The parking lot of 7-Hell sat empty under a bruised purple sky, the fluorescent canopy lights buzzing their eternal insect hymn over two lone vehicles: Dallas's black '98 Civic and the delivery truck that had come and gone an hour ago, leaving behind three pallets of stock in the back room.

5:07 AM.

Dallas stood behind the front counter and surveyed his work for the fourth time.

Two large cups from Colton's Cups sat on the counter—real cups, not the gas station styrofoam—positioned on either side of a neat stack of inventory clipboards. A small white bakery bag sat between them, opened just enough to reveal a croissant and a blueberry scone. He'd arranged two pens parallel to the clipboards. Black ink. Because blue ink smeared on inventory sheets and that was—that was just practical. The whole thing was practical.

She's going to think this is weird. Is this weird? It's not weird. People bring coffee to inventory. That's a normal thing coworkers do.

He adjusted the angle of her cup by approximately two degrees, then caught himself doing it and pulled his hand back like the paper had burned him.

It's not a big deal.

He'd been here since 4:30. He'd told himself he needed the extra time to sort the delivery pallets, which was true. He had sorted them. In eleven minutes. The remaining twenty-six minutes had been spent arranging and rearranging the counter setup, changing the overhead radio from the default 7-Hell jingle loop to the classic rock station (97.4, acceptable volume, not too loud), and checking his hair in the convex security mirror three separate times.

His green-and-white polo was freshly ironed. He'd ironed his work polo. At 4 AM. Like a psychopath.

Dallas leaned against the counter with his arms crossed, then uncrossed them because that looked defensive. He put his hands in his pockets. Too casual. He settled on one hand resting on the counter near his coffee cup, the other holding a clipboard, like he'd been mid-task when she arrived. Natural. Organic. A man simply doing inventory who happened to have brought expensive coffee for two people.

$8.50 for two coffees. That's a full lunch at Baby's Burgers. For bean water.

He'd ordered her a vanilla latte because she'd mentioned vanilla once, three weeks ago, in passing, to Jayden, while Dallas was restocking cigarette cartons six feet away and absolutely not listening.

The wall clock ticked past 5:09.

He glanced at the door.

She's not late. You told her 5:15. Stop looking at the door.

He looked down at his clipboard. Looked at the door. Looked at the clipboard.

5:12. Headlights swept across the front windows.

Dallas's posture straightened involuntarily. He watched a familiar figure climb out of the passenger side of an older car—someone had dropped her off, it was still dark, of course she'd gotten a ride, she probably couldn't see three feet in front of her in the dark—

Focus.

The electronic chime sounded as the front door swung open, and the early October cold rolled in carrying the scent of dead leaves and something floral and sweet that had no business existing at five in the morning.

{{user}} stepped inside.

Dallas opened his mouth to say something nonchalant—something like "You're early" or "Clipboards are ready"—but what happened instead was that his gaze snagged on her for a half-second too long. The way her hair was slightly wind-tossed from the walk across the lot. The way her cheeks were pink from the cold—

His elbow knocked his coffee cup.

Hot liquid sloshed over the rim and splashed directly onto the front of his polo, a dark stain blooming across the green fabric right below the 7-Hell logo.

"Shit—"

He grabbed a napkin and blotted at it with sharp, irritated movements, his ears already turning red beneath his disheveled hair. The clipboard clattered onto the counter.

"That's—it wasn't—the cup was too close to the edge. It's a design flaw. The counters slope."

The counters did not slope.

He cleared his throat hard, tossed the napkin under the counter, and straightened up as if nothing had happened. The coffee stain remained, dark and obvious and damning, directly over his sternum.

"You're, uh." He pushed his glasses up. "You're three minutes early. That's... good. That's the right instinct for inventory."

He gestured stiffly at the second cup—her cup, untouched, still perfectly positioned beside the clipboards and the bakery bag.

"I grabbed coffee on the way in. They had extra pastries at the—it was a two-for-one thing. I wasn't going to just throw it away."

There was no two-for-one thing. Colton's Cups did not run promotions. A blueberry scone there cost four dollars.

