A regular customer.

I kinda wished I could’ve joined the group. You know, sit down with a nice cup of mocha and talk with them all. But I was working, so I just had to leave them to their business. They sounded like they were having fun. Mark, at least, seemed less awkward. At the end of the day, it was a table full of outgoing people, so it was kinda loud. Maybe that’s why Maria sent them to the back of the shop.

“But you know, I just don’t understand,” Lena said, shaking her head. “Why are people at our school so in love with rumors?”

“It’s a fancy, expensive and prestigious school,” Ben explained. “They take **** very seriously and you could very well get expelled for starting something. Because of that, people take a less physical approach to bullying. Rumors are arguably the best way to hurt someone while making it hard to trace back to the one who spread them.”

I winced. I very nearly started something with Julian just the other day. No wonder Alice covered for me like that. And going a bit further back… Didn’t Sarah throw a tennis racket at Alice’s dickhead of an ex-boyfriend? She ended up getting kicked out of the tennis club for it and got a reputation as a violent girl for it.

“It helps that quite a few of them are true,” Amanda said. “People who aren’t interested in it, like you, Lena, probably can’t understand that there are others who absolutely love gossip.”

Yep. I couldn’t understand the appeal of talking about other people’s lives, but Isabelle liked it. Mila, Grace and Sarah did, too, to a lesser extent. Alice and Noelle were more like me, but since they were in the student council, they ended up hearing the rumors anyway.

“At least this one backfired on Julian,” Thomas said, grinning. “You guys saw the numbers on Oliver’s video, right?”

“Oh, yeah!” Mark said, laughing. “You mean the one Mila uploaded, right? Isn’t it at like 30.000 views by now?”

Excuse me? What video?

“Oh, the one of him playing the Free Bird solo, right?” Kevin asked. “When I watched it it was at like 5000.”

Oh. That one.

…

Oh God. Over 30K people watching me play guitar? I felt faint at the mere thought. But then again, I’d be playing live in front of approximately 500 at the talent show.

…

It was too late to give up now, wasn’t it?

Deciding it was better to ignore all that, I went back to my work, waiting tables for all kinds of customers. Lately we’d been getting older people, but that didn’t mean we didn’t still get plenty of girls. In fact…

Nope. Don’t.

My plan was to ignore it, but it seemed like my friends had also noticed and THEY wanted to make sure I knew.

“Hey, Oliver!” Amanda called me, smirking excitedly. I went over to their table, and when I was there, she began to speak in whispers. “That girl’s been checking you out since she got here!”

Ugh.

“Yeah, I noticed, too,” Ben said, smirking. “I’m kinda jealous. She’s gorgeous.”

“Then go talk to her,” I told him. “I just got out of that stupid rumor. I don’t need to start another.”

Ben shrugged. “Nah, I’m good.”

“She IS really pretty, though,” Lena said. “She also looks older. Do you think she’s in university?”

Thomas crossed his arms in thought. “Wait… I’ve seen her here before. Now that I think about it, she’s here fairly often, isn’t she?”

I swallowed a sigh. I didn’t turn to look, but I knew exactly who they were talking about. Curvy, busty, of dark skin and sitting by the opposite end of the shop. She seemed to have recently changed her hair style from a ponytail to something more loose that curled closer to the tips, almost like spirals.

Yeah, this girl had become a regular, and yet we never spoke more than was necessary. She didn’t flirt with me like other girls did, but… she did stare at me a lot. Ben was right, the girl was absolutely gorgeous, but she made me kind of uncomfortable. It was the reason I had yet to ask her if she was truly Mr. Carlos’ daughter as I suspected she was.

“She’s looking at her phone now,” Mark said.

“You think she’ll try snapping a picture of him?” Amanda asked.

What actually ended up happening was funnier to them and more mortifying to me. The girl forgot to lower her phone’s volume or connect her earphones, because we all heard the sound of the video she played. It lasted three seconds at most, but we heard the sound of the Free Bird solo being played… by me. The girl panicked and stopped the video immediately, soon acting like nothing had happened.

Now, you may ask: Oliver, how do you know it was the video of YOU playing the solo and not someone else's? Well, you see, the sound of my sister’s voice going “now” at the very start was very telling.

The girl stood up, went to pay for her order and made a smooth exit. Ten seconds after she was gone, my friends couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.

“Oliver has a stalker!” Thomas said.

“Oh man, did she hear us talking about Mila’s video and searched it?” Ben asked.

“Wouldn’t be hard. We gave her all the names,” Mark said.

“Hey, look at the bright side, Oliver. At least she’s hot,” Kevin said.

“I don’t think that makes it any better!” Lena tried to chide her boyfriend, but she was laughing, too.

“Man, what’s with you and women, Oliver?” Amanda asked. “You can’t catch a break, can you?”

“I…” I groaned into my hands. Not only was this embarrassing, but I could also put myself on the girl’s shoes and that doubled the shame. If it had been me I would’ve made a far less graceful exit. “That’s it. I’m done. I’m gonna go wash the dishes.”

That day, I went home more tired than usual.

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