The night up until this point had been almost a complete bust. Your friends had all disappeared at one point or another with someone who caught their interest, even though they all declared before ever leaving the house that it was a girl’s night and you would all stick together. So, you sat yourself down at the bar and used the thin stirring straw in your glass to push around the mostly melted ice around in a circle while contemplating calling a Lyft and just heading home for the night.
However, when you looked up to grab your phone you noticed a man standing next to you. He looked to be around your age with brown eyes and bright blonde hair that was tousled every which way, and tattoos poking out from the sleeves of his shirt. You raised your eyebrows at him and blinked slowly. “Can I help you?” you asked, unsure of what he wanted.
He smiled and leaned against the bar, “So I know this is going to sound ridiculous and I’m sorry for bothering you but, my friend is over at our table and he hasn’t been able to look anywhere but at you since we got here. He’s too much of a baby to actually get up and talk to you so I am here to say my friend Asher would very much like to talk to you.”
You leaned back slightly in your chair as you listened to him talk and casually glanced over in the direction that he was indicating to several men at a table all trying and failing to look as if they weren’t watching but one in particular looked very flustered and looked away immediately when he caught your glanced. He’s kind of cute. You hummed softly and looked back at the man in front of you to see that he was watching you expectantly.
“Well, you should tell your friend Asher to join me over here,” you said, shrugging a shoulder.
He let out a short laugh and nodded as he pushed himself to stand upright. “You got it,” he said, patting the bar before turning and heading back to where he came from. You twisted back in your seat to face the bar and looked down at your phone to try and entertain yourself for a little bit. Even if this Asher guy wasn’t all that interesting, at least you managed to have some sort of human interaction tonight.
A few moments later there was a full glass sitting in front of you and you looked up to see the man from the table sliding into the seat next to you. “I… Aleks, my friend, said you were drinking a gin and tonic,” he said sort of nervously, “I thought you could use another.” You smiled fondly and slide the glass closer to you. “That’s sweet, thank you. I’m Y/N, by the way,” you said, extending your hand. Asher nodded and took your hand in his to give it a shake.
He was nervous, and it was cute.
“So, is there a reason you didn’t come over here by yourself?” you asked with a slight chuckle.
Asher shrugged and sighed, “I don’t know. I didn’t really want to bother you, I guess. But my friends were being dicks and Aleks took matters into his own hands.”
“I’m glad he did,” you said, grinning.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, “You are?”
“Yeah, I am,” you laughed, nodding your head, “I was about to head out, if he hadn’t I’d be on the way home for a night of leftover Chinese and shitty Netlfix.”
Asher beamed back at you and ducked his head slightly as he rubbed at the back of his neck, chuckling lowly to himself. When he looked back you, you felt your stomach flip and your heart skip a beat inside your chest as his dark eyes made contact with yours. “Do you maybe wanna head out somewhere quieter? There’s a pizza place up the street that is amazing,” you suggested, hand fiddling with the phone in your lap.
“Yes! I mean, yeah… that’d be cool,” he said, shaking his head.
You nodded and slipped out of your chair, “C’mon, then. First slice is on me.”
On the other side of the warehouse, you could hear Aleks and James doing lord knows what on the couch; the only thing you could tell was that it was loud enough to be heard despite your headphones on. Shaking your head, you refocused on your monitor as you very close to finishing the video that you had been editing. At some point, the noise on the other end of the office had died down and you glanced up from your screen to see Asher and Jakob making their way back to their respective desks.
You finished your edit and slipped your headphones off of your head to rest them on your desk. You leaned back on your chair and spun slightly to see pretty much everybody was deep into whatever it was there were working on. Glancing at the time, you got to your feet and grabbed your bag from the floor.
After a moment of internal deliberation, you headed over to Asher’s desk and tapped him on the shoulder. He pushed a single side of his headphones back and looked up at you. “What’s up?” he asked, swiveling his chair enough to face you.
“I was gonna head out to Popeye’s for lunch, wanna tagalong?”
His eyes lit up, “Pretty please.”
You laughed softly and rolled your eyes at him as he got to his feet. “Alright, let’s go,” you said, turning on your heel to head towards the exit. You could hear Asher’s feet hit the concrete as he jogged to catch up with you, and he was very quickly by your side. Before you could head through the kitchen into the lobby, you heard Aleks call after you.
“Don’t take all day, you two love birds! We’ve got shit to do in like an hour and we don’t need to be late because you were too busy sucking face,” he laughed from where he was sitting at the gaming setup.
Asher only flipped him off over his shoulder and very nearly pushed you through the door which just made you laugh lowly. You glanced over at Asher and smirked a little as you opened the front door leading to the parking lot. He didn’t meet your gaze at first but did just before the both of your slid into your car. “You can just… ignore what Aleks said, y’know. He’s an asshole,” he said softly as he buckled his seatbelt.
You put the key in the ignition and grinned, “Aleks can be an asshole… but he’s an honest asshole.”
“Let’s not discuss this on the way to Popeye’s please,” Asher grumbled.
You chuckled and pulled out of your parking spot, “How about on the way back?”