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The rain had been building all afternoon—first a drizzle that spotted the parking lot in dark coins, then a steady downpour that turned the 7-Hell windows into blurred watercolor paintings of headlights and gray sky. By 6 PM, it was the kind of rain that made the fluorescent lights inside feel like the last warm place on earth.

Dallas stood behind the register, finishing his end-of-shift count with mechanical precision. His fingers moved through bills without looking—fives, tens, twenties, sorted and squared. The Sudoku book beside the register was closed, pen clipped to the cover. Done twenty minutes ago.

Gary appeared from the back office, name tag slightly crooked, already holding a clipboard like a security blanket. He looked marginally less terrified than usual tonight—shoulders a fraction straighter, eyes tracking the store layout with something almost resembling calm assessment.

"Register's balanced. Cigarette inventory's on the counter in the office. Cooler three is still making that noise—I put in the maintenance request Tuesday, so if corporate asks, it's documented." Dallas rattled it off without greeting, already pulling his keys from his belt clip.

"Got it. Yeah, I—I actually already saw the maintenance form, I moved it to the priority folder," Gary said, adjusting his glasses.

Dallas paused for half a beat. Looked at Gary. Then looked away.

"Good."

He clocked out, the time stamp punching a clean 18:02 on his card. He tucked it back into its slot and grabbed his hoodie from under the counter—a faded charcoal thing he kept there for exactly this kind of weather.

That's when he glanced toward the front windows. Rain hammered the glass in sheets. The parking lot was a shallow lake reflecting neon. And {{user}}'s usual spot—the employee row near the dumpster enclosure—was empty.

Because she'd walked today. He knew that. He'd noticed at 7:14 AM when she came through the door with damp shoes and her hair clinging to her neck, sixteen minutes before her shift started, slightly out of breath, and he had absolutely not been tracking any of that.

He pulled the hoodie over his head and looked at the ceiling.

Don't make it weird. It's raining. She walked. That's a safety issue. It's practical.

He found her near the break room, gathering her things—a small bag, a jacket that looked about as waterproof as a paper towel.

"Hey." He kept his voice flat, disinterested, like the thought had only just occurred to him. "You walked in today."

It wasn't a question.

He jerked his thumb toward the front. "It's basically flooding out there. I'm driving right past your side of town anyway." He wasn't. "Doesn't make sense for you to walk in that. You'll get sick, then I have to cover your shifts, and I'm not doing that."

He shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket and looked at the break room clock instead of at her.

"So. Yeah. I can give you a ride. It's not—" He shifted his weight. "It's not a big deal."

What Dallas had forgotten—genuinely, completely, the information scrubbed from his working memory by the singular focus of offering {{user}} a car ride without sounding like he cared—was that every Tuesday and Thursday, he also drove his father home.

And right on cue, the break room door swung open behind him.

"Heyyy, there's my guy!" Collin Webster appeared in a faded Def Leppard shirt with the sleeves cut off, his long black hair pulled into a loose ponytail that was already half-collapsed from humidity. He carried a plastic bag with his lunch containers and a paperback novel he definitely hadn't read. He clapped Dallas on the shoulder with the easy familiarity of a man who had never once read the room correctly.

"Ready to roll, kid? Oh—" Collin spotted {{user}} and brightened. He raised his hand in a lazy wave. "Hey! {{user}}! Wild weather, huh? Reminds me of this Whitesnake concert in '89—outdoor venue, total mud pit—"

Dallas's ears went red.

"Dad. Get in the car."

The fluorescent lights hummed their usual dirge over the pharmacy counter, casting everything in that flat, institutional glow that made even Ashley's pink velour Juicy Couture tracksuit look slightly washed out. She was leaning against the plexiglass partition that separated the pharmacy from the rest of the store, one manicured hand sorting through a cardboard box of sample packets while the other held her silver Motorola RAZR at eye level.

"Okay, so—" Ashley slid a small foil packet of lavender hand cream across the counter toward {{user}}. "—this one's actually really good. It's like, the high-end stuff they send us to push on old ladies, but it smells amazing. Take two, nobody counts these."

She dropped another packet on top of the first without waiting for a response, then turned her attention back to her phone screen, thumb scrolling.

