Flashback-ack-ack (Hour of the Escaped Boyfriend)

“Welcome to Burger Barn, how may I help you?”

I’d said that part on autopilot, staring down at my register. I was trying to break my personal record for Most Consecutive Customers Without Screwing Up. After three days on the job, the record was still about four, so intense concentration was called for.

I felt a finger touch me under the chin and tilt my face up. Victor was standing in front of my register at Burger Barn. “This job is a complete waste of your talents,” he said, grinning, “but you sure look cute in overalls.”

“Victor!?! But!?” I shook my head and tried to de-spazz. “Did you get a day off or something?”

“I snuck out. Ancestor Lu is on the other side of the world trying to recruit more people to The Project.”

“Snuck out! If you get caught he’ll…” I wasn’t sure exactly what one immortal could do to another, but I was pretty confident Lu could make Victor hurt. “Why take the risk?”

“Ancestor Lu is very happy with me just now. Besides, I wanted to see you,” Victor said simply. He brushed my cheek with the side of his hand and I felt myself start to flush.

“Hey, Mister,” said the next person in line, a middle-aged woman with frown lines that made her look like a large mouth bass in a bad mood. “Hurry up and order already.”

Victor ignored her. “I’ve been here for more than an hour just watching you work.” He twisted a stray lock of my hair that had escaped from underneath my Burger Barn ball cap.

“You want some fries, you can stand in line,” Grumpy Lady said. “You want anything else, get a motel.”

I could feel myself blushing. “I should take your order.”

“I’ll have a Double Patty Doozie and a medium drink,” Victor said, still smiling.

My stupid hands were shaking as I punched in the order. “How long can you be out of the lab before Lu notices? I get off my shift in two hours. Maybe we…”

Victor shook his head. “No, I have to get back. Although God knows, if I could do what I wanted…”

His hand felt hot on my skin. I passed his burger out to him. I could feel I was flushing as if it was me who had been lying under the heat lamp instead of the Double Patty Doozie. There were so many things I needed to say and I couldn’t seem to find the words for any of them. “Victor? When are we going to—”

Victor cut me off. “Forever,” he said, and his voice promised everything.

Fish Mouth coughed warningly and waved, trying to catch the eye of my manager.

I adopted what the Burger Barn employee training manual called “your hearty ‘Howdy!’ voice” and said, “Would you like anything else today, sir?”

“Just one more thing.” Victor slid his hand behind my neck, pulled me forward over the top of the register and kissed me. On a scale of 1 to 10, that kiss was a 93. He kissed like a man just out of prison; he kissed me like he’d been thinking of nothing but that kiss every lonely night for the five months since I had seen him last. That kiss lit me up for a timeless time, until Victor finally let his hand slide down my back and stepped away and I was left hanging breathlessly over the cash register with my eyes closed and my lips reaching out for his.

Someone whistled. Someone else cheered. Three guys I knew from school started clapping enthusiastically and the place went wild. I opened my eyes. Victor was walking out the door, grinning, and approximately eight thousand people were staring at me, all of them laughing and clapping except for one. “Oh, so THAT’S how you get a free burger,” Fish Mouth sneered, at which point I realized Victor had walked off without paying. He knew it, too, the dog. I could see him waving at me through the glass doors.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that shouting, “Get your !#@*$^ butt back here and pay for your !#@*$^ burger!” was a mistake, but I still think I might not have been fired if I hadn’t yelled it into the intercom system and broadcast it all over the parking lot. You never can tell, though. Employers are funny that way.