Accidentally Amy(7)

“I have no plans whatsoever regarding your employment.” He sounded like he thought she was absurd when he said, “Pam is your manager, so she’s the only one who makes those decisions.”
Izzy said, “But you’re her boss.”
“Yep.”
“And I flipped you off.”
“Wait - when did you flip me off?”
Shit. She said in a slow, apologetic tone, “You know what? It’s not important.”
He made a laugh-like sound, a deep noise of surprise like he hadn’t expected to be amused by her, and said, “I guess I missed that.”
“I’m very quick with obscene gestures - my special gift, really.”
“So it would seem.”
“To summarize,” she said, unable to wrap her head around it, “You’re telling me that you’re going to do nothing about my questionable behavior.”
“Correct.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t believe it; she still had her job? She said, “I feel like I should thank you.”
“So…?”
“So thank you. Truly.” She took a deep breath and said, “Now, um, can I talk to you as Izzy from the coffee shop, not Izzy from work?”
“The girl I met in the coffee shop wasn’t named Izzy," he said, sounding terse, "So I don’t actually know how that game would work.”
She thought about that for a second, got an idea, and pressed the END CALL button.


    Blake
Blake looked at his phone in disbelief. She hung up on him?
Before he could even process that, his phone started ringing.
He sighed and answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Blake from Starbucks?” she asked.
“What are you doing?”
“You may not remember me, but do you recall recently getting coffee spilled on you by a breathtaking stranger?”
“Yeah.” He picked up the bottle of Dos Equis that was sitting beside his chair and took a long drink, irritated by the ridiculous situation he suddenly found himself in. Not only was Amy a liar who wasn’t actually Amy at all, but she technically worked for him.
Talk about a lose/lose scenario.
Even if he was cool with casual dishonesty, which he so fucking wasn't, Starbucks Girl was on his payroll, so she was simply an employee. Nothing more, nothing less.
She said, “I know you said you were going to call me, but I couldn’t wait. I rather like hearing the voice of the person I’m talking to.”
“Is that right?” he said, leaning back in his chair and lifting one corner of the beer's label with his thumb nail. Even though he'd never seen her before that morning, he could picture her face perfectly.
“It is.” She cleared her throat and said, “And for some reason, your dumb face keeps popping into my head.”
That made him smile, even though he didn’t want to be amused by her. “Maybe you’re just bonkers.”
He heard the giggle in her voice when she said, “Maybe, but I actually think it’s your eyes.”
“My eyes make you bonkers?”
“Your eyes make me think you’re a vampire,” she corrected.
“So you are bonkers.”
“You just have intensely villainous eyes," she said. "They stick with a person.”
“I have no idea how to respond to that.”
“Either I beg your pardon or thank you will suffice.”
“Do people ever know what you’re talking about?” he asked.
“I don’t know - I never ask them, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say rarely.” Her voice changed, then, the teasing tone gentling into sincerity. “Listen, Blake, we are strangers who happened upon each other multiple times in one day. I’m certain you think I’m a creep because of the coffee lie, but in my life, I’m usually honest to a fault. Klutzy, but rigidly honest. So to prove my non-creepitude, I’m going to tell you five embarrassingly honest things about myself."
“Okay,” he said, knowing he should stop her but too interested in hearing the five things to actually do it. Goodyear walked up to the desk, bumped into it, then started meowing and walking in circles until Blake picked up the visually-impaired cat and set him on his lap.
“First of all,” she said, “I think you should know that even though I’m an adult, I still sleep with my baby pillow. It’s nothing freaky - I'm not into wearing onesies and pretending I'm a baby - but my mother never pried the pillow out of my sticky hands like she should have, so I still need that little lumpy rectangle in order to get a good night’s sleep.”
He was smiling again, damn her. “Wow. Noted.”
“The second thing - I have a large pizza delivered to my apartment at least four times a week, even though I live alone.”
“What do you watch while you eat it?” he asked, wondering what kind of apartment she lived in.
“I’m very much a creature of habit, so it’s one of two things. I either turn on New Girl and re-watch episodes I’ve already seen - comfort TV, or I watch Little House on the Prairie.”
“You’re shitting me.” His grandma loved Little House and sadly, he’d seen nearly every episode.
“I shit you not. My grandma loves that show,” she replied, “So I grew up watching it every time I went over to her house. I swear to God that Charles Ingalls has ruined men for me by being so damned perfect.”
“That is a high man bar, isn’t it?”
She said, “The Mount Everest of man bars, for sure.”