You're Dangerous

by Casey McMillin

  She tried to conjure up the faces of some of her favorite actors to mentally compare them, but as she stared at the photo of Jason Lane, she caught herself doubting anyone on Earth could possibly be as beautiful. He had the appearance of just getting off some exotic beach somewhere. Exotic. That was the perfect word for him. His light greyish-green eyes combined with the dark tan of his skin and dirty blonde hair gave him an absolutely striking appearance, like he should be on the cover of national geographic or something. She looked at several other photos of him, all the while wondering how in the world someone who looked like that could like country music. He just didn't seem like the type.

  She took a deep breath and closed the browser before she could look any more. She was afraid if she did, she would turn into one of the girls at the coffee shop who were in line for a chance with him. Waiting in line wasn't Hannah's thing, so looking at photos of him was pointless.

  ****

  It took about three weeks for Hannah to start feeling comfortable with everything at her new job. Everyone did everything at Common Grounds. That just meant that on any given day, Hannah could be scheduled as a barista, a cashier, a cook or a dishwasher, which would explain why she mistook one of the managers for a busboy one day.

  Michael was in charge of scheduling, and he always tried to be fair with how he rotated positions. The menu was simple, and the cook's position wasn't rocket science, but that was Hannah's least favorite place to be scheduled, and she thought she probably wouldn't pick up many shifts for people who were scheduled to cook.

  Barista was her favorite so far. A few of her coworkers were good at making simple designs like hearts on the top of the coffee with steamed milk, and they'd shown Hannah a few tricks. She was having fun trying new designs when they weren't too busy, and the customers seemed to appreciate the added touch. Cashier was fun too, and honestly, dish duty wasn't too bad either. Sometimes it was relaxing to just listen to music and space out on dishes for a shift. Depending on how busy they were, there were usually 4-8 people working at any given time, and Hannah had no trouble picking up extra work. She figured if she kept up that pace, it would definitely be feasible to save up for a car soon. It would have to be something cheap compared to the twenty thousand dollar truck that Sam's parents had just bought for him, though.

  Was she jealous?

  No.

  It wasn't that she didn't wish her parents had money, because she did. Hannah just knew wishing you had money didn't make it appear, and she knew what a waste of time jealousy was. Besides, Sam would have been happy to drive her anywhere she asked in his big, fancy, twenty-thousand-dollar truck.

  It was a beautiful morning in late June, and Hannah was just arriving at work for a shift as barista. It was her ideal day. Her girl Taylor was working with her at the espresso machine, and one of her other favorites—a sweet, tall, lanky character named Matt was working the register. That would have been enough to make her stoked for the shift, but it was also Monday, which meant Jason Lane would be coming in for coffee.

  One of the many girls who had a crush on him had told Hannah one time that, "He comes in every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 9AM, and you can set your watch by it."

  Even though she'd never admit it, Hannah did set her watch by it. She looked forward to him coming in just because she liked torturing herself with his gorgeousness. She considered it torture because, let's be honest, those two operated in completely different realms. She wasn't beat up about it, though. She was confident and comfortable in her own league, and wasn't sure she'd enjoy the pressure that went along with that kind of status anyway. Who could fault a girl for looking, though, right? He was fun to look at, but she certainly didn't have any hopes that he'd ever notice her for more than the girl who makes his coffee.

  Aside from the brief eye contact the day she got the job, he had never even laid eyes on her. She had worked a few shifts as cashier, but never on a morning when he came in. Part of her was relieved since she could feel herself blushing around him, and was trying to desensitize herself before she had to interact.

  Is he really that gorgeous? You ask.

  Yes.

  The answer to that question is a resounding yes! Jason Lane was blush inducing, forget how to speak, gorgeous—stop and stare just to admire his features, gorgeous—show up to work fifteen minutes early so you could draw a comic on the bottom of a coffee cup for him, gorgeous.

  That was her plan. Before she even knew what she was doing, she was entertaining thoughts of sneaking him a secret drawing on the bottom of his to-go cup. There were tons of things that could go wrong with the unconventional flirting technique, starting with her getting caught doing it and not knowing what to say to him, but for whatever reason, she didn't care.

  The thought had hit her the night before when she remembered her shift was as barista the next morning. Jason always got his coffee in a medium to go cup, and it wasn't unheard of for them to double cup a coffee instead of using a sleeve. She knew she could pull off having the second cup go unnoticed, but she was hoping the drawing wouldn't be seen before he left. If he saw it, she thought she would just play it off and say it was something she did all the time for random customers.

  So, she showed up for work fifteen minutes early that morning and took three medium coffee cups and her favorite ink pen into the upstairs bathroom. She was shaking the entire time she drew because she was afraid of getting caught (even though traffic was rare up there during the day). She took three cups in case she messed up, but as luck would have it, she drew one she was happy with the first time.

  She drew a cartoon version of herself as a funky little DJ girl complete with turntables and headphones. She was putting a record on the turntable, and if you looked closely enough, you could see that the writing on the album said, Our Time to Shine. That specific song was probably the last song Hannah would choose to play if she were a real DJ, but she wanted to personalize it because, well, if she didn't, it wouldn't really be flirting now would it?

