When Andrea woke up the next morning she found herself on the couch instead of her bed. There was a blanket covering her haphazardly. She sat up groggily trying to open her eyes against the bright sunlight coming through the living room window. Then, like a stormy river last night's memories flooded her head: Stacey and Dylan, the horrible "blind date" and finally her fight with Zayn. 'Well not exactly fight.' She didn't know how to describe it except that she hadn't exactly been gracious and nor had he. 'It's such a mess!' She sighed. Never before had a first meeting gone so bad for her. And she had no idea how to deal with it. She'd come home afterwards and watched the reruns of Supernatural that had been playing on TV. 'Nothing like TV to help you forget' she'd thought besides it had been too taxing to read a book without having her mind drift to you-know-what. And then, she figured, she must have fallen asleep whereupon, Stacey on coming home must have found her on the couch and covered her with a blanket.

She looked into Stacey's room to find her fast asleep with the blanket over her head and a tousled bit of blonde hair peeping through. Andrea smiled to herself. She brushed her teeth and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. She took the piping hot drink into the living room and sat on the comfy chair, cross-legged, looking through the day's newspaper that had just arrived. She sipped the bittersweet beverage, blowing a little to cool it down.

She'd finished reading by nine and entered the bathroom to wash up. She bathed slowly, letting the lukewarm water flow over her. She entered the living room a few moments later, towel in hand, drying her long, wet dark brown hair. She noticed that Stacey had gotten up and said,

"So you're finally up. How did yesterday go after you ditched me?"

Stacey looked up from the coffee machine that she'd been trying to get to work and smiled at Andrea. "That, my friend, is classified information."

Andrea's eyes widened in a mock look of outrage. "After that absolutely horrid date you set me up on yesterday I think you owe me at least that much!"

"Horrible? Admit it, he was cute and hence I don't owe you anything." Stacey said, a playful smile on her lips.

"Yeah, apparently cute guys only go for cute girls," she said, her eyes taking on a melancholy look, "And I don't do cute or whatever type he or any guy likes apparently." She sighed. Stacey moved towards her and hugged her. Andrea stood awkwardly, her hands by her sides, not knowing what to do. Obviously she was not the hugging type.

"You don't have to change yourself for any guy to like you. That way you're only degrading yourself. I'm sure you'll find someone who'd like your headstrong mind and your undeniably candid mouth." Stacey said releasing her.

"Hey it's not my fault that some wusses can't seem to accept themselves alright?" said Andrea about to launch into a tirade to defend herself.

"But seriously you don't really need to change anything about yourself alright?" said Stacey before Andrea could say anything.

"Yeah if I had to change myself for a guy, I'd probably have to morph into you to get a decent date. Seriously though, it's like your only problem is that you're too pretty."

"Don't go there," said Stacey taking on a serious tone now, "everyone has their share of problems and I'm no different." She said as if in answer to the questioning looks that Andrea had shot her with.

Andrea wanted to ask her more but she let it go. Her eyes focused on the clock on the wall behind Stacey and she couldn't help but feel like she was forgetting something. She thought hard when Stacey interrupted her flow of thoughts,

"I thought you had to go to work today. Did you decide to take the day off or something?"

'O. M. G. Andy you freaking idiot' she thought, hastily running to her room and rushing out of the door with her backpack without bothering to say goodbye to Stacey.

~

"I'm so sorry I'm late Suze!" said Andrea rushing in through the door the bell tinkling, indicating her arrival.

"Just get changed quickly we'll have time for apologies later. Its peak hour and you need to get in now! Go!" said Suze pushing her into the changing room.

Andrea got ready in a record time of two minutes and grabbed her skates off the rack. She put them on and slid smoothly out of the changing room. She moved gracefully from the kitchen area into the service area.

"Okay Suze where do you want me to go?" asked Andrea.

"Get these drinks to table two and four immediately." said Suze indicating the tall glasses that were filled with a thick light-blue coloured drink.

"Of course," said Andrea grabbing the drinks and moving in to the seating area just as gracefully as before and placing them on the required table swiftly and effortlessly and moving back to replace the tray.

"Okay now I want you to take the orders. April here will do the rest of the service. Help her when you can, I need to check out things in the kitchen."

"Yes Ma'am." they both chorused watching the tall blonde walk, or rather skate, into the kitchen.

Andrea eyed april warily for a moment. They were not the best of friends, nor were they enemies. They just happened to dislike each other to the point where the only conversations they had was about and during service. Andrea moved off quickly guiding the waiting customers in to empty tables, and coordinating her work with April's so that the café ran like clockwork.

This was Andrea's part time job, a waitress in a café. And this was her biggest and best kept secret. Absolutely no one knew about this. Neither Ryan nor Sarah. Probably the only person who knew about this was Stacey and only because they lived together. That and the fact that Stacey had helped find this job. Andrea didn't want anyone to know about this job. Not because she was embarrassed about it. It was because she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself. She'd never been the one to be in the center of attention, always preferring to merge in the background away from all the unnecessary noise and trouble. She didn't want the pity or the unnecessary probing questions into her life. Sure, she wasn't the only one with a part time job but that was the thing about her, she liked keeping things to herself, where they belonged. She was alone in this manner and she liked it that way. She was left to do her work in peace. This was also one of the major reasons that the café was located far away from her college, or her apartment which was just a few blocks away from her college.

