It was eleven o'clock at Dolce Ice Cream, half an hour before closing time, and my feet and hands were killing me. No, seriously, absolutely throbbing. I readjusted my official baseball hat and retied my ponytail. My hair was dark brown with red tones underneath; leftover from a few months back when I had impulsively dyed my hair bright scarlet, looked in the mirror, and then immediately regretted it. The new color either emphasized the lovely pale whiteness of my skin, or made me look like a secret albino. After losing my summer freckles, I was horribly afraid it was the latter. With a sigh, I shifted back to my other foot. My feet were dying.
"Just sit down for a bit, Sophie."
I turned. My boss was looking at me with concern and a little bit of laughter in his eyes. Well, I wasn't exactly clear on whether Jake was my boss or not. He was only a few years older than me, 27 at the most. He didn't own the store, but I'd never seen the owner in the four months I'd worked at Dolce, and Jake was practically always here, so it pretty much seemed like he ran the place. He'd told me once that he was only working here to pay the bills; he actually wanted to be a sound engineer, for movies and things. I didn't know much about it, but I figured it was probably similar to all my friends who were actually actors, but worked at Starbucks for the insurance. I stuck my tongue out at him and put on my worst Russian accent.
"Vhat do you think I am, veak? I am stronk! I am stronk like ox! See how I scoop the ice cream!" I grabbed the scraper and scraped down the cotton candy from the sides of the tub. My wrists whimpered in protest. Jake laughed, faking an accent of his own.
"No Soph-sputin. I cannot qvestion your powver. The ice cream, it trembles before you." He paused, "But it's September and I don't think anyone else is coming in. We can close up a little early tonight." Jake reached out and took the scraper from me. As he drew closer, I could feel myself begin to blush. Oh boy. I'd been fighting a massive crush on Jake since I'd started working here. What can I say, the man was gorgeous. Curly, sandy brown hair, hazel eyes, over six feet tall, and although I'd never seen him shirtless, he moved like a man who was confident while naked. It didn't help that I hadn't gotten laid since my college boyfriend dumped me at graduation four months ago. I was getting embarrassed, so sarcasm defenses flared into action.
"Closing early? How dare you? There is an entire parade of whiny 8 year old children lining up to consume our product! We have a responsibility to the community, you know. If we don't feed children enough sugar to send them in to a hyperactive diabetic coma, who will?"
"A hyperactive coma?"
"...shut up! It was smart and sassy in my head!" OH GOD BLUSHING. Jake laughed and patted my ass. He did that a lot. Part of me always wondered if that meant all our sarcasm was actually flirtation. A bigger part of me thought it probably wasn't. And the rest of me wondered if suing him for sexual harassment would help pay off my student loans. Probably not. I turned and inspected said ass. I had to admit, it was very pat-able. A bitchy "friend" had once told me that I stored all my fat in my rear. In high school I'd been crazy-self conscious about it. In college I found out that it could get me laid. I looked up at Jake and he was looking at my butt, too. He saw me looking and grinned wolfishly. BLUSH BLUSH BLUSH CRAP. Quick! To the quip-mobile!
"Yes." I breathed, "Worship at my booty altar! You know I am your god!" Jake's hand was suddenly back on my jean covered ass, squeezing it lightly.
"It certainly is divine." He said, with a wink and a grin. I turned away quickly before I could explode from embarrassment or rip off my clothes and beg him to take me. "I'll bring the tables in from outside and roll down the security shutter. You put away all the toppings." Jake said. I turned to look at him, and Jake was still grinning, now almost diabolically. Oh man, I must be lobster red for him to look that pleased with himself. I grabbed the rainbow and chocolate sprinkles and headed towards the back room of the shop.
I could hear the squeals and scrapes of Jake dragging the tables and chairs indoors, and I took down the big topping tubs from the shelves next to the floor freezers. While I emptied the day's leftover sprinkles in to their tubs, I took quick stock of myself in the mirror above behind the nut ice creams freezer. Dark, reddish brown hair, a white Dolce baseball cap, pale skin, big brown eyes, a well-formed mouth, no boobs to speak of covered in a Doctor Who t-shirt and a white Dolce Ice Cream apron. Jeans containing the aforementioned godly behind. Comfy flats. People had told me that I was pretty.
That was my look in a nutshell. Pretty. I didn't have whatever invisible thing made people sexy, and I didn't wear makeup except on special occasions, so I never quite made it to beautiful. I was just pretty. Approachable. Girl-next-door. Most of the time, when men got drunk around me, they didn't hit on me. They put their arm around my shoulders and slurred the stories of their bitch ex-girlfriend who broke their heart and thanked me for being so nice and listening, unlike her, that bitch. I guess that sums me up. I look nice. Nice and sweet. Like ice cream.
The rumble of the security shutter being pulled down jolted me out of my reverie. I turned and hurried back to the counter to collect the cookie crumbs, M&M's, and chocolate chips. Jake was bent over, fastening and locking the shutter, I got a nice view of his behind. It was at least worth a couple Hail Mary's and maybe a small temple.
I headed back to the tubs on autopilot, feeling my self-esteem deflate with every step. Who was I kidding? Jake might flirt at work, when he was trapped with me for 6 hours every day, 7 on weekends. But he was beautiful. He was probably popular in high school, played guitar in a band and made all the cheerleaders sigh. Jake had charisma. He had charm. I'd been too busy dying my hair purple and writing poetry in high school to ever develop any charisma. Jake had curly hair and a little bit of scruff and the way his shirt fell (yes, I noticed) made it look like he might even have abs. I had an enormous butt and the skin of a cave-creature that hadn't seen the light of day for twelve generations. I finished emptying the rest of the toppings on autopilot, my thoughts centered on really thoroughly destroying any confidence I had built up in terms of my attractiveness. What can I say? I'm female. We all do it.