In Which
He wants to buy her guitar.
or
In which
Her guitar brings them together.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
In a forgotten corner of the city sits a little record shop, filled with dusty shelves, the scent of coffee, and the girl who keeps it alive. She's twenty-tw...
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🎙
Ordinary -
⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪"The angels up in the clouds are jealous knowin' we found Somethin' so out of the ordinary"°˖➴
⚡︎⚡︎⚡︎
The thing about kisses — and yes, apparently I was now someone who thought about kisses like this — is that they don't just end when they're over.
They linger.
Like ghosts.
Or like static clinging to you long after you've taken the sweater off, sparking every time you move.
A couple of days had passed since that night, and everything between Jay and me was... annoyingly normal. We still bantered, still argued over which albums should be displayed at the front of the store, still played this weird push-pull game where he'd annoy me just enough to make me roll my eyes but not enough to make me genuinely mad.
But there was something new.
Something that made my chest feel weirdly tight every time he walked in.
I noticed it on Tuesday first. I'd been restocking a shelf of records, hair falling out of the messy bun I'd thrown it into, when I heard the door chime.
"Morning," Jay said casually, sliding in like he always did.
And my stupid heart decided that this was the perfect time to turn into a full-on marching band.
I dropped the record I'd been holding.
He blinked at me, amused. "You good?"
"Yes. Fine. Great. Amazing," I said, a little too fast, quickly bending down to pick up the record.
"You sound very convincing," he said dryly, walking past me to hang his jacket on the hook near the counter.
I glared at his back. "I am convincing."
"Sure," he said, smirking over his shoulder. "Keep telling yourself that."
And that was how the rest of the day went — me trying desperately to keep my cool, and him existing like a normal human being while my brain short-circuited every time he got within five feet of me.
The worst part? He didn't even have to do anything.
He'd lean across the counter to grab something and I'd suddenly forget how to breathe. He'd brush past me on the way to the back room and my entire spine would light up like someone had plugged me into an outlet.
At one point, he crouched next to me while I was alphabetizing a crate of used CDs, so close that I could smell his cologne — clean and expensive, like something that belonged in a glossy magazine ad.
"You missed one," he said, pointing at a CD.
I stared at it. I stared at him.
"I did not," I said, defensive.
"You did," he said, his voice way too calm for how close we were. "This one's out of order."
I grabbed it, shoved it in the right place, and stood up way too fast. "There. Fixed. Happy?"
Jay tilted his head up at me, a small smile tugging at his mouth. "Very."
And just like that, he went back to work like nothing had happened, while I was left standing there, clutching a random CD like it was a weapon.
By Thursday, I'd resigned myself to the fact that this was my new normal — being a barely functioning mess anytime Jay was around.
But to my surprise, he kept things light.
No smug comments about the kiss, no weird pressure to talk about it, no attempts to push me past whatever emotional cliff I was teetering on. If anything, he seemed... calmer. Like he was content to just exist in the same space as me, to keep things easy and let me adjust.
And I hated that I appreciated it.
It made everything worse somehow — the fact that he was giving me space instead of pushing, that he was letting me come to him in my own time. It made that weird static feeling in my chest spark even more, like my entire body was waiting for the next thing to happen.
Friday morning, I was sitting on the counter, sipping my coffee before opening, when Jay walked in.
"You know you're not supposed to sit there, right?" he said, dropping his bag on the floor.
"My dad's not here," I said, taking another sip. "He doesn't have to know."
Jay smirked, walking closer. "You're a rebel, huh?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure. Living dangerously."
He stopped in front of me, tilting his head slightly as he looked up at me — because, of course, I was still sitting on the counter, which made him just a little shorter than me for once.
"You're cute when you're sarcastic," he said softly.
My heart did that stupid thing again, thudding painfully against my ribs.
I hopped off the counter before I could start glowing like a human neon sign. "Open the shop, rich boy. We have customers coming."
He laughed under his breath but didn't argue, walking over to flip the sign to "Open."
And just like that, the day began — calm, normal, perfectly manageable.
Except, of course, for the fact that every time Jay smiled at me, I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust.
