Pause (Published)

Chapter 14: Don't Knock Him 'Til You've Tried Him

"Can I get you your usual, Sophia?" he asks blandly, not even bothering to spare her a smile or a second glance.

Her face falls. "Yeah," she says with a glum expression as a result of receiving the cold shoulder.

If she only knew that he's just trying to make ends meet.

"Okay," he replies, turning his back on her to make the drink.

Sophia sighs and glances my way in dejection as if giving up on Jay and his unwillingness to give her his time of day.

I grin at her, offering her a tiny wave with my fingers.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes at me as she waits on Jay. 

He finishes mixing the drinks and hands her the finished product before sending her off on her way. His gaze strays to me. He quirks an eyebrow at me when he realizes that I'm staring.

"Not interested?" I question.

He simply shakes his head.

I grin at this and add it to my notes. 

A loud bang on the bar counter alerts me of his close presence. I jolt upright in my barstool, nearly falling off of it in fright.

I look up to find Jay's hand grabbing at my notebook with a look of scorn in his eyes. "Would you stop writing about me in your notebook like I'm some kind of animal?! It's irritating. This isn't Animal Planet."

"With that attitude, it might as well be," I mutter inconspicuously.

His eyes flicker over my notebook as he skims over the words. I try to snatch it back from him, but he merely continues reading, using the hand not holding my notebook to push me back on the forehead with little effort as if I am nothing but a meddling fly.

"Observing the beast in his natural habitat?" he reads aloud in a sharp tone, before glowering at me accusingly. I shrug innocently. He glances back down to read more before lifting his face to me a second time. "What the hell is this?" he asks, point-blank.

"Paper," I answer wittily.

His eyes fume with rage as he slams the notepad down before me, not startling me in the least as I expected it this time. "I know it's paper! I meant..." he sighs in defeat, "forget it, there's no winning with you."

"Hey, you said it, not me," I point out with a graceful smile much to his budding irritation.

"Could you at least take the glasses off? It doesn't make you look any more like a journalist," he says, pointing to the thick, rimmed spectacles that I purposely wore when I started my thesis on him.

They were in my bag all along. I knew they'd come in handy some day.

"Yes, it does!" I snap. "And I'm not a journalist. I am a professional reporter and you're the rare specimen that I am documenting," I clarify, annoyed at his misconceptions.

He doesn't say anything. Instead, in the blink of an eye, he reaches forward and grabs my specs, pulling them right off of my face. 

"Hey!" I yell out in anger and reach forward to get my glasses back. 

Jay responds by flicking me on the forehead, unfazed by my interference. 

"These don't suit you," he says calmly, glancing at me. "You look so much better without glasses."

"Don't tell me what to do. I do what I want." I scowl at him as he holds the glasses up in front of his face as if to inspect them. 

"You're not SpongeBob SquarePants." He dangles the specs before me tauntingly, "You can't work these."