Abigail Turnman walked along the same sidewalk she did every morning before she had to work. She had the same breakfast from the same dive as she did the morning before.
As she was sweetening her coffee she looked up and into two very dazzling blue eyes, belonging to a young man seated at the table across from hers. She looked down quickly, sweetening her coffee, while she blushed.
She usually didn't get flustered like this and she hated that she was just because some dumb boy was looking at her. She looked back up and he smiled at her, revealing a mouth of uneven, yet not horribly uneven, stained, yet not horribly stained teeth. She blushed again, this time she smiled back.
"Are you Abigail Turner?" The young man asked in a voice that sounded as if it didn't get much sleep the night before. While he was asking this Abigail noticed his hair, a dark shade of brown, lighter and shorter on the sides, as if it had months before belonged to a military man.
"No," Abigail responded humorously, "My name is Abigail Turnman." She blushed again, at the stupidness of her joke. God, how she hated that this young man was making her blush this way. As if in response to her stupid joke or in embarrassment in having gotten her name wrong the young boy laughed and blushed, but not as much as she had.
He had only a coffee on his table and so she asked him if he would like to join her for breakfast. The young man smiled again before standing up. As he did, his hair fell into his eyes, which he quickly brushed out of the way before nodding and sitting down, across from her, coffee in hand.
"How did you almost know my name?"
Again, the young man laughed.
"Mark, uhh Callahan. He said he cleans up at your office and that I should speak with you."
Oh, Mark. There's a sweetheart if she ever knew one.
And in that instant she knew she could grow to love how this young man made her blush. Instead of hating it she would prize and cherish and she would include characters modeled after him in all her novels.
She didn't even know his name.
"So, you're a friend of Mark's huh?"
She asked this in a more confrontational way then she meant to and the young man seemed to recoil before he saw her blushing again, knowing that she had not intended to ask it in such a way.
"Yes, Mark is a friend of mine. Since high school actually. Uhh, my name is Henry, but uhh," he laughed softly, "my friends call me Hank."
"Well Mark is a sweetheart. So, if I'm not mistaken, you must be native here? At least since high school."
"Yes, I was actually born here, but uhh, if I'm not mistaken, you're from uhh New York, right? The city?"
As much as a sweetheart Mark was, he sure was talkative as hell.
Before she had a chance to say anything, Hank began talking again.
"So, uhh," he laughed softly, nervously almost, "I uhh, I hope this isn't too upfront, but I was hoping, uhh wondering actually, if you were doing anything tonight. My band and I are playing at the Stonehouse, it's a uhh, a charity show for Jonathan, our drummer, uhh his mom. She's fighting cancer, uhh, her condition has been improving but she still needs money for bills and stuff. I mean, you don't even have to pay, you know, I could ahh, I could sneak you in the back or whatever, I mean, uhh, it woudn't technically be.."
She cut him off,
"Yeah, sure I'll go. What time is it?"
He smiled even wider than he had the whole conversation,
"It starts at 8, uhh, it's at the Stonehouse, uhh, ****, I already said that. Oh ****- oh, sorry, pardon my language."
She pulled a pen out of her purse and began writing the address to her apartment on a napkin. Hank continued talking, mumbling, uhh-ing, but he trailed off as she handed the napkin to him.
"Pick me up at 7," she said, "We can go get some dinner before the show, you probably half to be there early right?" He nodded, "Okay, make it 6:30. This is the only diner I know, I've only been here since the start of summer, maybe you could show me some nice place to eat?"
He nodded, smiling and blushing and pushing the hair out of his eyes and scratching his arm and shifting in his seat anxiously.
"Now, it was lovely meeting you Hank, but if I don't leave now, I will be late walking to work, I'll see you at 6:30"
"Yeah, I'll uhh, I'll see you at 6:30"
She stood up and so did he. She was halfway across the diner before Hank kicked himself for being so stupid.
"Hey, do you need a ride to work? I mean, it's uhh, it's no trouble."
"Thank you, Hank, but I'll walk. I'll see you at 6:30, okay?"
She smiled a dazzling smile of white teeth, framed by golden hair, cut short, almost short enough to be considered a pixy cut.
She was out the door as Hank mumbled something stupid.
