly doubt he was intentionally describing me. but i am those things.

and he said something about not having had sex for about a year.

and i called him out, because he'd bragged to me about going home with a girl who had a boyfriend back in intern days.

but he denied it.

it's impossible that he hasn't had sex in a year. i don't know why he'd lie about it.

and it would have been so easy for me to simply say, 'it's been years since i had good sex, and five months since i had any... and? i can help you with that.'

he was probably drunk enough. but i wasn't. not even close.


i don't remember what else we talked about. but i know that i sat with my shoulder touching his. and i know i touched him quite a bit that night. his back, mostly.

it's a good back.


i don't know what it is about him that i'm so drawn to.

i mean, he's hot. but is that really it?

all this fallout from imagining sparks with coffee has knocked me upside the head. it makes me question and doubt any thing i think i feel or see.

surely this is all in my head. surely he isn't flirting with me.

aquarian boys never go for me. every single one i've pursued has ended in, 'you're really sweet, but it is just not there.'

and i wish i could drop this. but i won't. i already know.

i won't drop it until i try to kiss him and he won't kiss back. or gets up and leaves, never to speak to me again.


so the day that i brought him to work.

i picked kit up to ride in with me, because it was rainy off and on, and she's on my way. so we rode together to the train station to grab him.

and he was standing on the corner, waiting. i pulled off and he kinda ran to the car to get in.

we drove to the shop and dropped kit off. she was grinning when she got out of the car, and he said he'd ride with me to the parking spot i was going to try to find.

she was out, and he just sat in the back seat.

so i said, 'this isn't driving miss daisy. you're going to have to get in the front seat now.'

i laughed, but thought, 'really?' he's completely clueless.

so he got in the front seat, and i showed him the other store, and where all the places are to try to park in the case that he ever drove himself to work there.


and i had on dark sky mix. because i love it, but also on purpose.

and he asked who one of the songs was. and it was cursive.

and he said, 'oh! that's why i recognize it. i just heard this album for the first time yesterday.'

and i had to smile. because i do like when things like that happen. he said that the album was really good. and i told him i know.

and then we parked and walked.

and my first clue that his expectations might have been set too high was when he asked if all the shops were in hospitals.


and that was where the good stuff ended.


he was so excited. he wants a coffee job. and besides letting me get him drunk last saturday at the club, he didn't even have to apply for it.

it was just handed to him, as i imagine things are for a boy as cute and nice as he is.

and when we got there, he made an iced coffee and watched pam and i work through the first rush.

and as the trial shift wore on, he seemed to like it less and less.

and at one point, he said that we work a lot. or work hard. something to that effect.


i could tell that his romanticized idea of working in a coffee shop was not at all what he found himself in. it's the difference between a coffee house and a coffee shop. he expected a house, despite my telling him that it was a shop.


and after four hours, and a shared lunch break, he actually said, 'thanks for the opportunity.'

and i knew he'd never be back there again.

at lunch, i took him to the lunch truck outside the store, and he bummed a smoke from me while we walked and ordered and waited.

i was smoking my lucky, thinking about how unlucky this all was.

and i don't remember if he brought it up or if i did, but i talked about moving home, and the fact that it's hard to do any job for seven years. that i feel myself burning out on it.

and that type of place he'd want to work is probably more what i want for myself, not any of the stores i work in.

he asked if i was really leaving and moving home in a year. and i said that i didn't know. that it's too soon to tell.

and he had that pensive frown on his face. which i also didn't try to read into, but found it sweet anyway.


that all i want is to sell the house, and move home next may. work in a job like blakesly does so that i can live anywhere, and it won't matter, because i'll be traveling all the time and making really good money.

that i want to take the house money and start the bar/cafe that i've always wanted.

i said something about things getting weird in phila, and that it will take some time for things to calm down and settle in. i was referring to ever and the divorce, and he knew it, but i didn't specify, because i didn't have to. he said 'yeah', or something to that effect.

so we went back and ate our food. and right after that, he said he wasn't going to stick around to learn the close.


so i told him that i want him to work a trial shift at the other store, because i can pay him a little more to work there, he'd make more in tips, it's closer to where he lives, and because it's very quiet there, and more like what he was expecting.

and he said he'd crunch numbers and call me. right after he left, i texted him to say that i think he should go to the other store to check it out, not work a shift there. just watch and talk to cat about it, and hang out for a minute to see what it's like. but i think the earlier hours scared him off. or just working with me in general.


but he didn't get in touch with me after that, except to tell me his birthday, and tell me he'd get in touch with me later, that he's been working like crazy at his current job.

but he didn't get in touch with me later.


i'm sure that he's glad he only wasted part of a day off, and spent like $15 between train fare and food, to figure out that i work harder than he thought, that he doesn't want to work that hard, and that a corporate-ish coffee shop isn't where he wants to work.


and maybe that cigarette was lucky, because it was really bothering me that i was about to hire the only boy in the whole city that i want to sleep with.

he went from boy toy, to employ toy, back to boy toy in four and a half short hours.

and despite the fact that i'd love to watch him make coffee for hours every day, i can look myself in the mirror, because i won't get to.

No comments:

Post a Comment