Purple Hair Girl, whose nametag Bryce belatedly realized read Tessa, finally stopped laughing and looked at him with a slight divot between her eyebrows as she ran a mental calculation. "That's only seven."
Ah. He had forgotten to order for himself because he hadn't had a smoothie in years and had no idea what to get.
"Sorry, you're right. What do you recommend?"
Surprise flitted across Tessa's face. Had no one ever asked her that before? "Hmm, let me see…my favorite is the Banana-Rama. It has bananas, blueberries, strawberry juice, apple juice, nonfat frozen yogurt, and raspberry sherbet in it. It isn't as citrusy as most smoothies, which is why I like it."
That was good enough for him. "I'll take one of those too then."
"Alrighty, so that's two Mango Tangoes, one Strawberry Slider, one Very Berry, one Peanut Butter Protein, two Razzle Dazzles, and one Banana-Rama. Can I get anything else for you?"
"No, that'll be all."
"Can I have your name for the order?" Tessa asked.
"Bryce."
"Okay, Bryce, your total is $52.63."
So much for a bunch of smoothies?! These things were way overpriced. They might all have gotten larges but still…
Bryce handed over his credit card with a feeling of great regret. At least he would get paid back later. He would never spend this much on smoothies for himself.
He took a seat as Tessa and her female coworker got to work on those smoothies. A few minutes later, the guy who looked like he had one explode on him joined them. He had cleaned up as best as he could and now looked wet and slightly stained but not quite as pink.
"I feel gross," he hissed under his breath so Bryce could barely hear.
"You look gross too," the dark girl chimed in.
"Shut up, DELANEY."
"I told you my name is Del!"
"Guys, there's a customer here," Tessa whispered. "You can argue after he leaves."
Delaney/Del snorted. "That's rich coming from you. You took his order looking like a racoon in a waterpark from laughing too hard at this idiot."
Her face paled. "You're kidding me! Do you have a mirror?"
"Use your phone's rear facing camera."
Tessa pulled it out and groaned, immediately getting a wet napkin to swipe under her eyes. She turned back to her coworker for validation. "Did I fix it?"
"You look great, Beauty Queen. Get back to making those smoothies," Delaney/Del deadpanned.
The three of them went silent after that but Bryce was still stifling his laughter. This motley crew had an awful lot of personality stuffed into it. Especially Tessa. He was still a bit stunned from the force of her laughter and her smile.
She gathered the smoothies into two of those cardboard drink carriers and put them on the counter before calling his name. "Order for Bryce?"
Ha. He was the only one in there. It must be the company policy to do that even if it was completely obvious whose order it was.
"Thanks," Bryce said as he reached for them.
Tessa held out a strip of paper to him first. "Hang on, I have your receipt. You might want to take that before your hands are full."
Geez, where was his head today? He hadn't even thought to ask for it earlier. She had distracted him. He took it from her, folded it up, and stuck it in his pocket. Then he took the two drink holders and prayed they didn't spill before he got back to the office.
"Thanks," he repeated.
She smiled sunnily at him and tucked a strand of hair that escaped from her ponytail behind her ear. "You're welcome! Have a great rest of your day, Bryce!"
He was a bit shaken that she knew his name before remembering it had been on the order. He really was a wreck today. It was probably company policy to use the customer's name to make them feel more welcome.
Two could play at that game though. "You too…Tessa."
Bryce got out of there as quickly as he could. Once he got back to the office everyone thanked him and eagerly divided up their bounty. Frank quickly sent him money using VenMo before he forgot.
His head was still stuck on that unique girl back at the smoothie shop. He did his best to snap out of it and get back to work but it was more difficult than he would have anticipated. She made quite an impression.
So much so that he found himself at the smoothie shop the next day when he got off work hoping that Tessa would be there. What was he doing? This was so high schooler of him!
There weren't any customers here right now either. It must be the time of day. Only desperate people or people on diets got smoothies for dinner. That gave the workers the confidence to play some sort of game involving throwing dirty balled-up rags into a laundry basket.
"You really suck at this, Josh," the dark girl whose name he couldn't remember snickered.
Josh scowled at her. "I'd like to see you do better."
"Gladly!"
She balled up a rag and chucked it toward the basket but it didn't quite make it in. It had unfurled midair and landed on the edge.
"I feel like that doesn't count," he said.
"At least I made it onto the basket!" she sniffed. "What about you, Tessa? Can you do any better?"
Tessa shrugged. Today her hair was in a French braid instead of a ponytail and it suited her. She took a balled-up rag and tossed it in a perfect arc before it landed in the middle of the basket. As her coworkers clapped for her, she hammed it up and took a dramatic bow.
Did these people ever get any work done? Both times Bryce had been here they didn't seem to be terribly productive but they were definitely having fun.
He couldn't judge them too hard though since it seemed like things were slow. A smoothie shop wasn't like an office. There was only so much you could do if customers weren't there.
"How did you get that good?" Josh asked.
Tessa smiled a bit wistfully. "My family had a basketball hoop growing up. We would play all the time."
Was that really something to get wistful about? Unless…she had lost her family too? Bryce only ever had a grandma but she had died three years ago leaving him with nothing to do but study and work.
He had been drifting along somewhat aimlessly ever since. She would probably hate that since she had been such a lively woman but he wasn't like her. He never had been and he never would be. He let her drag him around doing all sorts of things because that was what he was used to but he wasn't the sort to initiate things on his own.
Tessa seemed like an initiator. She was the liveliest person he had ever seen and he didn't even know her. He could use some of that liveliness since he had basically forgotten how to live after losing the only person he ever truly cared about.
Bryce couldn't exactly ask her for advice on how to be livelier though. That would be totally weird.
He took the brief silence as an opportunity to walk over to the counter. "Hi, I'd like to order a small Banana-Rama."
It had been edible at the very least and got him through overtime yesterday even if he didn't like it. And he truly didn't know anything about smoothies so there was a good chance if he tried ordering something else it would be gross.
Tessa smiled at him but it wasn't the same bright smile as yesterday. This was a customer service smile if he had ever seen one.
"That will be $5.04! Would you like your receipt?" she asked.
"Yes, please."
"What's the name for the order?"
Of course she hadn't remembered him. She probably saw way too many customers for that! So why was he a little bit hurt? She had made such an impression on him and she didn't even remember that he came in yesterday.
"Bryce."
Tessa handed over the receipt and he took a seat in the same place as yesterday as he watched her make the smoothie. She hummed absently to herself as she did it, probably not even realizing what she was doing. That was kind of cute.
When the smoothie was done she called out, "Banana-Rama for Bryce!" and smiled as she gave it to him. It was the customer service smile rather than the genuine one from the day before but it still did funny things to his insides.
"Have a great day!"
"You too, Tessa," Bryce said quietly on his way out, feeling like an idiot for bothering to come here.
He shouldn't have done that. There was no point in buying something he didn't even like simply to see a girl that wouldn't give him the time of day if he wasn't buying something from her.
And yet, he found himself stopping by Juice Jubilee every day after work for the next two months. He didn't know exactly what Tessa's shift was but she was always there when he went and was usually the one manning the counter. The manager must have realized she had the best customer service skills of the three clowns working that shift.
Bryce couldn't deny that Tessa was one too even if she was slightly more professional than the others. But it wasn't a bad thing. Seeing her for a few minutes quickly became the highlight of his day.