The Gay Delusion

3: The Gin Delusion

When my lunch break finally came round at one o'clock, I was the one acting like James Bond, furtively glancing around the office as I decided I would grab a coffee from the Starbucks I had spotted across the street this morning without risking having to run into Griffin.

Grabbing my handbag, I legged it out of the office as I made a run for it as casually as I could.

'Hiya, could I grab a tall mocha to go, please?' I said, rooting round in my purse for the right money. Upon looking up, I had to blink twice, momentarily distracted by the cute barista with mussed inky black hair and a dusting of freckles. He was clearly too young for me, probably no older than 21 and most likely a uni student, but that didn't stop me from appreciating a cutie when I saw one.

The barista smiled, but it didn't do anything to me the way Griffin's stupid smile had, I thought without thinking. I had to resist the urge to slap myself when I fully registered it.

'Absolutely. Anything else?' the barista asked me, tapping my order out on the screen.

I shook my head and handed over the money, our fingers brushing as I did so. I was such a loser and apparently now a cougar, watching our hands like they were moving in slow motion and thinking about sparks, even though there were none.

'Thank you,' I said with a smile as I collected my drink, before heading over to the little counter to pour one sugar in, glancing over at barista-boy once more as I stirred them in with one of those little wooden sticks that probably had a name. His gaze caught mine before he went back to serving the next person.

Despite it being late July, there was a certain chill in the air, biting at my fingers which wrapped around the white coffee cup. I sipped at my drink as I walked around, perusing the shops and taking small, sneaky bites of my chicken sandwich in the shops where food was prohibited. Laina Carter, criminal extraordinaire.

It was while I was browsing in Paperchase that I realised a number had been written onto my coffee cup. Blinking in surprise, I saw the name Alfie scrawled with his eleven digit mobile number, realising that barista-boy apparently didn't mind the older woman.

Whoa.

I felt flattered, biting down on the smile that rose as I stared at the name on the cup. I didn't realise things like this actually happened in the real world, ridiculous as that sounded.

Hesitating for a couple of moments, I rooted through my bag for my phone, tapping in the number and saving it to my contacts list as Alfie (Barista Boy). Just in case.

Usually I would have been on that before you had the chance to even say my name, but something today stopped me. I put it down to the unceasing anxiety about working with a certain boy with an irritatingly birdlike name.

Soon enough however, the caffeine began to kick in and I actually forgot about the newly stored number in my phone. I began to feel less daunted by the prospect of working with Griffin. It would be fine, things would work out in their own way. I just needed to chill out and try my best to avoid him in order to keep my cool. There was nothing to worry about.

There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

I was still on my coffee high as I walked back into the work building, grateful to find that the lift was on the ground floor when I pressed the button, immediately opening. Stepping inside leisurely, I pressed the button for the twenty-third floor once more, watching as the doors began to slide closed again when a voice rang out.

'Hold the doors, please!'

It was safe to say that the avoidance plan turned into a load of wank right on the spot, when Griffin himself stepped inside.