TITAN (2 page)

“Clean up aisle blab
a de
blah,” Titan chuckles and reaches for some napkins at
the coffee counter.

Oh damn, she’s just standing there,
ok, think Tite.

“Hi,” he says as he reaches the
milk and gets a good bit of it up.

Ok dude, she is just standing
there staring at you, damage control, come on girl,
speak
.
She was more beautiful than he had thought.

Her face
was
perfect, and
right now her expression was one of terrified.

Fuck, Tite thought to himself, this
was stupid, this was a bad idea and now she is frozen and scared of you.

This was already a scene and it
wouldn’t be long, she had to say something and fast. He looked at her expectantly
and looked around the store and saw people were starting with the cell phones.
He had to hurry.

She has never in her life been
prepared for a moment like this. She knows she is way too drunk to hold a
conversation. She remembers every single lyric and every single song she loves.
She knows all about him and like every other woman in the world has thought
about what she would say if she ever met him.

Jordy, stay cool, wait,
fuck
cool
!

This is Titan, cleaning up your
milk.

YOU SPILLED MILK YOU IDIOT!

He just said hi and you are staring
at him like he is going to hurt you!

Speak.

“Hum, hi, sorry, thank you, milk
spilt, don’t clean, sorry, thank you.”

Really good, Jordy, nice.

“No use crying,”
he
barely skips a beat, “So what do we have here? Funyons, jerky… Let’s get
another milk
.”

He reaches in for the milk and
grabs two.

He looks at her squarely and asks,
“Are we missing anything?”

All she can muster is a head
shaking no as he grabs some of her stuff and they head to the counter.

Ok, Jordy,
think
!

TITAN, TITAN, TITAN, TITAN

No, think.

She stumbles down the aisle with
him. By this time, a small crowd has gathered, taking pictures with their cell
phones.

He turns to Jordy at the counter.
“What’s your name?” he asks, knowing the answer.

 “Jordy,” she pushes out with
a mouse like squeak.

“Jordy?” He smiles. “I can’t be in
here long,” he pauses, “Will you meet me out at my truck? I am parked next to
yours.”

She looks outside and sees a truck
parked next to her Tahoe and she nods her head.

“Yes.”

He throws a twenty down on the
counter, looks at her, smiles and walks out.

The cashier ringing her up is not a
Titan fan and obviously has no idea what he just witnessed.

Jordy thought he might have to be
somewhere in his 60’s and completely oblivious to what is happening in his
store. He hasn’t even noticed the people staring at her and the whispering
going on.

Think, Jordy, THINK
!

How in the hell did he know what
you were listening to? What the hell? You didn’t see him anywhere.

IS this happening? It is.

She peeks out the window and he is
signing something for someone and quickly jumps into his driver’s seat.

He’s waiting for you!

Breathe, Jordy. BREATHE
,

Oh no, my breath! She throws
Altoids in the mix and the cashier quickly rings them up. She opens the package
and they fly everywhere, she throws five into her mouth and chews them up
quickly and swallows, eyes are gleaming with tears from the sting.

The cashier looks up from totaling
her order and gives her a quick once over as he tosses the rest of the Altoids
into the trash can behind the counter.

Jordy, think ok? Who cares how he
knows what you were listening to, what the hell are you going to say?

“Bag?” And like a record scratch,
she is brought back from her wandering thoughts.

“Huh?” she rasps.

“Would you like a bag?” the cashier
asks, almost impatient at this point, staring at her oddly.

Jordy is suddenly aware there is a
small line forming behind her she shakes her head no, grabs her armful of
snacks, minus the milk Titan kept and headed for the door.

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, really,
REALLY?

This isn’t happening.

But it is, Jordy!

She slowly heads for the door,
toward his truck. She walks out of the store, trembling with her groceries and heads
toward a man she has been daydreaming about for her whole adult life.

“She is so fucked up,” he breathes
the words as she heads toward his truck. He smiles and waves her over to his
window.

