It was a mellow Sunday morning and Lani had just arrived at work for a four-hour shift. She wasn't looking forward to it as she had got basically no sleep the night before and was struggling to keep her eyes open let alone walk around and serve customers. Since Tuesday, all she had been thinking about was her interaction with Apollo and was dreading returning to school as the mere aspect of seeing him made her uncomfortable. She hadn't told her friends about anything that occurred during that lesson, not because she didn't want to but when she had tried, no comprehensible English came from her mouth so she succumbed to resting her head in her knees and rocking back and forth as she was being consistently questioned. At about two and a half hours into her shift, she was both serving the tables and taking customers orders from the front counter due to the lack of staff on that day. She walked out of the kitchen with a Beef Patty burger, toasties and a celery cold-pressed juice which she gave to the allocated table number. Once the customers she served had said a quick 'thank you' for the food, Lani looked up to see if people were waiting to be served at the counter but regretted it immediately. She saw a tall teenage boy with shoulder-length pearly blonde hair waiting there patiently for his order to be taken. She hesitantly ambled toward him hoping that this would be a total stranger that just happened to look like Apollo but she didn't get her hopes up due to their distinctive similarity. She arrived behind the counter and looked up to see a strikingly familiar face, she swore it felt as though she was stabbed in the stomach with nerves as he gave her a surprised smile. "Hi, what can I get for you today?" she pretended that she didn't recognise him, hoping that he wouldn't try to converse and she was pleasantly surprised when he placed his order without additional communication. As he was walking away Lani noticed he was sitting at a table with two other people around his age and she recognised them as two of his friends from school. Her focus for the next twenty minutes was to stay as far away from his table as possible until she was obligated to serve them food. This blissful twenty minutes flew by without hesitation and before she knew it, she was carrying plates of food to the table Apollo and his friends were sat at. Lani bent over to place their meals in front of them and to her discomfit the table that they were sitting at meant the easiest place she could stand to neatly place down their dishes was directly next to Apollo. Once she began to stand, he spoke. "Stop pretending you don't recognise me." Lani winced as these words streamed out of his mouth."I barely know you so I'd hardly call it 'pretending'." she steadied her voice giving him a blank stare. A brief moment of awkward silence filled the air so Lani took advantage of the opportunity and started to make her way back to the counter but could only get a few centimetres without interruption. "Can I have your number?" he said in what she assumed was a desperate attempt to stop her from leaving the conversation. "No." "Come on, don't be boring" his teasing tone was painfully irritating but she couldn't lose her temper as it would drag the attention of even more customers onto her. Instead, she turned fully back around to face him and quietly said "You don't even know my name, maybe you should figure that out before you make any more bold moves" then walked away before the conversation could continue. Sometime after, Apollo and his friends left without another word to Lani which she internally rejoiced over. She hurried to their table so she could clear it for the next customer but what she found there shattered any joy she had been feeling. An unused napkin lay in the centre of the table surrounded by the dirty dishes they'd left behind. On the napkin was messy handwriting that looked as though it was rapidly scrawled onto it with a black ballpoint pen only moments before they departed the cafe. The napkin read:
"0467 099 325. You underestimate me, Lani
- Apollo"
❇
A flash of blue light fills Lani's pitch-black room as she hunches over her phone, sitting on her bed, watching the time pass. Its 12:54 am on a Sunday and her mind was doing its best to stop her from sleeping so she resorted to staring aimlessly at Apollo's napkin then back at her phone, turning it back on every time the screen dimmed for hours on end. She knew her time could be used much more productively but the past week's events had left her mind too foggy to fathom partaking in anything but this. She pondered, wondering if this was all his idea of a joke in an attempt to make a fool out of her and decided that this was the only conclusion that made sense. Her hands raised to her head so she could run them through her hair then let it fall softly back around her face. Three hours of this had gone past already, although it only felt like five minutes. She continued to mentally beat herself up over the butterflies he gave her by leaving the napkin at the table for her to find and the small grin that made its way to her mouth due to the validation she received from him knowing her name. He knew her name. It seemed like such a foreign concept that someone she'd never spoken to before that week could know her name. That piece of information couldn't be overly complicated to figure out but it still meant he went out of his way to find it. Before she could stop herself or overthink further Lani reached to grab her phone and unlock it. Her fingers slid across the screen down to the 'contacts' icon then pressed it. She looked down at the napkin then back at her phone so she could type the first few numbers in. she repeated this until his entire phone number had been typed then made his name 'Apollo', not wanting to glorify him by making it unique.
That night, after she became so sleep-deprived she had no option but to give in to the heaviness of her eyelids and fall asleep staring at his contact. That was until she was woken soon after by clawing her way out of a dream she was having. Her memory of it faded quickly once she was awoken but the vivid image of one of his arms wrapped earnestly around her waist with the other on the wall he had her pinned up against. Their lips passionately met one another and her hand ran effortlessly through his silky locks. The concept of sleep became impossible after that so she grabbed a book from her bedside table and used it as a distraction until morning.
