Mistletoe

December 3rd

Wednesday December 3rd

1.10pm

I'd been at Pleym for hours and my mind was ready to burst from all the info I kept cramming into it. Luckily Emma would come by every now and then and distract me, if not I might quite possibly have gone insane. It was my own fault though, I didn't have to do this workload all at once, but for some weird reason I couldn't remember at the time I'd chosen to submerge myself in all the work I could find.

I had never claimed to be one hundred percent sane.

"You getting any way with that?" Emma asked as she sat down across from my pile of books and papers.

I nodded, "Yeah, or at least I think so. It's all a blur at this point."

"Why don't you go for a walk. Leave your things, I'll watch 'em."

"That doesn't sound like the worst suggestion actually," I conceded.

Em smiled, "Great, that settles it then."

"You sure you don't mind, though?"

She waved a hand in response, "It's fine, Tom can manage the counter and I can fit my lunch break in, in the mean time."

I left all my things behind apart from my headset and my old mp3 player. With my phone down for the count I had to result to old solutions when it came to music on the go. I'd gotten it around six or seven years ago, the screen was shorter and slimmer than my pinkyfinger, only wide enough to tell you which song was playing. There was no internal light on the screen, but you could set it to change color, but you'd still need outside lighting to see what was actually playing. But it played music and that was what mattered, and it was only as thick as my thumb so it didn't take up much pocket space.

The fresh air did wonders and while I was at it I stopped by the post office to fetch Pleym's post for the week, saving Em or Tom the trip later. I'd left my id with my things, but the woman knew me so she handed the bills and flyers over without any protest.

"Here," I told Tom as I placed the stack on the counter. "How are you feeling?"

"Lots better, thank you," he smiled, but he still looked slightly discolored if you asked me. "Thank you for covering my shifts by the way, I really appreciate it."

I smiled at him in return, "Don't worry about it, I'm happy to help. Glad you're feeling better though." I relieved Em from her guard position and went back to outlining my essay. She'd been right to suggest the walk, I felt completely refreshed and ready for a new round of homework.

I'd brought my notebook with me, preferring to get all my thoughts out on paper before going to work on a laptop, and I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I didn't notice the shadow that fell over me, that was until he spoke.

"We should stop meeting like this."

I looked up startled out of my own head to be met by my mystery customer from Monday. Now that he was standing before me I had no trouble recognizing him; the bushy sandy blonde hair, the easy grin and a pair of startling icy blue eyes. They were so pale blue in fact that they were borderline grey. Why had I not noticed that striking color the other day?

"Like what? In my place of work?" I countered, a smile growing on my face. How could I not smile when he was practically radiating happiness?

"Fair point," he answered, giving me this one.

This was it; my pulse threatened to choke me as I took a leap of faith and said, "Thank you for the cupcake, by the way." I tried to be casual about it, and I succeeded, the thing was I didn't feel remotely casual because I didn't know for sure that this guy was Parker, I was just going out on a limb. For all I knew he had no clue what I was on about.