“So, you’re obviously hungry,” he
pokes, “You have both arms full of junk to eat, how about we go get some real
food?”

She almost falls over with
embarrassment and excitement and pinches herself mentally for not getting a
bag.

“Oookay.”

Jordy, please get it together,
please bitch, I am begging you, count to ten, take a breath.
Breathe,
breathe.
 

“Follow me,” he says, surprised by
his own words. Shouldn’t he offer to drive?

No, she’s drunk but this is not his
problem. He watches her walk to her car, throw everything in the back and put
her seatbelt on.

They both pull out of the parking
lot at the same time.

He paces himself, realizing how
crazy this must seem to her. He really didn’t have any idea why he had asked
this woman to eat with him.

He pulls up to The Old Breakfast
Bar. The only words lit up are the 24 hour sign and breakfast. It’s a great
place to eat, but has been run down over the years. It looked to be in pretty
horrible shape.

He jumps out hurries over to her
truck, opens the door and says, “Now look, when we get in here I will handle it
for a minute, alright?”

They walk in and Jordy doesn’t feel
so alone being dumbfounded.

The hostess all but screams and
stops breathing.

Jordy looks at her with
a
be
cool
stare and the hostess manages to get
it together for all of two seconds.

“TITAN OH MY GOD TITAN, OH”

She’s cut off by him, as he quickly
reads her name tag.

He flirts with her.

“ELSA. That’s how you say it,
right? LLLLSA”

She almost faints and says with
emphasis, “YES!”

“Look, I need you to get us as far
away as possible from everyone and everything, right now. Can you do that for
me? Can you keep the fact that I am here a secret?”

She nods over and over as if she
was a small child and leads them back to a closed room with an accordion door
that looks to be open on their busiest hours.

The room smells like an old house
that needs a window open. Jordy’s stomach churns at the smell and the
excitement is starting to get the best of her.

“It’s all yours, Titan.”

Elsa stumbles through the words but
manages to get them out.

“Two chocolate milks,” he says as
she lays the menu down. 

He looks at Jordy and smirks.

“Can you be our waitress, LLLLSA?”

He smiles and Elsa has to grab the
table to get a hold of
herself
.

“I can.”

Elsa is now smiling like an idiot
and at this point Jordy is too. She glances at Elsa and realizes how stupid she
looks and she stops herself quickly. Elsa all but runs from the room to grab
their drinks and Titan leans in on Jordy.

“I saw you drop off your friends at
the light on Bomar and then pull into the gas station. I guess I was following
you, but only for a minute. I heard you say you loved me, but not now and I was
wondering why?”

 He didn’t really want an
answer but this was too good to pass up.

Jordy sat there, eyes as wide as
Frisbees.

She was frozen.

Absolutely no words would come to
her.

“I…you… loved you? But? Oh! When I
changed my iPod?”

She ended her sentence like she had
just solved the greatest of mysteries.

Great, Jordy, now he
knows
you are a total freak.

“I had a lot to drink tonight,” she
offers as an excuse for her absurdity.

Good, Jordy, a full sentence
without muttering. Good, keep going.

“I was at Red Room with my friends.
We had tequila, I hate tequ..,”

He is smiling at her again. She
can’t remember one picture of this guy smiling. It seemed like he never smiled,
notorious for being just an overall genius, but a clown, too. He was a recluse,
as well as a moody asshole.

But now, yes, he was definitely
smiling.

She guessed that was a lot of the
appeal.

He was the most sought after rapper
in the world by women. And she was sitting in a smelly breakfast bar with him
and he was looking at her. He had picked her up at a gas station and asked her
to have breakfast with him. Surreal didn’t even begin to describe this
situation.

What the hell is all over her lips?
It’s all white and chalky this is not good, should I tell her, what the hell
could this be? It looks like, like…. realization hit him.

Oh
fuck,
breath mints.

He did everything he could to keep
from laughing but could not stop smiling. He noticed she had stopped in
mid-sentence to see why.

“I am just going to tell you now,
you have some white shit on your lips and I would want someone to tell me.”

