Coming Together: With Pride Read Online Free PDF Page B

to bodily functions. But he just cocks his thumb toward the front of the store and says, "We need somebody to ring."
    That means I'll be standing at the counter waiting on customers the rest of the night while he and Janet smoke cigarettes out behind the store and bullshit. I grab my coffee and trudge to the register.
    The local college has resumed classes, and there is an endless parade of underage and barely legal students trying to buy alcohol. I card one after another and have to deny half. After the last girl, an eighty-year old woman complains that I didn't card her, and I want to tell her what a shriveled, decrepit antique she is and that she hasn't seen twenty one for the better part of a century.
    "Uh-oh. Don't tell my manager I let you slip by. I'll be out of a job," I say instead, smiling like I mean it and making her blush ever so slightly. I hope she isn't having a heart attack.
    I get to help a few people pick out wine, which is what I truly love. We speak for awhile about the type of wine they enjoy, and I make suggestions. The last couple I assist are fond of the deep, inky reds of the real winemakers of Australia. These are the big, bold dry reds that I especially like, and I point them toward Seduction , a blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Shiraz.
    "It's almost black in the glass," I tell them as they examine a bottle. The bell above the entrance rings, and what I see there knocks every coherent thought from my mind. It's a guy. He's beautiful. He's Asian and tall, thin but not sickly and he moves with a casual abandon into the store. He has the adorable spiky hair of an anime character with frosted tips. My heart speeds up. He's wearing a little salmon colored T-shirt that just covers his obviously muscular stomach above a pair of tight, slightly tatty jeans that ride low enough to accentuate perfectly formed hipbones. His black eyes meet mine for a split second, and I feel something stir that shouldn't be stirring at work. I suddenly realize that the woman in front of me has asked the same question twice, and I force myself to look away from this beautiful creature to answer her.
    Minutes pass, and the Asian boy continues to shop. I help other customers and make sales, but always my eyes are drawn back to him. He stands so comfortably with his vintage leather jacket draped over one thin, olive-skinned forearm. I am pulled back to my job by a pair of college students obviously not old enough to buy that bottle of Mad Dog. As I take the bottles off the counter and send them out of the store, I feel the Asian guy looking at me. As soon as I look up, he looks away. More customers come and go, and the boy is still browsing, glancing over at me and glancing away.
    He finally picks up a bottle of Seduction and looks as if he's reading the label. I try to imagine his lips stained purple from that sublime elixir. He has been here over an hour, and I finally realize if he wants to buy that wine, I'm going to have to wait on him. I am going to have to ask this amazing being for his ID. I'll be able to find out where he's from, where he lives, maybe even what he's doing later. It suddenly occurs to me I'll also have to talk to him. My throat dries out instantly. I swallow and hear a click. So I take a sip of coffee while I observe him over the top of the mug.
    He walks slowly up and down the aisles while I wait on more customers, carry wine out to cars and point them in the direction of the Bourbon section. He's dragging this out so long. I can't stand it. I'm going to walk over there and talk to him. I'll ask him if I can help him find something. It won't seem suspicious. We ask people that question all day.
    I'm just working up the courage when a fat lady decides she just has to have a pint of Nikolai now. I take her four dollars and twenty three cents—It always amazes me they aren't ashamed to have the exact amount in hand.—before telling her to have a nice night, silently adding 'passed out drunk on the couch,'