Shared Spaces. phan

5.

"Having fun?" He jumped a little at my sight. He then changed his surprised look into a smile.

"Yeah, I lost the rest," he admitted.
"This place is so big, no one told me you're a barista on this floor," he said in a loud voice over the music playing in the back. I was trained to read the customer's lips though. It was necessary, working at a club.

"Not a barista, an assistant. I don't think anyone would trust me with preparing actual drinks." I multitasked, talking and placing the glasses on the shelves beneath the bar.

When I looked up at Phil I noticed something was off. He  didn't seem very focused, his eyes drifted from one end of the bar to the other. He didn't even chuckle at my self-deprecating comment.

Before I could ask him if he was okay, Robin turned to us with Phil's drink. Some fruity concoction in a margarita glass. Well, of course.

"No flirting with the customers Howell, you know the rules. Also, can you check in the back for more straws?", she teased, sending a wink in my direction.

"Yes chef, also not funny," I answered dryly, but she was gone before she could hear it. I couldn't blame her, the customers made her work incessantly  the whole night.

When I returned, the stool where Phil sat moments ago was empty. For some reason it saddened me. Where' was that coming from? Not even a month ago I had begged for him to keep his mouth shut around me. Now I couldn't help but want to talk with him.

Maybe we never started off on the right foot, but I was warming up to him more and more. If he hadn't been that close with Sophia in the first place we could have perhaps formed a friendship.

My shift ended at half three, and luckily I found my friends outside the building waiting for me. They all looked very hammered. Especially Sophia and Beth who were shivering in their mini dresses and  giggling like two toddlers after hearing a naughty word. Florence was wearing Garrett's coat which I found a little bit odd but then I remembered she was still sick. Garrett's a sweetheart when he's tipsy so that might be the explanation.  Phil was the least drunk out of the four of them. The only indicators of him being tipsy were his red cheeks and hooded eyelids.

We ordered two ubers. Garret, Flo and Phil decided to take the first one, because reasons. So I was stuck in the second car with the two girls that hadn't yet realised  that the party was over.

In the car I tried to be as silent and respectful to the driver as possible but the girls were making it very hard. Beth sat on the right side, Soph in the middle and I on the left. They kept giggling about something incoherent into each other's ears.

"Hey Dan, Danny... Phil said he saw you!" Sophia mumbled out, turning her petite body from one side to another to get closer to me.

"Yeah, I know. He told me he lost you guys." My response must have been hilarious because the two couldn't hold their laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"We know something, but we can't tell you," Beth said, slurring with each word. Sophia turned her head to the other side to slap Beth's   chest.

"You weren't supposed to say that!" she scolded her but then they cracked up even more.

"Oh come on girls, now I'm curious," I said in a very not amused tone. Sophia proceeded to get closer to me and put her hand in between her mouth and my ear to tell me something.

"We think he's got a crush on you." Both her warm breath and the content of her message made me shiver.

Oh.

At that moment I wondered if everything was intact in my body because it reacted very... abnormally. My heart sped up in my chest, it felt as if it was about to plummet down to my stomach. My cheeks and my neck got hotter and something weird was happening to my stomach. It all happened very quickly so I decided to ignore it and let out a nervous laugh.

"Don't laugh! The way he talks about you is so cute," Sophia said dreamingly, clasping both of her hands together.

"He asked if you're straight, we said yeah because duh, but we didn't want to hurt his feelings," Beth filled in for Sophia.

I couldn't believe them. Not that I was shocked, I knew they were both drunk and imagining stuff that didn't happen. On the other hand, drunk people were supposedly incapable of lying.

I looked out the window for the rest of the ride in silence. Luckily, after two more minutes of uncontrollable giggles the girls tapped out. Beth's head rested on Sophia's shoulder and Soph's head on her head. They looked adorable when their mouths were shut. I tried not to overthink the whole 'Phil has a crush on me' but failed every time. It made sense, in a way. Phil was often shy in front of me but I had reckoned it was because I used to be mean to him.

If it was true and he had a crush on me, I felt bad for him. I knew how it felt  to like someone you couldn't have. Hopefully he would get over it. Sooner or later he would realise that I was just a huge coward and asshole anyway.

I decided to hide the whole concept far in the back of my head  never to be revealed again after this night.