I slumped in the cold plastic chair, staring at the white walls filled with safety posters and the weekly schedule. The only nice thing about the break room was that it didn’t play the service floor music.
After a couple minutes of silence, boredom hit full force, so I decided to thumb through one of Delores’s smut magazines. Every summer I’d worked here, it never failed. She left them out on the table, the bright covers advertising ten steps to better sex and how to have the best O of your life. Sure, I liked GQ for similar articles. I had to credit it with that special trick with my tongue. The only difference between the two was that my magazines didn’t have tips on getting the perfect bikini wax or tweezing my brows.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out just in time for it to die. I shoved it back in my pocket and stared at the magazine cover. If I was going to be stuck in here for ten more minutes, might as well flip through.
Perfume ad
Picture of girl straddling a crocodile, holding a bottle of lotion
50 ways to wear a scarf
Damn. Chick magazines were so weird.
I stopped on an article in bright pink bold letters: Six Foolproof Steps to the Ultimate Summer Fling. A fling. What did a magazine have that ordinary people couldn’t figure out? Couldn’t be too hard to pick up someone and have a few nights together. Then again, I hadn’t done that in years, not since before Lex. In fact, I hadn’t slept with a girl in over a year. Lex shut me out the last few months of our relationship, as soon as I said I wasn’t sure where it was heading. I’d been put in cock-block timeout. Fuck, a hookup sounded fantastic right about now.
Checking to make sure no one else was going to enter the staff room, I settled in and started the article. How hard could it be? Pick a girl, make a move, didn’t seem to be that difficult. Then again, I was a little rusty with flirting at this point.
Step 1: Find similarities and common ground.
What’s the best way to meet up with a potential cutie? Find something that you both connect with! Whether it be that coworker with the nice buns or that person who’s always at your favorite coffee shop, strike up a convo. Talk about work, your favorite band, how you just read this awesome book, just get him talking!
Okay, I could do that. I just needed to find a girl to find similarities with. There were a few girls from my high school I’d be down to meet up with again, but I’d lost their numbers when I got a new phone last summer. Maybe Blake would be my wingman if we went out to Tailgaters this weekend. Doubtful, since Payton would be there, and she was the ultimate cock-block. No, I needed to think this through. There had to be someone that I had something in common with.
The break room door burst open and I quickly shoved the magazine under a stack of newspapers as Dad walked in.
“There’s someone out there who needs help with her tablet. Can you come help? Jules is backed up with the register.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
I walked back out to the service floor and met the woman at the Customer Service counter.
“I can’t get this stupid thing to work.” She was almost in tears as she pushed her device across the counter. “All I want is to video chat with my grandson and show his pictures to my friends.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I opened up her tablet and holy shit the whole interface was in disarray. Tons of overdue updates, her email wouldn’t refresh. Normally, Dad would just do the bare minimum and click on a few updates, but this lady needed a complete overhaul. For Christ sake, this was so outdated, I was surprised any of her apps were working.
I furrowed my brows, still staring at the screen. “Er—why don’t you come back in a couple hours, ma’am.”
“Thank you so much, dear. And please, call me Helen.”
“My pleasure, Helen.” I knew Dad wouldn’t like me spending this much time working on her iPad, but hell if I was going to deprive this lady of seeing her grandson. She reminded me of my grandma, and that woman was my Achilles heel. She was a goddess in my book, always making me homemade doughnuts and brownies for soccer trips. When I stayed the night at her house as a kid, she’d let me stay up late, and we’d watch horror movies and eat greasy popcorn that Mom would never keep in the house. God, I loved that woman.
An hour and a half later, I had her device up and running, her email updated, and even put a picture of her grandson as her background.
Helen came back into the store, and I handed her the tablet. I’d written down the instructions for how to update applications and which buttons to press in order to video chat and how to save her pictures from her email.
“Oh, I can’t wait to chat with Grayson on the video thing. Thank you so much, sweetheart.”
“No problem. Come back if you have any more problems, or you can call the store. I can probably talk you through it over the phone.”