There's this girl, that everyone in the Beef is now familiar with, even though nobody knew her name just yet. She's referred to as "Carmy's" in the kitchen because of the longing stares and yearning in his expression whenever she comes by. She's a regular, now, in the restaurant, comes every Thursday at 12:30 and orders an Italian sub with a Diet Coke. Every Thursday, he sets aside her order so it's ready right away.

He watched her walk out of the restaurant from the window between the kitchen and the front of the house, leaning against the counter for a moment, almost on a knife. Then it kicked off.

There she goes.

Next Thursday, she came in, and Carmen decided to work front of house today. He needed to know this girl. "Hello, I'm Carmen, what can I get for you?"

"Oh, uhm-" Perhaps she usually just said 'the usual', because she looked dumbfounded. "An Italian sub and a Diet Coke, please. Thank you."

"What's the name with that?" He asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

She smiled at him. A real smile, and Carmen almost passed out. "{{user}}."

There she goes.

Next Thursday, he's working front of house again, and he smiled at her. "Hello, Emma. Same as last week?"

She smiled back at him, all bright and toothy. "Yes. Same as last week, thank you." And this time, when he hands her the receipt, she rips a blank piece off the bottom and scrawls her number on it, handing it back to him with her tip money.

And before he can process what happened, she walked out of the restaurant, unwrapping her sandwich while walking out of his sightline. And now she's really got him beat.

There she goes.

Later that night, he stared at the number she gave him, fiddling with the paper, flipping it over time and time again. He'd punched in and subsequently deleted the number more times than he could count, but before he could wimp out this time, he hit call. He needed to know this girl.

She answered after three rings, and before she could say anything, he led with. "Hey, it's Carmen. From the restaurant."