  Hannah put the cups inside each other with the customized one in the middle to hide it. She stuffed them in her messenger bag and went downstairs to clock in for her shift. It was still slow in there before the first big rush. No one was in plain sight, so as Hannah passed behind the counter, she stooped to put her purse in a cabinet near the spot where she'd be standing while she made coffee. She'd seen other people put their stuff in there even though the regular spot was in the back office where the time clock was.

  "Hey, I forgot you were coming in," Matt said.

  He must have been stooping behind the adjoining counter because she hadn't seen him when she bent down. Because of this fact, she jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice. "Oh, Matt, you scared me."

  "Sorry."

  "I'm just about to clock in, but I wanted to put my purse up. When I'm working up here, I figure I might as well just put it under here, you know—under this little cabinet."

  Matt smiled and nodded a little but didn't respond—probably because there was no real response for that type of nervous rambling. Hannah just shut her mouth and went to clock in. It was two hours before Jason would set foot in the door, and already she was ate up with nerves. She told herself no one was forcing her to do the cup thing, and if he got here, and she wasn't feeling it, she could just forget about it. It helped that the morning shift at Common Grounds was extremely busy, and she didn't have time to obsess about it.

  Taylor arrived thirty minutes after Hannah did, and right when she did, more and more people started to show up as they did every weekday morning. In no time at all Jason Lane in all his glory walked through the door. Hannah couldn't imagine she'd already been there two hours, but when she looked at the clock, she saw it was nine o'clock on the nose. She hadn't even had time to decide whether or not she was going to try to pull it off, and suddenly he was there and she needed to make a decision. Jason had a few people in front of him in line, but Hannah needed to act fast if she was going to get the cup out of
her purse and get it ready.

  Taylor was stooping in front of the mini fridge where they kept the milk, which meant her back was turned for a few seconds at least. Before she even knew what she was doing, Hannah bent down and took two of the coffee cups out of her purse, leaving the third one that was on the bottom still in there. Her heart was pounding as she hastily shoved her purse back into the cabinet and closed the door. She stood up and sat the cups on the counter as casually as she could. Geez, she felt like she was robbing a bank or something with the amount of nerves coursing through her body.

  Taylor stood up beside her with containers full of milk and set them beside the espresso machine. Matt called out coffee drinks for the people who'd just ordered, and Taylor said she'd take care of them. She went to work putting the ground espresso beans into the portafilter.

  There was still one person in line before Jason when Hannah looked at Taylor and said, "I'll get this next one and get started on the guy behind her since he gets the same thing every time."

  Taylor glanced up to see who Hannah was talking about. As soon as she saw Jason, she looked over at Hannah. "Do you know who that is?" she asked. Even though they'd become good friends, they'd never talked about Jason—they had no reason to.

  "No," Hannah lied. Then she caught herself and started to backpedal. "I mean, I think I heard he's a country music guy, but I've never talked to him or anything."

  "I'd love to hate him because everybody thinks he hung the moon and everything he touches turns to gold, but he's hard to hate. He's actually really nice."

  "You've talked to him?" Hannah asked.

  "Yeah, he comes in here all the time. He wrote a few country songs that are really popular, but he looks like he just pulled up in a VW bus, and most of the girls who work here have tried to hook up with him."

  Hannah wanted desperately to know about who had tried to hook up with Jason and whether or not they'd been successful, but she had to focus on making the drink and getting it into the cup or she would make a mistake. She did her best to concentrate on making Jason's Americano, and listening to Matt call out the next order, which was complicated.

  "Has anyone here ever dated him?" Hannah asked once she had the drinks under control.

  Taylor laughed. "They wish," she said. "He's just one of those guys who can have any girl he wants. They flirt or whatever, but he doesn't even notice flirting because every single girl he ever meets flirts with him. He thinks it's just how girls act."

  "Must be nice," Hannah said. She wanted to be mad at him for being irresistible, but she just couldn't do it—that's how irresistible he was.

  Hannah set the mug on the counter that belonged to the girl who ordered ahead of Jason, and she came to get it. She sat Jason's Americano on the counter and nonchalantly yelled, "Medium Americano."

  He stepped up to grab the cup, and she did her best not to glance at him even though she really, really wanted to. She risked one little glance, and when she did, he was looking directly at her. She was startled, but played it off by smiling.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Hannah busied herself rinsing out the filter handle. "You're welcome," she said, casually.

  "Whose turn is it to pick the music?" he asked.

  "Mine," Matt said from behind the register.

  Jason looked over at him and smiled. "Nice. I love this album."

  Hannah knew the album. It was one called Bone Machine by Tom Waits, who happened to be one of her favorite artists. She smiled blankly at the espresso machine, thinking there was still hope for Jason's musical taste.

  "What's so funny?"

  Hannah looked up at Jason and realized he was talking to her.

  "Me? Nothing, I was just thinking about Tom Waits."

  "You know Tom Waits?"

  "Well, I wouldn't say I know Tom Waits, but I know his music." She paused and gave him a smile. "I'd like to know Tom Waits."

