I watched in misery as another group of preteens came bursting through the doors of Sugar Shake. I looked at them distastefully as they charged their way to a booth, irritatingly screeching amongst themselves.

"Where do they keep coming from?" I grumbled, complaining to my co-worker Ben.

I looked at Ben, whose eyes were sparkling with amusement, probably internally laughing at my misery. He knew how much I hated serving large groups of children.

He chuckled as he pushed himself off the counter. "Don't worry Mimi, I've got this table. You don't have to suffer," he said with a laugh. He patted me on the shoulder in sympathy before heading over to their table.

I watched Ben's retreating figure leave with a grateful smile. I chuckled as my eyes drifted to look at his long beach blonde hair, which he had tied up in a ponytail. I liked to make fun of him for how long his hair was, telling him it made him look like an Australian surfer dude.

He would always just roll his eyes at me, before going into a long speech about how his hairstyle was 'hot as fuck' as he liked to put it, and a massive hit with the girls. He wasn't wrong, to be honest; I've overheard many a girl at school gossiping about how sexy they think his hair was, but I couldn't relate and didn't see him that way at all.

Despite the fact that Ben was a bit of a womanizer, I had surprisingly become good friends with him since working here. I assumed he was going to be a douche, from the types of people he hung out with but he was actually a pretty decent person and made me laugh a lot.

Complaining to Ben was the only thing that seemed to get me through the shift because the customers were awful. Take for instance, a couple of hours ago. I was innocently collecting dirty bowls from one of the tables when a little bratty 8-year kid took it upon himself to sneeze all over my fucking face and I swear I felt some of his mucus enter the vicinity of my mouth. It was disgusting.

Not only did he do that but the boy also decided it was a good idea to chuck his entire bowl of ice cream all over the freshly cleaned floors. And what made it worse was that the boy's dad, who was sitting beside him, didn't seem remotely concerned with his son's behavior. He just sort of glanced at the floor and then at me as if to say what are you waiting for, clean it up. It took nearly all my strength, not to throttle him on the spot.

I was just about to get back to work and start making some more sundaes, when the door of the shop suddenly burst open. A flash of red hair came barging through in a haste. I smiled, instantly recognizing the distinct mass of curly hair as belonging to my friend May.

As soon as she saw me, her mouth stretched out into a grin, and she skipped over to the counter happily and threw herself onto the stool in front of me.

"I thought I'd find you here," she said with a smile.

"Well I do work here every Monday May, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out where I am," I said with a snort, shaking my head at her in amusement.

"Meanie," she said as she stuck her tongue out at me.

Her eyes then wandered behind the counter, they lit up like a child as she spotted a bowl of skittles.

"Ooo skittles," she said excitedly, as she reached her hand over to take some.

I slapped her hand before she could get to them, causing her to let out a little yelp in pain.

"Hey, don't slap," she said looking at me with narrowed eyes, as she rubbed her hands.

"Well, maybe I wouldn't have to slap you if you stopped sticking your hand into things that don't belong to you," I said, looking at her accusingly.

She just shrugged her shoulders and started to spin on her stool chair absentmindedly to amuse herself. May was certainly a strange one.

I then heard the door of the shop open once again. I sighed in annoyance, as I glanced towards the door to see who I would have to deal with now.

My heart dropped as I saw a flash of burgundy jacket walk through the door, which I instantly recognized as belonging to my high school's soccer team. The last thing I wanted after such a long shift, was to converse with some idiot jocks from my school.

"Great, I have to serve their stupid table," I grumbled in annoyance.

May swerved around on her stool to take a look at them, her eyes immediately locking on something that made her smile.

"Hey look, Mia, it's your boyfriend," May said with a snort, as she gesturing to someone at the door. I furrowed my eyebrows at her and turned back around to see who she was talking about. My eyes widened in horror, as my eyes landed on a certain person standing at the door.

It was Ethan Blythe.

To sum Ethan up in a few words is quite simple, scratch that one word.

A dick.

He is most certainly not my boyfriend. The mere thought of even touching him had me wanting to hurl up violently in a toilet. He was my supreme nemesis and I hated every fiber of his body with a burning passion.

Why you may ask?

Because for the last six years the guy has been passionately determined to make my life a living hell. I could barely think of a day that's gone by at school where he hasn't tried to humiliate me in some way or another. I have no idea what I had done to bring out such behavior in him because as far as I'm concerned, he doesn't treat anyone else at school in the same way. Only me.

Almost as though being a massive dick wasn't enough, he was also annoyingly good at everything and I mean everything. Sports, academics, socializing, dancing, popularity. Literally anything.

I narrowed my eyes as I saw a few of the pre-teen girls openly gawking at him, watching his every movement in fascination as he laughed at something his friend said. That was also another annoying thing about Ethan. He was hot and I mean very very hot! I barely knew a girl at school who didn't have a crush on him at some point or another.

I couldn't exactly blame them, he had these piercing blue eyes which contrasted well with the dark messy curls of his chocolate-brown hair. Not only that but his body was also noticeably toned, with muscles that were easily visible through the thin material of his white t-shirt. If he wasn't such a jerk to me, I might even have a thing for him too.

But unfortunately, he was, and I was nowhere near pathetic enough or shallow enough to fall at his feet, just because he was blessed with good looks.

Besides, he didn't always look the way he did, back when we were in middle school he used to be all legs and rather short. I remember the satisfying feeling of rubbing it in his face that I was two inches taller than him.

However, all it took was one summer before high school for him to shoot up like a beanstalk and bulk out, so now he towers over me, all muscular-looking at 6 feet tall. Life just had to royally fuck me over, and take away the one advantage I had over him.