He almost lost it, almost, but he
was good at that, and he was enjoying watching her squirm the way they
always
do. 

He didn’t need the hassle. He was
tired and he was hungry.

Why the hell was he wasting his
time with this one?

“I... I… I…,” She was horrified.

“Cops stop people and I wanted to make
sure I didn’t smell like tequila. They are Altoids.” She rubbed furiously at
her lips and felt him staring at her.

“So, Joooordy,” he played, “what do
you do?”

“I, um, I work in an office.”

“Cool. What do you do in the
office?”

“Insurance, I sell insurance.”

“Insurance, hmmm, and you are
drinking and driving? Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, Jordy.”

“I am responsible enough to know
when,” she continued, “and I am a little…”

“What?” he played, trying to draw
it out of
her.

“You know who you are,” she snapped
at him. “You know.”

He was so surprised by her venom
that his smile turned into laughter.

“Well, Jordy,” he snickered,
“always nice to meet a drunken insurance agent.”

She smiled this time and saw him
take a beat.

“No, it’s my pleasure, sir, would
you like a quote, I am trying to meet quota.” Jordy, she addressed herself, you
can do this. You can be slick and witty and funny and sexy for this man.

Their eyes locked and neither of
them noticed Elsa’s return. “You guys ready to order?” She beamed, all but
throwing the milks on the table.

 “We haven’t even looked,
Elsa, give us ten minutes.” Jordy blurted out, surprising herself, not breaking
their stare. Where did this demanding Jordy come from?

Tite’s eyes closed, now he was
in
it.

She wasn’t rude to Elsa, she just
took charge.

Maybe just maybe, this one will be
entertaining.

He lifted his eyes to hers and she
was still staring straight at him. She was sobering up and she seemed to be
getting it together. Less fear in her eyes than the scared little woman he met at
the K-Stop. He was fully aware of just how attracted he was to her and he had
to break the silence.

“What will you have?” he asked, not
looking at the menu, but at her.

Her eyes were so beautiful he was
having a hard time looking away. Something about her. The way she looked at
him, too, it was the same scared look they all give him, like a deer in
headlights but this one had a sort of confidence.  He liked it.

“Pancakes, runny eggs, well done
bacon, and hash browns, well done too, with cheese and onions,” she said,
setting down the menu and picking up her milk.

Tite smiled and said, “Me too, but
without the pancakes.” 

He sighed, “That’s settled. Now,
tell me why you love me, but not now?”

Jordy froze, and then decided to toughen
up a bit. The longer she felt like this, the worse things got, so she tried to
just start talking. “I was tired of listen..,” she cut herself off, “No, no,
no, that’s not what I meant, I meant I had been listening to you all night and
I wanted mellow.” She looked up and he was smiling, again.

Fuck it,
she thought
, go
for it.

“You know bitch, slut, knives,
guns, blood, guts…,” she paused. No reaction. Damn, he probably got his verses
thrown at him a lot.  “It can get tiring at 3 a.m. with a hangover
coming.”

“So, P.M. Dawn?”

“Well, it’s mellow. I have it on my
mellow mix and there’s nothing wrong with them or that song.”

“Alright,” he said, still amused.

“Ready?” Elsa’s excitement is
almost annoying to Jordy but Tite gives her both orders, word for word. Elsa
smiles at Tite again taking as much time as she can to drink him in before
scurrying away back to the kitchen.

“Pretty damn good,” Jordy remarks,
about his memory of her order.

“Well, I am good with words,” Tite
says, with a slight twinge of sarcasm.

“Who says?” She immediately regrets
saying that, she doesn’t want to come off as a cocky bitch, and she wanted to
seem… nice. He did. She is too tired at this point but so full of adrenaline
she can’t stop from trembling and hopes he doesn’t notice. Those eyes, sweet
Jesus, they are just as blue as she had imagined. His face was almost
beautiful, flawless. He was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a Dallas
Cowboys hat. He looked happy and tired, like she was.