WARNING: THIS IS FOR ANNA NO ONE ELSE NEED CARE
You’re digging around on the shelves under the register, really hoping the size medium bag you’re barely peeling off the wood with the tips of your fingers isn’t the last one, when you hear someone’s elbows hit the counter.
“Hey, uh, I really need to prove my friend wrong—where could I find a Star Wars encyclopedia? The old one?”
You freeze, because that’s a voice you couldn’t mistake. A daydream is one thing. His dreamy brown eyes are entirely another, in the light of Powell’s, in full, real, holy shit daylight.
Dylan O’Brien’s cocky grin has scrolled past on your dash a thousand times, probably a lot more than that, but you’re still screaming internally and wishing you could post this, that stupid face with the stupid nose wrinkling underneath a Mets cap. The shock makes you latch onto one phrase, burned into your mind’s eye: #pows. #pows. #pows.
So instead of your usual happy greeting, you squeak out, “Welcome to Pows!”
He lifts those ridiculous eyebrows and the corners of his mouth in a happy wolf grin. “Star Wars?”
You point, and he slaps the counter gratefully and bounds away. Your whole body rotates to watch him go, even as you pinch the top of your hip, just to make sure.
Ho. Ly. Shit.
You try to busy yourself filling in the gaps in the merch, but your adrenaline’s flowing so freely your hands can’t stop shaking. You keep looking towards the door, hoping he doesn’t slip out before you can spot him. He won’t say goodbye, of course. But if you don’t see him leave, you’ll watch all day, just in case.
And then he’s in line, two people back. He’s got the Star Wars Encyclopedia hugged to his chest and he’s tapping his foot to a song no one else is hearing. You go through the motions of ringing up the woman at your register, but really you’re calculating: if the guy on the register next to you finishes his transaction before you finish yours, he’ll get Dylan—because there goes the hipster girl in front of Dylan, oh noooo, he’s going to make all of his faces at someone else while I’m busy helping make someone’s day.
Everything is terrible.
And then, everything is wonderful. Because Dylan steps aside with a half-smile to let the middle-aged woman behind him go in front of him to your coworker’s register, and then his eyes drift to you and he grins, just a little bit bigger. Your internal scream could shatter glass.
When he sailor-swaggers up to your register, dropping the slim book on the counter with a satisfying fhwwap, you can hardly speak, you’re so overcome.
“You were so helpful! I found it,” he says, patting the Darth Vader face on the cover. “I wanted you to check me out.”
Oh, you think, oh, well, you’re blunter than I thought. Your cheeks burn as you ring him up and you nod. “I appreciate it,” you manage. You’re a little bit proud of being clever, but mortified that he’ll take it wrong. Slash exactly how you meant it.
Credit, he answers before you can finish asking him, and, “I don’t need a bag—thanks again!”
“Really good day!” is what comes out of your mouth.
The receipt printer seems to move in slow motion. Wait, you realize, I can’t ask him for his autograph—that’s what a starstruck fan would do— But a signature on a credit receipt is kind of necessary. Shit.
You’re realizing this as he’s already scooping up the book, touching the brim of his cap with an apologetic look, as if to say, Sorry we couldn’t hang out, friend, and trots towards the door.
Everything slows down. Somehow you remember to grab a coupon—maybe he’ll come back for discounted Star Wars books, someday, you think as you dodge coworkers in various stages of bagging or ringing. You swivel around the end of the counter and your hair flutters around your ears as your shoes squeak on the floor.
“Dylan!” you call. He turns, eyes brightening.
“Sorry,” you manage, “I need your autograph.” And you wave the receipt, hoping he doesn’t think you’re just some silly girl who watches Teen Wolf.
He totally gets it, setting the receipts up against the doorjamb so he can scrawl his loopy signature. He writes something else too before he hands it back to you, pen squeezed on top. Your hands brush in the exchange and your neck warms.
“Thanks again, Anna,” he says. And, miracle of miracle, he winks.
As you stand there clutching the receipt, pinching it against the pen so hard it crinkles, you revel in the fact that he looked for your name on the receipt. To read it on purpose.
Of course he meets a puppy on the sidewalk outside, and even in his rush to leave he squats to wrestle with it. You look down at the receipt to see what else he wrote. It’s a phone number.