Flavoured Ice [ᴛʀᴀᴅʟᴇʏ]

O5

"No, if you use your fifty percent off coupon for this purchase, you can't receive the additional twenty. We don't pair coupons," I reiterated to the man once more, and he scratched his bald head, obviously flush and itchy from the outside heat he had just come in from.

I took a deep breath of nothing at all, and watched him as he seemed to gather his thoughts for what appeared to have been the millionth time that afternoon.

"So you're telling me, that if I use this fifty percent off coupon here, I can't add on my twenty? What kind of load is that? It's the same thing as having a sev—"

"Sir," Shawn smiled, "we don't pair our coupons," he finished politely, and the man's face displayed registry.

"Oh, well, this guy here's been no help at all. I've been asking that this entire time!" He announced with a delighted smile, and my jaw dropped even if only for a moment. If you could die of disbelief, I suppose that I would have taken it as a viable option in that very moment.

No help at all? Had he not heard me do his reading for him back-to-back? I watched him rollick as he received his custard, practically prancing to his car as he let out the slightest of chuckles. And well, I rolled my eyes because that was the best thing to do in that situation I think.

"That guy was an arsehole," Shawn laughed whilst changing the solution in our sanitation bucket.

"Speaking of arseholes," I mumbled, "here comes another," I wrapped up my statement and then turned to my best mate. "Shawn, how fired will I be if I kill him?" I joked.

"So fired," he laughed at me as he dried his hands and took the spot aside from my person. Well, not only was Tristan Evans here with his cronies, (who never actually ordered anything) but Cameron Dallas and Aaron Carpenter had arrived as well, and I didn't know them all too well, save for the fact that they were both decently acquainted with Shawn.

Well, that left me alone with the hounds of hell, and if I'm honest, I had seen it coming from the moment that Tristan had rounded the corner.

He gave me that dangerous smirk again, and I cautiously sent back some sort of a grimace that I'm sure still made his toes tingle.

I hated to admit it so bluntly to myself, but I could not particularly lie. Tristan Evans was attractive. There was no denying that. He just had the most perverse way about going about introducing things. The boy had once turned asking for my cellphone number —which I didn't offer up— into a conversation about when I could come around his place and I'd known what he'd been insinuating.

He took his place in the line that had previously been non-existent, and cleared bis throat before placing the order that he placed practically everyday that I met his acquaintance. Only, this time, he requested that I do three layers of custard: below, within and above his frozen ice.

I accepted his request and took his money for what had seemed like the millionth time. And I had a slight hunch that maybe, just possibly, I would do this an infinite amount of times more. Well, that is until University, where I wouldn't be surprised if he found me out and made my life hell in the one place that I'd figured myself to be safe.

Tristan Oliver Vance Evans was like a body local fungus that grew on your foot. Well, you get an antibiotic and things seem fine, but it somehow comes back, you get the foot cream, and the coast is clear. And then, you're on holiday in Cabo when suddenly there's another outbreak, and you get the shot, but the persistent little nuisance still comes back. Tristan Evans was foot fungus; he just kept coming back.

Maybe he was Satan? That was viable. I watched that film Carrie this once, and her mother had said something about the devil and how he would keep coming back. Only, you've just got to keep killing him. I think maybe that she was talking about Tristan.

"You know why they call me fireman Evans?" Tristan questioned, and his posse began to howl (which I didn't understand because howling and firefighting had no direct correlation). I peered over at him through eyes as thin as slits because in my experience, I hadn't ever heard that, and maybe he was just making it up in order to set up some silly little verbal advance.

"Why's that?" I humoured him for once.

"Because," he smiled; and it was that innocent smile that he'd used the same day he insinuated that he wanted to lick me down, "I find them hot, and leave them wet." I looked back from where I was preparing his dessert, gave a grimace of disgust at not only him, but those mindless drones he called friends who thought that he was just so clever.

"Let me be honest here, you and I," I began as I assorted his fixings. "The likelihood of anything happening between us; there isn't a snowball's chance in hell, that's for sure," I said in seriousness, and then I handed him his gelati.

"I get it, I get it," Tristan laughed, "the square is hot, but I promise I won't melt fast," he ended with a smirk. Sometimes I believe, it's incredible how much of a pervert this guy is.

And this time; you'll never believe it, I saved my pretty little eyeballs from rolling away, and I cut my them.

—

Completed: 1/7/17
Published: 11/7/17