Last night on a break from work and went to a local coffee shop, while there inspiration struck... here is what I got so far



“Tell us everything you know about Viper and you are free to go.”

I can't make out who is speaking, my head is spinning and they are standing in front of a really bright light bulb in an otherwise unlit room. Right now I should be focusing on the blood dripping from my chin, a memento from when the big jackass in the knock off Armani suit slugged me while gripping a roll of pennies, or the discomfort in my arms because of the position they have been handcuffed in behind me or even on the few details I know about 'Viper' so I can give them to him and get him to let me go back to my crappy boring life... instead all that is coming to mind in what it was like when she kissed me right before what had been a great night turned into the festering pile of shit that I am now in...

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

It all started about three months ago...

Well more like three years...

Okay lets start at the very beginning and call it seven years ago, my freshman year of high school. I was attending a charter school, kind of a free private school that only the smarty smarts like me and my class mates could get into, seriously if you couldn't qualify for MENSA then they had no real interest in letting you attend. There was this girl there by the name Veronica, I had a thing for her... a real big thing... but she was taken and we ended up as friends. My parents didn't like the school, thought the format was way to open and undisciplined so after that one year in paradise I was back into public school. Veronica and I didn't stay in touch... she didn't have my number and I was to scared to call her... afraid of the rejection.

Three years later I was graduating from school and the words that a dearly departed friend had passed onto me the year before came back to haunt me. “Vincent,” Seth had told me. “You are right about to start your senior year. I want you to go out and do the things you always had wanted to do... because you don't want to end the best part of your life with regrets.” Ironically he died a week later, hit by a truck two days after he got his diploma.

But his words came back to me and at the very end of the year, my grades already set and my acceptance to the University of Arizona in I decided that during that summer I would do what I had wanted to years before. I joined a social networking site and tracked down Veronica... we started dating. The summer ended and we didn't break off the relationship, it had grown serious, I was head over heels for her. She went to ASU and I went to U of A... I was happy.

Of course it didn't last, less then a month later I started hearing rumors and by the end of the semester she ended it officially, left me for some goth kid who was 'more in touch with his emotions'. I figure that he was the first warm body she found once the distance got on her nerves.

I did okay that first semester but when I went back for the second I was a wreck, I hardly left my room, dropped to a skeletal one fifteen, and contemplated suicide more then once. I know that I sound like I was just some emo brat who got dumped and let himself fall apart, and I suppose there is truth to that, but Veronica had meant more to me then any other girl had... combine that with the fact that I had lost friends because of my unwillingness to see how unfaithful she was, called my closest friends liars and really pissed them off.

After a few months I moved back home with my parents, started taking classes at a community college and that is where I met new friends, chief among them Karen and Lisa.

Six months ago Karen starts classes at ASU and along with Lisa we get a three bedroom apartment, I am still taking classes part time and working full time as a Barista in a little coffee shop on the ASU campus, it sucks. Luckily Veronica ended up marrying the goth (who was a heroin addict) and dropped off the face of the Earth so I don't have to put up with seeing her.

About three months ago on the girl scheduled to open the shop calls in sick so at three AM Saturday Morning, my manager calling me, interrupting what had been a half decent attempt at seducing Karen, doomed to fail but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try...

I was short on cash, needed the over time, and hoped that if I took this then it would help me get the promotion that had just opened up... I know, sad. A few years before I was looking to become a heart surgeon but now I was looking to find a way to make enough money just to go back to school.

I can still remember the first words she said to me. It was five AM, I know this because I had just turned on the lights and opened the front door.

She walked in like she owned the place. Drop dead gorgeous. I'm not a bad looking guy, my hair is kinda messy no matter what I do, I wear glasses and my nose is a little bit more prominent then I might like... but not bad looking. Combine that with the fact that I am smart, funny, and am more then capable of being charming when the mood strikes me and you have a guy that never really has had much of a problem with picking up women, Karen being the only major exception to that because she really doesn't take me serious when I try.

But this one was out of my league, hell she was in a league of her own. I stand six feet tall and she couldn't have been more then two inches shorted then I am, dark hair that reaches her shoulders, a really exotic completion... if I had to guess I would say Pacific Islander, and stunning green eyes, it was the eyes I first notice. Put all this on top of a body toned from lots of physical activity, athletic with amazing curves. The outfit she was wearing, some kind of colorful skirt with a matching tank top and sandals really looked great on her, showing off her legs.

I still remember the first thing she said to me. “Viente caramel machiato, upside down, whole milk, five shots.”

Mumbling the price, to tired to really articulate I took her money then set about making her drink, handing it to her rather then setting it down just for the slight brushing of her fingers against mine.

She sipped, and then smiled, teeth dazzling white. “This is really good, smooth.”

I smiled a little bit, feeling slightly more comfortable now, the smile of hers helped. “Yea if you add the caramel and vanilla syrup to the milk before you steam it and then pour it directly over the shots, stirring after you pour in half, the syrups diffuse evenly into the milk making it a more even drink rather then the caramel just sinking to the bottom.” I said it all much faster then normal, I am surprised she even understood the words.

“Well it works...” She paused and looked down at my name tag, “Vincent. I'll see you around.” With that she smiled and walked out of the store... of course she stuck around in my mind for a while.
I did see her again though, the day after and again the day after that. She came by quite frequently, day after day, sometimes she wouldn't come for a few days but then back again. I didn't think anything of it at the time but she always seemed to come during my shift. I started taking breaks when she came by, talking. I learned she was a few months younger then I was, she told me her name was Ai Kanaka, I never learned what she did for a living but she told me that she traveled frequently, wasn't in school and did live nearby. I figured that she was a trust fund kid from Scottsdale who would inherit her family's money and didn't need to worry about school.

I talked about Ai outside of work, to the occasional annoyance of my two room mates. Apparently they could even tell through my mood if she had come in that day or if she was off on a trip again, they informed my that I became a bit sullen when I didn't see her.

Then after about three months I finally decided to give it a shot and asked her out. I had been out on a few dates since Veronica but not really been in anything like a relationship with anyone, most of my dates being set up by friends who felt I needed to get laid, and I had. But for the first time in I don't know how long I was actually interested in someone and that with the memories of how my last relationship had gone made me a bit nervous



















Ai Kanaka= man eater according to a Hawaiian phrase site I found