~Brianna~
I saw the cutest guy walking down the hallway of my building and I had to do a double take. Being from Covington Kentucky means that I see more hicks and rednecks than anything else. Yeah, I know that I'm born and bred here myself, but I'm no hick! As a black girl I'm the wrong color to be a hick, right? Not that I really think in terms of color. All of my life I heard that I was a white girl in a black girl's body. Just because you listen to Jimmy Eat World instead of...Ludacris or Jay-Z doesn't make you less black. Hell I still like good singers like Maxwell and Jaheim. But I can also appreciate some Mighty Mighty Bosstones!
But anyways, this guy was not from these parts, that was pretty obvious. I'm not saying that there aren't some good looking white guys in Covington, but they don't look like rockstars!
He wasn't tall; probably not even five feet ten, and he was skinny as hell, but he was sexy! He had blonde spiky hair that was cut into one of those unruly styles; the ones that look like you just woke up—except you paid like a hundred bucks to look this way. He was kind of pale, too. And he was holding a cigarette in his mouth even though our building was non-smoking. I figured he couldn't be any older than his mid twenties, even though there was slight creases beneath his big grey eyes, tension; as if he was wired.
I checked to make sure he was wearing a badge and he was. Sometimes we get people who come in from the credit union and they end up getting lost in the building. But this guy was a real employee. He was wearing black jeans, black boots and an olive green Ed Hardy t-shirt with a burning skull on it. He was also wearing a leather jacket but not like a thug, which I personally can't stand.
His eyes darted around as he walked alongside a chubby girl. She was gabbing and gabbing and he wasn't saying a word. Yep, damned hicks didn't know when to shut the hell up. I would have watched him harder but I was late from break and I had a manager that was a true bitch.
~Evan~
Kentucky is a truly different experience. I remembered lots of land and horses and lakes to fish in. I remembered farmland and gardens filled with tomatoes and corn.
What I don't remember is this slum where there's nothing but a ton of strip joints and boarded up buildings. One side of the river has million dollar penthouses but the other side; the one I sit on, has nothing but the poorest of the poor.
I transferred from Florida because I remembered something a lot nicer, but maybe it wasn't the memory of Kentucky that was all that great; maybe it was just the memory of my Dad...but now he's dead and I'm trapped in this slum doing a job that any monkey can do.
"Evan, we got anymore cigarettes?" I lived in Covington with a cousin. She let me crash because I had cold hard cash and she has, what I'm beginning to suspect, a slight drug habit. I've only been here a month and have determined that I will be footing the entire bill for our living arrangements. So far I've loaded the fridge, paid up the late utilities and she's already borrowed her share of the rent from me. But she lets me drive her car and she doesn't mess with my things and she's always out with her boyfriend, so it's a fair enough trade.
I was sitting on the fire escape because the apartment was way too hot to do anything but come in, fall asleep and then wake up and leave again. I stood and climbed back in through the window. Chastity was putting on eye makeup in the apartment's one and only bedroom, allowing the fan to blow right on her so that sweat didn't ruin her hard work. It takes a lot of work to transform a druggie into a presentable druggie.
"We're out of cigarette," I replied, though I did have a pack stashed where she wouldn't find them. "But I'll pick you up a pack. I need a coca cola anyways." I held out my hand for her money and she went scavenging around for change. I knew she wouldn't find any but it was the principal of the thing.
"Evan, can you front me? Charlieboy is going to bring me money tonight and I'll give it back to you."
"Alright."
"You're such a cool Couz." She said while blowing me a kiss.
"I know." I slipped on converse and laced them quickly so that I could get out of the apartment before I started sweating.
"Bring me back a forty ounce!" She yelled as I slammed the door.
"Yeah, yeah." I murmured. And this was my life.
~Brianna~
You only get half an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. But the only restaurants in the area are always crowded by noon. So if you want to eat you better get your lunch at your break and then save it for lunch. That's what I do. I know that I should pack my lunch every day, because I am always broke and...well I've been packing on the pounds. But it is hard to get my ass into gear each morning. And when I finally to get out of work, the last thing I'm thinking of is preparing for the next day of work.
So I was in the Café and ordering a soup and sandwich when the rockstar walks in. I almost looked like a groupie when my eyes got big and I had to slam my mouth shut to keep from gaping at him. This time he was alone. He's doing what I do; getting lunch early. That meant that we were the only two customers present in the Cafe. I stepped to the side so that he could give his order at the counter, but watched him from the corner of my eye.
"I need an Italian sub and potato salad." He said.
"Drink?"
"Fountain coke."
He looked at me and nodded a brief greeting. Damn, his eyes didn't linger. Rednecks don't look too hard at blacks even though I know for a fact that they dream about black girls. But I figured he, of all people, wouldn't be afraid to look. He obviously came from a place that knew that skinny jeans looked good with converse and he could afford Ed Hardy shirts. I considered myself in the know when it came to style. I was wearing an Aeropostale tee and a jeans skirt. I also had on baby blue canvas Diesel shoes and I had my hair cut into layers and even though the humidity wreaked havoc on it, I kept it pressed ultra straight.
The guy dug into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and I saw him fingering one anxiously as he waited for his order to come up. Damn, why wasn't he checking out my legs? Maybe he went for skinny white girls.
"Order up." The clerk passed me my order and I 'accidentally-on purpose' dropped my purse. The guy reached down to retrieve it since my hands were full.
"Here you go." He gave me a distracted look.
"Thanks..." I checked out his badge. "Evan."
He gave me a curious look and I gestured to his badge. "Oh." Then he smiled and the tension seemed to leave his handsome face.
"I'm Brianna."
I saw his eyes move towards my badge. "Brianna...ok. Hi."
"You're new here, aren't you?"
