the record store; i; new politics.
"You're crazy." I told my friend, who was currently dragging me down the high street. "If you think I'm going in here to look at you gawking at boy-band CDs for another hour, you're very much mistaken."
She huffed and continued dragging me down the street, and stopped outside the door of a small, record store. I looked through the small window.
"Laura." I told her. "I'm pretty sure they won't have any '5 Seconds of Summer' EP's in here."
She sighed. "Hollie. How many times do I have to tell you. We're not here for the music, we're here for the cashier. He's hot."
I laughed at her. "You have..." I though for a moment. I could never remember his name for the life of me. "Daniel. That's it. You have him."
"Not for me, duh." She said. "You. And seeing as you can name literally every single songwriter in history, I'm pretty sure he's the one for you."
Meet Laura: she had a terrible habit of over exaggerating things.
"He's probably not even that good looking." I told her. "He's probably ten years older than me, a jerk, and has no care for the job he has."
"I don't care." She told me. "We're going in anyway."
"Whatever." I said as she grabbed my wrist lightly and pulled me through the door.
Immediately, I could tell this place was kind of like a treasure trove. It was slightly busy, and carried a slight fusty stench, but it seemed like the people truly enjoyed spending their times slowly browsing through records of both songs and musicians they had never heard of.
I turned around to see that my slightly irreverent friend had already wondered off into one of the rows of CDs and LPs that were closer to the front, giving a large stare to who I guessed was the cashier guy she'd been crushing over for the past week or so.
I ignored her as I walked past, her hand gestures making me laugh, and headed straight for the furthest corner of the shop, labelled by a massive sign that read 'Classical' and had a comedy record clipart over it for some kind of effect, which I didn't actually understand.
I started to flick through the pile, slightly disregarding what I was flicking through, and stared silently at my friend. I guessed she couldn't see what I was doing, as she was still trying to lock a stare with the guy who was happily serving multiple customers and labelling and pricing objects without even looking in her direction, looking a tiny bit stupid while she did it.
A noise behind me made me jump slightly, loosing my place in the pile of records and CDs I was flicking my way through. I sighed it off and moved slightly to the right: the person who made the noise clearly wanted to look at the records I was aimlessly moving my way through.
And so I started looking through again. I recognised some of the names I met in my venture through the second pile of records. But then the noise came again, and a little louder, so I moved again, this time a little further away, but the voice still followed.
"Sorry." I mumbled. "I'm in your way aren't I?"
"Nope." The voice replied. "I like following girls wearing rock band t-shirts around the classical section. Your sort are very few and far between."
I still didn't turn my head around. "My sort?" I questioned him, or at least I thought he was a him, or she or...
I stopped and turned around, confirming my expectations that it was a guy, but proving false the ones that it was a middle aged, bald guy who was stalking me or something.
"The unexpected sort." He replied. "Your friend likes Robbie, doesn't she?"
"You know, I did think you were a stalker." I turned around to look through the piles of other records and merchandise that was lying on the other side of the isle. "Or else, how would you know I was with 'my friend'." I made a mental note that the cashier guy was called Robbie, just so I could pass the note onto Laura.
He ignored my remark. "Looking for anything in particular?"
"Ah, so you're not a stalker, but a shop assistant. You almost fooled me there. Well done."
He laughed, but his face still remained in the same smile it had started the conversation with. "So, you're browsing?"
"Waiting." I answered simply.
"For your friend?" He asked. "The one who keeps on staring hopelessly at the newbie?"
"That's her, yeah." I laughed, but still remained uncertain. This guy was pretty observant.
"Davie." He stuck out his hand, readying it for a handshake.
"Nice to meet you." I shook it.
"So what." He said as he took his hand back. "You're not going to tell me your name."
I shook my head as he muttered the words "You're a strange girl." into my ears. I laughed and carried on looking my way through the rest of the choice the Classical section had to offer. But he still followed close behind me, even after being stopped once or twice by a few customers.
After a while, I guess Laura had given up. She started walking towards me, looking slightly downhearted, so when she finally came within arms distance to me, I gave her a little hug, making her smile when I released her.
"Maybe we'll come in next time, okay." I said back to her, trying to make her feel a little better. Davie, the guy who was following me, was currently helping a customer. This was the time to make my escape.
"Sure." Laura smiled at me. "Do you want to say goodbye to him, or should we just go?"
"Not bothered." I said. "But I could put in a good word for you and-" I was bad with names, generally. "Robbie, I think. The cashier guy."
"I'm not sure. I'm not sure he's worth the trouble." She told me honestly. "I'm not going to wait for someone who isn't going to notice me, I mean, like, I'm not going to waste everything for a guy who just wants me to wait."
"You've only spent a few minutes in here, Lau. Don't judge him that quick: he's working, remember."
"It's been hours, about one or two. It's-" She looked at her watch, pulling up the sleeve of her jacket. "-just before six."
Time had gone faster than I'd expected it had. "Well then, I guess it's time to go. Anything you wanted to buy?"
"Nope." She said. "But I do want a lemonade or something."
"Sure." I said as we walked towards the door.
- - -
I was halfway down the road and almost in the front of the queue for the small, hand-painted lemonade stand when I was stopped by a voice calling someone who I thought was me. Granted, all the voice was saying was "Wait!" but I had a feeling that it was the figure of the guy who had followed me around in the record store running towards us.
"Wait." It definitely was him. "You never told me your name."
"Stranger danger." I replied simply.
"It's Hollie Connors." Laura stated. I hit her around the head in response.
"Well thanks." He said to Laura before turning back to me. "Hollie, you never gave me your number."
"Don't even say anything." I turned to Laura before reeling of the digits of my own number. I had a feeling that he wouldn't go away unless I gave them to him.
"See you soon, Hollie." He said before turning around and slowly starting to jog back towards the record store.
"Well he was nice." Laura told me as we slowly moved positions into third in the queue.
"Well he was creepy." I said back as my phone vibrated in my back pocket. "Well, who the hell could that be."
'Just checking you didn't give me a dud number. '
I swear I could see him laugh just before he entered the small door.
- - -
[i hope this isn't like awful okay. i rarely write authors notes but literally i woke up overnight and i ranked, got 9 votes and 6 comments, which is crazy, seeing as nobody normally reads my works, so if you like this, please don't forget to press the little star button and type something below.]
favourite band #1: new politics.
favourite song by them: tonight you're perfect [on the side].
fun fact about them: they did the song for the trailer for 'frozen' [harlem]