I kept hoping AJ would come and get some coffee. Two days passed and I started to lose hope. I had, after all, rejected him countless times. He’d told me he wouldn’t bother me about it anymore.

Now he was staying away, and I missed him. Go figure.

I’d simply seen him in a new light the other day. Maybe we could be friends, I thought. It was a ridiculous idea, to be sure. I couldn’t see him having any woman friends. Still…

I shook my head and returned to writing the specials on the marker board. I needed to stop thinking about him. Although it did give me a nice reprieve from thinking about my crappy job and how mad I was still. I would start training the new assistant manager next week. Part of me wondered if it were possible to sabotage the training process, to ensure that he would crash and burn.

But I couldn’t force myself to be that black-hearted. Besides, Jack would link it back to me, and I’d have no job.

I was imagining Jack finally getting what was coming to him when the front door opened. Two girls walked in. I headed to the cash register.

“Hi, what can I get you?”

I noticed the shorter one glance at my nametag. “Um… hey. Could I just get…” she looked at the display case, “a scone, please?”

“Sure thing. What about you?”

The other girl ordered a coffee. I passed the first a scone and started to make a drink. The glance they exchanged didn’t escape my notice. Wondering who the heck these girls were, I made the coffee and handed it to the taller blonde girl.

“Thanks,” the first smiled and they headed to a nearby table.

I returned to the marker board.

“So you’re definitely coming to the cookout, right?” the one girl said, taking a bit of her scone.

“Is he going to be there?”

She sighed. “Carmen.”

“What? It’s a fair question.”

The first girl paused. “Yes.”

I could hear Carmen groan.

“You don’t have to talk to him.” “Relax. You know I’ll be there.”

“Good, and…” she trailed off as her cell phone started to ring.

Losing interest in the conversation, I was about to head back behind the counter.

“Hello? Oh… hey, Brian… umm, grabbing something to eat with Carmen… um, nowhere special.”

I turned to face them, pretending to be doing something at the counter now. The blonde girl was rolling her eyes. She was obviously making fun of the brunette’s inability to lie quickly.

She was talking to a Brian, huh? I wondered if it was a coincidence.

“What do you mean?” she was looking a little panicked as she talked into her phone. Then she glanced at the entrance.

Brian was looking in the window, a cell phone up to his ear.

So nope. Not a coincidence.

“Busted,” Carmen laughed. She glanced at me, and I quickly turned around.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” I heard Brian say.

I was still carefully not looking at them.

“Um. Nothing,” the girl said.

“August, a word of advice. Maybe you shouldn’t say ‘um’ before every fib, because it’s kind of a dead giveaway,” Carmen was laughing.

I wondered how they knew Brian. And what the big deal was about them being here.

“Well, what are you doing here?” August asked in return.

“Getting a coffee. From a coffee shop. I need to get back in a few minutes,” he said. He came up to the counter.

I was forced to face him and take his order. I wondered if he knew I’d been eavesdropping. The place was pretty dead otherwise. He looked slightly amused, so he could probably tell I’d realized something was off. I remembered the girls looking at my nametag. What did I have to do with anything?

I got him his drink.

“Thanks,” he said, with a smile. I wished I could read his face.

He turned back to the two girls. “You want to walk back with me?”

It seemed like a rhetorical question.

“Yeah,” August sighed. This time, she glanced at me. Then, meeting my gaze, she returned hers to Brian before I had a chance to look away.

Odd. I felt like I had something on my face or I was wearing a “kick me” sign.

They soon left, although not without a final glance from August. Was she Brian’s girlfriend? That was a possibility. Wife? Were any of the Backstreet Boys married? I was going to have to get on Wikipedia if I was going to keep having encounters of the Backstreet kind.

Well, maybe not anymore. AJ had been MIA. And Brian had simply run through for a drink, but otherwise he wasn’t here that often. And it wasn’t like I’d ever talked to him about anything except coffee.

Turned out, I was wrong. I had just finished my shift and was leaving the store when I ran into AJ.

Literally.

“Oh, sorry… hey,” I said, noticing it was him the second I saw the cap and sunglasses.

“You need a ride?”

“How’d you know I was getting off now?”

He just flashed that confident grin of his. “Just brilliant, I guess.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Oh, good! Come on!” He purposefully took my answer to be in response of the ride question, instead of his intelligence.

I was going to say no. I didn’t need someone like him in my life. But… I found myself following him to his car. AJ held the door open for me and then headed to the driver’s seat.

“So… I think some friends of yours stopped by today,” I said.

AJ laughed. “Yeah… I was wondering if you’d noticed them or not.”

That explained his sudden reappearance. Brian must’ve told him the two girls had come by. “Who were they?”

“August and Carmen? Well, August is Brian’s wife…”

“So one of the Backstreet Boys is married? Wow. Bet that broke the hearts of millions,” I joked. “What about Carmen?”

“She’s August’s best friend.”

“And… why did they stop by today?”

AJ paused. “I guess they wanted to get something to eat.”

“Uh-huh. I felt like I was in a zoo.”

He laughed again. “Alright, alright. They knew you worked there. I guess it’s true that married couples tell each other everything. Brian must be blabbing about everything that’s happening at work…”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I’m still confused. How do they know who I am?”

“Jeez, interrogate much?... Honestly, I guess they thought it was pretty funny that a girl was turning me down. Repeatedly.”

“You telling me that never happens?” So they’d heard enough about me to be curious as to whom I was? I laughed, though I was also flattered.

He thought about it for a moment. “Well… no. Not really. Not often.”

“Wow. Must be nice to be you,” I rolled my eyes. I pointed out the right that he needed to take and reminded him of my street name.

We approached my apartment complex. For a second time, I felt slightly ashamed of where I lived. This side of town was not one he could relate to.

“So…” AJ played with his car keys absentmindedly. “I was wondering…”

“You know, for a guy who’s never turned down, you seem a little nervous,” I teased, but with a smile.

“I said not often,” he reminded me. “Besides, we established that you’re the exception to the rule. Anyways, as I was saying!” he pressed on. “There’s a cook-out Sunday…”

“So I heard!”

He dramatically cleared his voice because of my second interruption.

“Sorry,” I laughed.

“It’s a group of us. It wouldn’t be a date,” AJ said firmly, a half smile on his face, “which means that you do not have the opportunity to reject me again.”

This surprised me. Just an outing, hanging out with his friends. I was touched. I didn’t really have any friends in town. It had been a lonely year.

“Well?” AJ said, but gently. He must’ve noticed the look on my face. I was about to say yes.

“That… sounds like fun.”

“So yes?” AJ said. “Come on. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word come out of your mouth.”

“No, you haven’t,” I grinned, getting out of the car. “Thanks for the ride.”

“I’ll pick you up… at two on Sunday?”

“Sounds good. I’ll be out here.”

We said our goodbyes, and I watched him drive away.

I reached my apartment on the second floor in much higher spirits than I had all week and put my key in the doorknob. I was about to turn, when I noticed that the door was already unlocked.

That was strange… I felt fear building as I opened the apartment door.

Nothing was any different than how I’d left it. It was messy, but that was my own doing. I grabbed a baseball bat from behind the door and walked through the apartment.

There was no one there. Once the place had been thoroughly inspected, I could breathe again. I was leaving the house so early these days; I must’ve forgotten to lock the door behind me.

I would be more careful in the future.