  Jason smiled back at her, which made her feel weak in the knees. "I can introduce you to Tom Waits," he said.

  She gave him a confused look. "Do you know him?"

  "No, but he's still alive, which means there's no reason we can't meet him, right?"

  What a charmed life he must lead to assume that the only requirement to being able to meet someone was that they were still alive—like anything under the sun is within your reach. She didn't know what to make of his confidence.

  "I'll tell you what," she said smiling, "You can make friends with Tom Waits and bring him in here for coffee with you sometime."

  He smiled back at her. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

  Chapter 7

  "What's that?" Nick asked.

  Jason had to look over his shoulder to see what Nick was talking about. "Oh, I don’t know. It was on the bottom of my coffee cup the other day."

  Nick picked up the round piece of paper that was sitting Jason's desk and inspected it. The jagged edges made it clear that Jason had taken a pocketknife to it. "Did somebody draw it?"

  "I assumed. It was on the bottom of my cup. I saw it when I put it in the trash."

  Jason went back to booking a hotel online. He was reserving something in Vegas for the trip he was planning. His childhood friend Nick Logan, son of country legend Leroy Logan, had just moved back to Nashville after being at boarding school and college for the last five years, and they were heading to Vegas to celebrate.

  They chose Vegas because Cam had a show there that happened to line up on the same weekend as a UFC fight. Jason and Nick would go to Cam's concert that Friday and then all three of them would go to the fights that Saturday. Jason and Nick went way back, but Cam had become good friends with both of them over the past two years, and they were all three stoked for the trip. Things generally got pretty crazy when they all partied together.

  "That's cute that she's playing your song," Nick said.

  "Who?" Jason asked without taking his eyes off the screen. "Daisy? She's recording three of them."

  "No, this girl," Nick said.

  Jason looked at him and Nick raised the cup-bottom he was holding, but didn't bother to turn it around. Jason reached out and plucked it out of Nick's grasp. He gave it a glance but then looked back at Nick, confused. "What are you talking about?"

  "Damn, Jason, do you need glasses? Read the words on the record."

  Jason inspected the paper more closely and realized that the little record did indeed say Our Time to Shine. He squinted down at it as he tried to think of who would have drawn it. The girl in the cartoon looked a little like the cute little barista who listened to Tom Waits. She had shortish, dark hair and super dark eyes, and those two features alone were enough to make him think about the girl at the coffee shop—he remembered seeing her there before. For whatever reason, he didn't mention anything about it to Nick. He just shrugged it off like someone must have just taken the notion to draw a random picture.

  ****

  It had been a week since he got the drawing on his cup, but had just figured out the day before it was more personalized than he thought. Nick had noticed it, and now that Jason knew it was there, he wondered how he ever missed it in the first place. He knew a few of the girls at the coffee shop who made their intentions clear, but the girl who he suspected drawing on the cup wasn't one of them, and he hoped she'd be working that morning so he could get a closer look at her.

  He walked into the coffee shop a few minutes before nine to the growl of hardcore music, and it didn't surprise him at all to see a guy named Nothing behind the register. The tall guy whose name he thought might be Matt looked at him apologetically from behind the espresso machine. "We told him he could have thirty minutes," he said. "It's only been ten, and I'm about to pull the plug already."

  Jason smiled and stuck his pointer and pinky fingers in the air as if he was rocking out.

  The dark haired girl stood up next to the tall guy and noticed Jason for the first time. She gave him a quick smile, but broke eye contact almost immediately and started steaming m
ilk.

  Jason didn't stand in line like he normally did. Instead, he crossed to the counter near the espresso machine. He stood as close to the girl as he could get without going behind the counter.

  She glanced up at him as she continued to make a drink. "Hi," she said. Her expression looked like she wanted to know if there was something she could help him with.

  "Did you draw on the bottom of my coffee cup?" he asked, with no preamble.

  She shot him a look that said she had no idea what he was talking about, and smiled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

  Jason took the round piece of paper out of his pocket and flashed it at her. "Did you draw this?" he asked.

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No," she said. She was smiling like she was being patient with his ridiculous questions.

  Jason looked at it and back at her thinking that the resemblance was uncanny and wondering who else would have drawn something like that. "You sure?" he asked.

  She laughed like he was being silly. "I think I'd remember drawing that."

  Jason shrugged, put it into his pocket, and got in line behind the person ordering. He heard the girl say she was going to use the restroom. She was still gone by the time he had gotten his drink, so he didn't see her again before he left.

  ****

  Jason brought Nick with him to the coffee shop the next day. It was Wednesday, which was one of Jason's usual days, but it was the first time Nick had been there in years. Nick was a finance guy who worked from home, so he was hanging with his boy Jason since he had nothing better to do in Nashville at 9AM.

  Jason and Nick ordered drinks, but instead of taking it to go, they sat at one of the tables in the main dining room. They had been there for a little while before Jason noticed a little chalkboard on the wall that said, "Art by: Jessica Foy." It was referring to the art on the wall, which was constantly changing since they liked to highlight students and local artists and photographers.