The Delivery Dude

Frightening Friday

The next Friday I thought I'd take matters into my own hands. I thought I'd do what any romcom lead would, I decided to go and get my man. My plan was to go into the shop, confess my love to Neo, and if worse came to worse I could always leave with my other love, a pepperoni pizza instead. Win, win, I told myself right up until I parked outside the shop and saw those delivery bikes next to me. So, after playing some hype music, and being slightly judged by the moms coming out of the Chinese take away place next door, due to me belting out sad love songs I locked my car and shoved the keys into my bag. I put them deep down in the bag so I wouldn't be tempted to make a hasty get away.

"Next," the guy at the counter called and I stepped forward.

When I got to the front of the line I peered to the back of the area, where other workers were packing pizza's and making them. Searching for Neo I had no luck finding him and just as I was leaning forward to get a better view of around the corner where the ovens were the cashier dude moved his body to be in front of my eyeline, "What do you want?"

I pulled out my purse a little startled, apologised to the slightly angry mob behind me and handed him the money with an uneasy smile, "Pepperoni and imma need that extra cheese today ok, Mikey," I read his nametag.

"Will do," he took the money quickly, picking up on my queasiness.

Before he could yell out next, I leant over the counter and whispered, "You know if Neo's in?"

But I wasn't prepared for the quick answer, "Yeah, should be," and with that Mikey decided to yell, "Neo some chick wants..."

Well, that was all too much and suddenly I leant over the counter, grabbing the guy by the collar before he'd finished his sentence.

"Listen, Mikey," I was only an inch from his face, my torso still on the counter, "I'm at a delicate state right now and don't need the attention." Then what followed was another one of my long conversations which are always one sided, venting to some other poor delivery dude. He quite kindly lead me over to the booth tables as I hardly took a breath to pause and sat patiently with me since I was disrupting the workflow of the company.

Mid way through my rant I straightened myself out and took a breather. By that point, a bunch of young guys, all around the age of twenty, wearing their matching uniforms had gathered around. We were in the 'restaurant section' of the food chain and beside us a father was trying to keep his little toddler from pointing at me and laughing. I'd truly reached a new low, but as I search the sea of faces, below logo covered caps of the employees I was relieved to not find Neo's perfectly formed cheekbones.

"Neo?" I questioned making sure, as I grabbed a hold of poor Mikey's collar again, noticing Gary, the other victim I had scared with my swimming suit a few Friday's ago was also there.

"He's not in," Mikey gulped, "My bad."

"Ok," I let him go and stood up, surrounded by a semi-circle of delivery dudes all looking at me with wide eyes.

"If you don't mind us asking," Gary leant forward, "How do you know Neo?"

I opened my mouth but couldn't think of the right answer. How did I know him? I mean I could say he's my delivery dude, but so were a few of these guys. I thought I might as well finish flushing my dignity down the toilet, so I decided to just tell them all the truth, "I like him... I mean like a lot," and thus my rambling started. I told them how we met, about my little experiment to get more guys, the time we danced and the swings where we kissed. I even blurted out the story about how he came to the door at Halloween and how I had come to the shop to complete the soap opera myself. By the end of it all the guys were leaning in around me, and I'd noticed that some of the customers were even invested.

"I don't know," I threw my hands up, sliding out of the booth. "Sorry to bother you guys, I'll just take this and go," they'd placed the pizza on the table next to me since they'd had time to finish it while I'd been droning on.

"You love him, don't you?" Gary smiled as they watched me leave.

I pondered the idea, I'd never said or felt that before but, "Yes," I answered, "I like him more than pepperoni pizza with extra cheese and that's saying something."

These guys understood how much that meant and I left, happy to have gotten it off my chest but miserable because I hadn't been able to tell Neo that very thing.

"You know what? Part of me just wants to eat a pizza and go to sleep."

-          Gwen Stefani