"Your table," Ben sang loudly, making me jump in surprise.

I was so deep in thought; I had barely noticed him return around the counter.

"She's a little preoccupied, gawking at her little boy toy" May teased, with a knowing smile on her face.

"Shut up May. I was clearly glaring at him." I snapped in annoyance.

"Whatever you say...." she drawled out, seemingly unconvinced. I just rolled my eyes at her and let out a heavy sigh as I started to make my way over to the booth at the back where the jocks were sitting.

Well, here goes nothing.

"Hey guys, welcome to Sugar Shake. Can I interest you in anything to eat or drink?" I said in an overly chirpy voice as I approached their table.

All three pairs of eyes snapped towards me and I shifted nervously on my feet, feeling quite intimidated under their gaze. As much as I fought myself not to, my eyes drifted over to Ethan's. He was looking at me with a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, almost as a promise of trouble.

"Well if it isn't Chubs," he said in amusement, as he leaned forward in his chair.

Chubs was an awful nickname, he persisted in calling me, since he claimed I had the face of an infant.

"I didn't know they let 12-year olds work here?" Ethan said faking a look of confusion.

I took a deep breath in and out as I tried to suppress the urge to strangle him. He's been teasing me for years about my baby face, constantly telling me I have freakishly big doe eyes and a ridiculously round face.

"Ugh not this again," Lucas groaned, clearly sensing a potential argument was about to spill over.

As Ethan's best friend, Lucas was quite used to having to sit through our frequent little spats. The poor guy has had to sit through 6 years worth of them.

Lucas was a fairly good-looking guy of Jamaican descent, with light brown skin and a mop of curly black hair. Despite his rather poor choice in friends, I actually didn't mind Lucas. He was quite funny and would make fun of Ethan when the mood satisfied him.

Ethan was still looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer his stupid question.

"Why, are you thinking about applying?" I replied back smoothly.

This caused the smirk on his face to drop and his friends to start hooting with laughter, clearly getting a kick out of seeing him insulted. This seemed to shut him up for a bit, long enough for me to quickly take down their orders.

As soon as I was done, I darted my way back to the safety of the counter. As I went, I couldn't help but feel as though someone's eyes were on my back.

"How bad was it?" May said in between chews, as I returned to the counter. Her mouth was muffled and full of skittles that she had rudely helped herself to while I was gone.

"Just as bad as I thought it would be," I grumbled as I snatched the bowl back from her.

"Hey, I was eating that," May whined as she desperately tried to grab it back.

"And I don't recall you paying for it," I retaliated back.

That shut her up.

Once I had made up their orders of sundaes and stacked them on to a tray, I proceeded to make my way back to the table. I handed out their orders with haste so I could speed my way out of there to freedom but as I turned to leave, I was stopped, feeling a large warm hand wrap itself around my wrist.

Turning around, I saw the hand belonged to none other than Ethan. I quickly ripped my hand out of his grasp as though he had burned me and glared at him in annoyance.

"What?" I snapped.

"Mine is cold," he said looking up at me with a straight face. I looked at him, then his ice cream, then at him and then his ice cream. Then I proceeded to blink slowly as I tried to process what was going on.

"Hang on a second," I said completely stunned. "Are you seriously asking me, why your fucking ice cream is cold?" I said bewildered by his stupidity.

"Tut. Tut. Tut. Chubs. You shouldn't swear at the customer. Not very professional at all," he taunted as he shook his head at me condescendingly. "It would be a real shame if I had to complain about this to your manager," Ethan said as the corner of his mouth lifted slowly into an obnoxious smirk.

The little idiot did it on purpose. He knows I have a problem controlling my language, especially when provoked with stupidity.

"Oh, and isn't that manager over there," he said casually, as he gestured to someone behind me.

Looking over my shoulder I saw that he was in fact right. I felt the blood slowly drain from my face, as I realized, he could easily get me fired. I wouldn't put it past him to make up some horrible lie about me on the spot.

"Come on don't be a dick just this once," I whined, looking at him with desperation in my eyes. As much as I hated this job, I didn't want to get fired, the pay was fairly decent at this job.

Ethan just gave me an evil look, before getting up off his seat, and started to make his way over to my manager whose back was still to us.

"Excus-" was all Ethan got out before I pulled him back by his shirt and slapped my hand over his mouth.

He looked at me in surprise, clearly not expecting me to do that. His eyes lit up in amusement, before he did something extremely disgusting and proceeded to lick the entire underside of my palm. I jerked my hand away as quick as lightning.

"Eww, you're nasty. I probably have herpes now, thanks a lot." I whined, as I vigorously started to wipe my hand on his shirt, desperate to remove his saliva from my hand.

I widened my eyes as I saw my manager start to make her way closer to us, I grabbed Ethan's arm in a panic and hauled him over to the far corner of the shop and away from prying eyes.

"Fine you win Ethan, what do you want?" I hissed, getting straight to the point.

His eyes sparkled with amusement. "Why do you assume I want something?" He smirked.

I didn't even grace him with a response, and just shot him a dead-pan look.

He chuckled lowly, "Okay, okay, you got me. I do want something," he said with a laugh.

"Which is?" I snapped impatiently.

He smirked at me before taking one large step closer to me. I was leaning against the wall, so I couldn't do anything about the fact that he was invading my personal space.

I looked at him with furrowed eyebrows as his eyes slowly took the time to scan over every inch of my face methodically before pausing briefly on my lips. I swallowed nervously, not sure what was going on.

His eyes snapped back up to meet mine.

"A kiss" he whispered.