A song plays through speakers overhead about Daydreams and Cigarettes. It’s upbeat and cheerful. I start tapping my fingers against my thigh. Maybe the universe is saying hey, I know I’ve given you so much shit recently, so here, have this. I’m sorry.
“So, do you need any help… sir?” Teddy asks me. My knees are no longer shaking. He has a warm aura that makes me ease up around him.
“If you could get me a job and a better brain, that would be nice,” I laugh. His eyes widen.
“Do you want a job here?”
“I was joking, I?—”
“Come into the office, I can interview you right now,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him. “I’ve been looking for someone for ages,” he adds. I didn’t even say yes, but I find myself following him anyway. I’m smiling widely until I realise he’s taking me into the office to do an interview, one I’m not prepared for. I take a look at what I’m wearing: a white t-shirt, black denim shorts, with a grey checkered flannel wrapped around my waist. Okay, so my outfit is nice, just not interview material. I hope he doesn’t hold it against me. I take the shirt off my waist and put it on properly.
He opens the office door and motions for me to sit on the chair opposite him. If I’m being honest, the ‘office’ looks more like a cupboard than an office. Piles of boxes (probably filled with books) line the walls and furniture that need to be assembled are on the floor next to the desk. I can’t judge though, my room at Kai’s already looks like a bomb went off in it.
FuckI sound like my Mum, what’s happening to me?
“Are you ready to get started?” Teddy asks. Teddy. God, I love that name. I want to hug him like a teddy bear.
I’m partially joking.
Okay, I do have a crush on him, but I don’t really know him. I don’t see this going anywhere, to be honest. After what happened at Jonathan’s party, I stopped developing crushes and decided to be alone romantically.
That’s clearly working out for me.
“Um, yeah, I’m ready,” I say, visually tensing up enough for Teddy to notice.
“Hey, so interviews are like, the worst, right? Just think of this as two friends talking, because that’s all it is, right? To be honest, I like you already, so there’s your first hurdle out of the way. Will we get started?”
He likes me? For a moment, I thought there was a chance he hated my guts and was just entertaining me to make a sale.
But he likes me!
Unless he’s lying, but I don’t think Teddy is the lying type. He looks like the type of person that wears his heart on his sleeve, the one with no secrets, unlike me.
“Yeah, let’s get started,” I say.
“So, do you have your CV?” Teddy asks.
“Um, no. I?—”
Teddy starts to laugh.
“I’m taking the piss, of course you don’t, you didn’t even know about this until two minutes ago. Don’t worry about it!” I love his smile. His tanned skin makes me think he lives somewhere like Spain, but I imagine he just holds a tan well.
“So tell me about yourself, Noah,” he asks, eyeing me. God, I could look into those eyes all day.
Okay, shut up and focus. You need this job.
“Well, I graduated High School at sixteen,” I start, replacing ‘dropped out’ with ‘graduated’ because it sounds better. I started to get bad anxiety as I got older, so things just got too much for me. “Then I started working at the coffee shop down the road. I made drinks, served customers, cleaned tables, that sort of thing,” I continued. Teddy is writing things down, then looks back at me.
“So you like coffee? I would have loved to work in a coffee shop,” he says, putting his hand on his heart dreamily. I can see daydreams of Coffee and books flying around in his head.
“Yeah, it made me fall in love with Coffee. It was a great job, honestly. Now I can make a mean cup of coffee. That’s always a good skill to have.” Teddy writes again, this time talking to himself just loud enough for me to hear.
“Pros of hiring Noah, can make good coffee.” He clicks the pen and we both laugh, his smile lights up the room. When you go so long with everything in your life being shit, whensomething good finally comes along, it feels one hundred times better.
I can’t help but feel that something is going to come along and ruin it, though.
“So you have previous experience working in a customer service role. That’s good to have. So now I need to ask an important question. Do you like reading?”
