Calypso [Completed] {Preview}

Chapter 1 - Drenched

I was wet!

Actually, wet might have been an understatement. I'd walked five kilometres in torrential rain. Two kilometres of that in heels, which seemed like a feat in itself. I'd taken my heels off when my second blister busted and the pain became unbearable.

I wasn't unhappy though. I was damn near elated. The date my mother had set me up on was horrible. The asshole son of one of her colleagues was a self entitled and conceited son of a bitch. When he tossed me out of his car forty minutes ago because I wouldn't put out, I'd smiled happily and waved goodbye.

Why? Because doing my mother the favour of dating her colleagues son had bought me two week a holiday in Hawaii. That's why I didn't care how sore my feet were, how wet I was, or that I probably looked pretty pathetic skipping towards the late night Pitstop Cafe resembling a drowned rat. The Pitstop was a heritage listed building that had been converted into a cafe,  adjoined with a seven-eleven service station.

I bounced up to the doors with a smile on my face and day dreaming about the sort of bikini I should buy for my first vacation in two years. That was the only reason I went on this date from hell.  I stopped once I was under cover and attempted to wring myself of excess water. The glass doors slid open, the buzzer sounding to let the employee know he had a customer.

I smiled as Joshua, a high school senior and night shift employee, stepped around the corner from the cafe, his blue eyes going wide as I stepped inside the doors. His pouty mouth moved but no sound came out. Joshua was two years behind me at school and under normal circumstances I would have no idea who he was, but I tutored him for my two senior years. I was a quarter of the way into my second year at university now, but continued to tutor Joshua, so we knew each other well.

"Band aids?" I asked pulling my dripping, sable coloured hair back off my face. That was my one regret for tonight, wearing my hair down. I probably looked like the psychotic dead girl from 'The Ring.' Instead of crawling out of the television, I was walking through the door.

"Second row from the back." Joshua answered then dashed around the corner back into the cafe.

Okay. Guess I've looked better, but I wasn't used to that reaction. I looked behind me as I squatted to get a packet of band aids and realised I'd left puddles in my wake. Joshua had probably run off to get a bucket. As if on cue, he appeared in the doorway, setting up a wet floor sign before quickly moving towards me as he mopped the floor.

"Sorry." I apologised. "I did try and squeeze all the water out before I came in."

"It's okay. I've been mopping all night." Joshua smiled holding out a dry towel. "Give me your coat. I'll hang it in front of the fire in the cafe."

Lowering my handbag and heels to the floor, I smiled unbuttoning my ivory duffel coat and swapping him for the towel. "Thanks Josh."

Joshua graced me a natural smile as he went back to the cafe. He'd changed a lot in the last four years. No longer the cute kid, he'd filled out a little and was previewing the handsome man he'd become. At eighteen he wasn't there yet. There was still a boyishness about him that still made me think of him as a kid.

I used the towel to dry my face, hair, and legs, then grabbed the band aids with my stuff and walked over to the counter.  I retrieved my comb out of my bag and pulled my hair back into a pony tail. Joshua still hadn't come back so I took out a make-up wipe and my compact and cleaned all the make-up off my face. The mascara smudged black around my eyes, but I cleaned it till it just looked like eyeliner.

"Now you look like yourself." Joshua teased coming to serve me on the other side of the counter.  He picked up the band aids and scanned them. "Need anything else?"