Ryan Meets Sandra And Never Sees Her Again

Ryan can fall in and out of love without Sandra trying.

Ryan worked at a breakfast diner next door to the law firm. His early bird hours keep the lookers away, though he has had scored some numbers from work before. Hurtful, snooty lawyers who can drink more of the night away then they can handle.
But never will he date those kind of girls again, he promised himself.

A woman has been frequenting the diner for the past few weeks. He doesn't know her name but she must work at the building next door. What first caught Ryan's eye was that she was older in age. That wasn't much of a competition with twenty-one years of experience under his socks. She likely had him beat by a strong ten years. He simply could never resist the traits of a woman compared to a girl.

She had a charming face, dressed respectable and carried her presence joyfully. She could certainly not fit in a size small but he admired that. She seemed full of cheerfulness and remained hard to persuade. She wreaked of an intriguing personality and intoxicated all with her leather jacket worn over top a summer dress.
Ryan found ways to interact.

Though he worked in the kitchen, he would still see her arrive from the delivery window he was tucked behind. He would deliver the food himself instead of leaving it to the severs. He often commented with something generically pleasant like, “I'm having a great day today, thanks. How 'bout you?”

She would smile and respond with cheerful nicknames like “Hun” and “Sunshine”, separating their age differences probably.

One morning, she came in and wouldn't remove her sunglasses. When he talked to her, she replied with obvious notions to being hungover and to please not talk any louder then her current volume. What was the most impressive about this was that would mean she was heavily drinking on a Wednesday night. Like a woman.

He remembers one Thursday morning where she shuffled through the front doors and fumblingly scattered herself on the diner counter. Her purse toppling over and spilling out a vulnerable sounding phone to the floor. She grumbled and picked it up, as an applause shouting encouraged from the back of the room. Ryan peaked over to see her humorously embarrassed and waving her hand in a “thank you” motion. The group of young rapscallion construction workers exclaimed a series of “Sandra”s with a single blurt of “she did a keg stand last night”. Party girl.
She stood up off her stool and took a bow. Ryan laughed with her.

He took her for a special name but didn't see “Sandra” coming. He thanked himself for not being a Jessica or Alysha. One of a kind women need one of a kind names. But Sandra will do fine.

The first conversation they shared was as unpredictable as he could predict. He served her breakfast while asking how her day was going and she answered “Just getting started”. It was only nine in the morning, why does he still always ask everyone that?

Ryan began by telling some story he so routinely does when he has nothing to talk about. This one was something about a potluck party or when he saved a bouquet of kittens from a fire or something. Half way through the story as she's doing her best to attentively listen, she lets out a lengthy contained belch. She instantly covers her mouth, outrageously laughs at her outburst and formally apologizes. The instantaneousity was irresistible not to laugh out loud.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”, she tries to return to the current topic.

He pauses and is clearly now distracted, “Uh, I don't know”.

She awkwardly laughs it off and finds something else to talk about, “So what did you do last night?”

“Went out for some pool and beers with buddies”, he lied.
He just stayed home and ate pizza rolls. “You?”

She chuckles to herself and follows it with a groan, “Disaster struck, my friend. A typical foolish display I probably now patented as a case of the Sandras”.

Life for the law must be hard work.
Ryan laughs and feels the need to say, “My name's Ryan”.

“I know”, she quickly replies and motions towards his name tag.

He shakes his head and pinches his leg nervously. He's a cook, normally hidden by a stack of heating windows. So why the heck does he have to wear a name tag?

The next thing he asks her, he found to be bold, gutsy and very uncharacteristic of him.

“Wanna go out sometime?”

He would never ask a random out without receiving one hint of mutual attraction, which he was unsure if she gave him or not. His boldness deserved a reward.

However she chose to award him with a blatant laugh to the face. “Are we going to go to your high school semi formal?”

He wasn't sure if she was insulting the way he asked the question or a stab at their age differences or both.

“No”, is the best thing he could think of . “I was thinking of making you jealous of my air hockey skills” sounded like a cool-guy-invite to him.

“Oh honey”, there she went again. “You're a babe but I'm afraid if we went out, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me”.

Again caught off guard with that one. He assumed by her delivery of the sentence, she was subjecting to sex so he quickly and nervously glances around him to see if anybody was listening. Just a guy with his face in his eggs.

“I think you'd be surprised”, as he channels every suave-guy response he has ever seen on a television show.

It worked, though because it made her lean forward in her stool and look him ever so seriously in the eye and say, “Oh really?”

Ryan nods his head with sure confirmation.

“So wanna go do a bukkake?”, Sandra says aloud with no hesitation.

He drops the salt shaker he was gripping tightly with his hands. It makes a loud abrupt crash as he shuffles his eyes around to meet back to hers.

“If that's what you want” is all he could think of to respond with.

She laughs so the entire diner hears her. Guy in eggs wakes up.
He lets out of a sigh of relief to himself. She was only making this moment humorous, he thought.

And just as he couldn't predict, she got serious.

“Ryan, I see the look in your eyes you give me and I'm turned on by it”, she began. “But the truth, if you were really trying to pursue me and dearly mean it, you'd still have no absolute idea what you'd be getting and how much you could regret the efforts you'd be putting into me”.

“But then again, you don't know until you try”, was his instinct response.

Sandra's serious look continued with a twitch of an eyebrow raise.

“I would make you feel anger like you've never been furious before. I would sadden you more then what you think depression is”.

She leans back and chugs a full cup of coffee. He had just made a fresh pot for her four minutes ago.

Sandra crosses her arms as if she knew it suited the look of her leather jacket, “You don't want me”.

She was probably right. Ryan still responds with something that could convince her otherwise.

And just as he couldn't predict, they both rushed to the diner bathroom and had the sweatiest sex. The most spontaneous four minutes and twenty-one seconds Ryan ever lived. He dropped his phone in the toilet while she was bent over it at one point, too.

And just when he thought he was in the zone of never-ending text messages, Ryan never saw Sandra again.

Sandra never entered the diner and according to whoever he tried asking, was never seen in the building next door again.

Never will Ryan date those kind of girls again, he promised himself.