Andrea had met Suze through Stacey and Suze had agreed to give her the job immediately upon finishing the interview. She said that she'd liked Andrea's sense of determination and independence and also her eagerness. Suze was in her early thirties although she could have easily passed for being twenty two. She had blonde straight hair that reached the middle of her back and hazel eyes on an oval face to accompany it. The café was her own business that she'd started as soon as she'd left high school, with the help of her dad. But the credit for the success of the café solely went to Suze who'd worked hard to make her dreams happen. Every dollar and effort that had gone in to making it and giving it a pleasant and amicable atmosphere for not only the customers but also the employees was the result of her determination and never-say-die attitude. She loved every bit of her café and went to great lengths to make sure, herself, that it ran like clockwork.

Andrea loved the café as much as Suze, with what the atmosphere and an excellent boss, she really couldn't have asked for a better part time job. She also understood the extent of Suze's love for the café and made an extra effort to help her out whenever she was working.

"Andrea and April take five off. I'll manage for now." Suze said. The two girls moved to the back of the café to the sitting area near the changing rooms. Andrea sat down grabbing a bottle of water and letting the liquid soothe her parched throat.

April preferred to look in the full length mirror in the hallway and adjust her hair and touch up on her make-up. Andrea watched her, surreptitiously, from the corner of her eyes. April was petite and had raven black curls and green eyes. While observing April, Andrea caught sight of herself in the mirror. She was wearing her her hair up in a high ponytail and had donned on the standard navy blue dress which all the waitresses wore with the light blue apron and the matching blue skates. She looked into her brown eyes, thinking about all the events that had lead to this point of time. Sure life was hard at times, but she was proud of herself and she couldn't imagine it being better. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, letting herself relax for a few moments before she had to head off to work again.

"Move your arse, five minutes are up" said April, her sugary sweet voice not suiting her choice of language at all.

'Maybe its her annoying voice' thought Andrea as she kept the bottle down and moved on, making sure that April saw her roll her eyes at her. They moved back into the café, resuming their fast pace of work.

"Good, you girls are back. Continue your work like before and make sure that this reaches table seventeen." said Suze motioning towards the waiting tray, looking quite pleased with the order of things.

Andrea grabbed the tray laden with French fries and coke and headed off to the table of her destination. She'd just kept the drinks down when she heard the tinkling off the bell indicating that another customer had arrived.

Andrea looked up a ready smile on her face to greet the customer and guide him or her towards their table. When she first set eyes upon the customer its like her brain stopped working. And then slowly as if coming back to reality, complete and utter panic took over her brain. What the actual heck! she thought. Their eyes met over the distance, his brown eyes mirroring the same shock in her eyes. And then slowly the panic spread from her brain into her legs and soon she was racing away from the entrance of the café.

'Crap! This is just my bloody wonderful luck isn't it? Why did Zayn of all the people have to find me here?! URGH!!' she almost cried out in frustration. She weaved carefully through the customers and tables careful not to fall over. She took a chance and glanced back to see whether he was still staring or her or worse attempting to follow her when she crashed in to a customer holding his drink, splashing them both with the cold liquid. Her tray fell down with a resounding crash as she prevented herself from falling by holding onto his shoulders.

"Whoa babe. You've gotta calm down" he said keeping down his drink and wiping at the now fast-spreading brown stain on his white shirt with a napkin.

"I'm so sorry. I sincerely apologize and I will get you a replacement of your drink" said Andrea picking up her tray and looking up at the man. He was short, skinny and was in his late thirties probably.

"You know you could have just asked if you wanted to throw yourself on me instead of having to have spilled my drink in this terribly orchestrated accident." He said looking at her with a sly grin on his face.

Her hands itched with the urge to punch him but she refrained from doing so and instead shot him a murderous glare. If looks could kill. She moved off making a point to bump his shoulder, hard.

'Okay that was totally inappropriate and he is so totally not getting his drink!' she thought fuming. 'And that guy what the hell was he doing here?!' And that too so soon after their unfortunate meeting. And yet again she had ended up falling and embarrassing herself. 'What have I ever done to deserve this?'

She finally reached April, "The floor's now yours. I'm leaving." She said indicating the service area with her head and keeping the tray down.

"What happened was it that guy you bumped into? Wait or was it that guy who entered earlier? Are you scared of him? Is he your boyfriend or bully or something?" asked April, her curiosity getting better of her hatred slash apparent apathy.

"Piss off April" said Andrea moving off quickly to avoid her probing questions. She found Suze in the kitchen and told her that she had to leave as she had to study for some test on Monday. Suze let her go without questioning her as she had had only another half an hour of her shift left anyway.

Andrea changed quickly and grabbed her backpack and left from the back door as she didn't want to bump into Zayn again. As she passed by the front door of the café she risked a surreptitious glance into the glass doors to see if she could spot him. Sure enough he was sitting in there with someone who happened to look like his younger sister. 'He has a younger sister?!'For some reason she'd never thought of the tattoo-covered, quiff-adorned bad boy looking-ish guy, as a person who'd hang out with his family. He looked up as if sensing her eyes on him and she quickly moved away in order to avoid getting spotted by him.

'And I thought I was never going to see him again, at least not outside of school.' She sighed.' Whatever am I going to do?'

~

A/N

Okay the response to the last chapter was pretty amazing so thank you so much! It really inspires me to write more. =D hope you liked this chapter too. Thanks again. =)