Title: Everything Has Changed
The bookshop had been there for a while. On the outskirts of the university, just across the street off the property it sat, never really growing in size or popularity. Enough people stopped inside each day to keep it open, you being one of the few regulars that occupied a lumpy red armchair and dainty end table in the front corner of the store. The walk to your dorm wasn’t any more than ten minutes, and it was much easier to relax in than the expansive main library on campus. For the past year you became a student that decided it would be your study location for the duration of your time in college.
As they added a small coffee and snack bar to the wall opposite your spot, you only found more contentment in the quaint little place. You made a quick favorite of the third drink item listed on the short menu, to the point where the staff knew that was what you’d want before you even went to the counter. The rhythm within a family owned establishment stayed consistent and rather boring, which was fine with you since it meant that you could use the environment to be on your own, away from classes worries of people you knew in general.
You flipped away at another page, keeping your eyes locked in the next sentence of the book. Without averting your gaze, your hand reached to take hold of your coffee cup. The action ceased, as did your focus when a shadow covered your space. In response, you looked up, then up more as your first glance at given you sight of a torso covered in a university hoodie, then your next glance up to a sunny skin tone. The boy’s lip was being nibbled on, and his eyes weren’t looking down at you so you couldn’t take anything in from them, but he knew you were staring up as he muttered a quick apology,
“I’m just trying to reach a book up on the shelf above you.” He explained, a sudden smile bursting onto his face as he took hold of some small title crammed up there. In the moment you were going to tell him it was alright, his eyes finally came down to you, that victorious smirk still pressing into his face. You found the eyes were a hazy sort of green—an ivory that was somehow full of saturation. “Got it.”
“That’s good.” You found your reply was nothing he could possibly respond back to. As your eyebrows wanted to crease at your own desire for a conversation to come up between you and a random stranger, he turned off, facing the counter. You missed the name the barista used to call him over with.
It was around a week later when you saw him again. As annoying as part of you thought of it to be, you still glanced up more often than usual. Every other time the door would open you decided to peek in anticipation. The part of you winning was the part wanting to know what book he’d grabbed. A part of you wondering whether the “athletics” printed on his shirt meant he was a player around campus for a team. Then a part of you still just thought about his smile, so simple and easygoing.
“Would you believe it,” A piece of air sucked in between your lips, surprised at how you’d managed to miss him walking in and ending up right in front of you like last time. “I’d sort of like the part two of that book I grabbed last time.” He gestured up to the long blue shelving, nailed around six feet or so up on the wall.
“Go ahead.” You told him, a small curve of your lips appearing as he went on ahead to grab the book. “Was the first book that good?” You asked him casually, noticing he wasn’t wearing the hoodie like last time, instead a plain black long sleeve.
“It was easy to follow, yeah.” He shrugged, chuckling for a moment and you didn’t use any time to be confused by his response. Instead, you thought about how him becoming a regular in the bookshop. “Glad I could find this little place. It’s more like home, rather than the main library on campus, right?”
“Yeah,” You nodded, looking around at the small thousand square foot bookshop. “There are a lot of random finds in here too. Like, books I wouldn’t even consider in that other library.”
“Yeah.” He copied your reply, pausing for a moment before continuing right along, “You have to pay attention to find something like this place.”
“Guess you’re a perceptive person, huh?” You smiled up at him, hoping his drink would take a lot longer to be made. In the least, you’d for him to tell you his name.
“Ashton?” His head turned from you to the counter, a to-go cup was placed on the surface by the time he’d looked back to you.
“I wonder if you’re perceptive, too.” He said in a soft manner. You paused at the sentence in contemplation for what he was talking about, or thinking of. Ashton raised up the hand he was carrying the book with, a piece of the title becoming visible behind his fingers. “Hopefully, it won’t be too cloudy tonight.” The strange goodbye he gave you weighed your thoughts. And although you wanted to ask him what he was talking about, you knew you’d rather figure it out on your own, as you would like to with anything else in regards to Ashton.
“3 step” The book title had said. You set your reading material aside and went up onto your feet. Your height didn’t help you much in reaching any of the books above you, which is why you never paid any mind to them, but as you read the small laminated paper taped onto the edge of the shelf, your mouth opened in a sort of amused smile.
“Cookbooks.” You mumbled to yourself out loud. Shaking your head at his sense of humor, you felt your cheeks flush to pink at the idea of him playing around with you and from the beginning probably walking over to that shelf to grab your attention. For all you knew, Ashton could’ve very well been around the shop days before that one occasion. A piece of him having wanted to figure out a way to start a conversation with the girl who hardly ever lost focus on the book she read.
And now he had all that focus directed to him.
Allowing your gaze to fall back parallel to your normal site line, you stared for a second at a dark poster plastered behind the chair you made your own. You giggled, pressing a hand to your mouth to contain the pieces of laughter wanting to escape. With little white specks surrounding the words, you read the details of the poster; one talking about a night when there would be a stargazing night at the courtyard beside the science building—the date being that same night. You rolled your eyes, and turned to look out the window.
Unless coincidence was using up all its strength on that day, you were walking towards a date arranged by the hints of Ashton who expects far too much from someone he doesn’t know well. The success level of anyone catching onto his little pieces of a treasure map was not exactly high, yet there you were walking along with a blanket held against your chest. A small crowd was gathering around, claiming pieces of the lawn with their own blankets. You looked around in a search for Ashton, hoping he’d be wearing a brighter shirt than the one earlier so you could spot him in the twilight around.
“You are perceptive, but at the same time you’re not.” Your body tensed, taking a step sideways as your head turned down. “Did you actually not notice you walked up beside me?” Ashton asked you, that smile slipping back onto his face and his eyes looking like fireflies. “Then again, it took me literally reaching up onto that random cookbook shelf for you to notice me in the first place I guess.”
“I’m always doing homework in there.” You used as an excuse, finding your cheeks coming back to that blush when he admitted to be trying to get your attention in the past. “So I really never notice anything else, to be honest with you.”
“I could tell.” He nodded his head to the space beside him, “Better late than never, I think. I’m just glad that place opened a coffee bar or I wouldn’t know you right now.”
“Quite a lot of effort for someone you didn’t know at all.” You found yourself commenting as you laid your blanket besides his. Though you were more than happy with the way things were turning out, you couldn’t stop the new found wonder on why he’d gone so far just for this. You were fixated on that look in his eyes, and something about the way his words fell from his lips, but you still hadn’t a clue what he found interesting about you.
“I guess so, yeah.” Ashton nodded slowly, eyes looking at the stars above, so much further away from the buildings and trees around the campus. He let the gaze dip back to you, through his vision he still considered you something a bit too far away like any star in the night sky, yet you’d been close enough to interact with. Maybe he’d never know why his interest had sparked when he’d looked around the bookshop for available seating, but he didn’t care either. He could explore where it would lead him instead. “Call it a hunch, but… I just felt like I needed to know you.”