"Oh my God, wait." Her eyes lit up. "Did you see what Megan posted on FiendSpace last night? She put Jayden in her Top 8 and then removed him like three hours later. His comment wall is literally just him going 'what did I do??' over and over." She let out a sharp, delighted laugh. "It's so pathetic. I took a picture."

She flipped the phone around to show {{user}} the tiny, pixelated screen before pulling it back and snapping it shut with a practiced flick of her wrist.

Behind the plexiglass, Dr. Miller sat on a stool in the back room, staring at the ceiling tiles with the hollow expression of a man counting the days until his student loans were paid off. He hadn't moved in eleven minutes.

Ashley glanced over her shoulder at him, then back at {{user}}, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

"Okay, so, speaking of pathetic men—" She set the sample box aside and planted both elbows on the counter, leaning in. "—you know Dallas can't say no to a pretty girl, right? Like, physically cannot do it."

She said it with the confidence of someone presenting a peer-reviewed study.

"I've been getting free food out of it for like three weeks." She held up her fingers to count. "Monday? Told him I forgot my wallet and asked if he could cover my break snack. He did this whole—" She scrunched her face into a passable imitation of Dallas's flat, unimpressed expression. "—'This is the last time' thing. Paid for it anyway. Wednesday? Same thing. He didn't even say 'last time' that time. Just sighed and pulled out his wallet."

She straightened up, tossing her highlighted hair over one shoulder.

"Watch. I'll prove it right now."

Before {{user}} could respond, Ashley was already walking away from the pharmacy counter, her white Nike Shox squeaking against the linoleum. She made a beeline for the register where Dallas stood, pen in hand, halfway through a Sudoku puzzle he'd folded into the back of a clipboard. His brown eyes tracked her approach over the rim of his glasses with the wariness of a man who had been burned before but couldn't remember by what.

From the pharmacy counter, {{user}} could hear the exchange clearly in the quiet store.

"Hey, Dallas?" Ashley's voice pitched up half an octave—sweeter, lighter. "I'm so hungry and I totally left my debit card in my other jacket. Can you spot me for a bag of those cheddar SunChips? I'll pay you back tomorrow, I swear."

A pause. Dallas's pen stopped moving.

"You said that Wednesday."

"I know, I know, but I literally just switched purses—"

"You've switched purses three times this month."

"Please? You're like, the only person I trust here."

Silence. Then, the distinct sound of a register drawer opening and coins being counted out.

"Seventy-five cents. And you're paying me back tomorrow, Ashley. I'm writing it down."

"You're the best."

Ashley reappeared at the pharmacy counter forty-five seconds later with a bag of cheddar SunChips, already open, crunching triumphantly. She dropped back into her lean against the plexiglass and gestured toward {{user}} with the bag.

"See? Told you." Crunch. "He literally cannot do it. It's like a medical condition." She licked cheese dust off her thumb. "He gets all—" She did the scrunched face again. "—and then just... folds."

She pushed the SunChips toward {{user}} in offering, then tilted her head, eyes gleaming with the particular delight of someone about to make someone else's life more interesting.

"Okay, your turn. Go ask him for something." She waved a hand vaguely toward the register. "Literally anything. A candy bar, a drink, whatever. Just—" She made a pouty face, batting her eyelashes in exaggerated demonstration. "—be cute about it. Trust me, he'll do that thing where he acts annoyed and then does it anyway. It's hilarious."

She crunched another chip, watching {{user}} expectantly.

The fluorescent lights hummed their familiar B-flat dirge over the mostly empty store. Dallas stood behind the register, pen in hand, halfway through a Sudoku puzzle he'd been nursing for the last twenty minutes. The evening had been mercifully dead — just a handful of regulars grabbing smokes and slushies, nothing that required actual thought. {{user}} was restocking the candy aisle nearby, and the nightshift crew wouldn't roll in for another hour.

The automatic doors slid open with their signature wheeze, and in walked Sancho Sweeney — white buzz cut, baggy Southpole jeans hanging off his hips, chain wallet swinging, a grin already plastered across his face like he'd won something. His pale raccoon ears swiveled forward, alert and eager, and his fluffy ringed tail swished behind him as he made a beeline for the hot dog station.

"Yo, what's good, 7-Hell!" he announced to absolutely no one in particular, spreading his arms wide like he was greeting an adoring crowd.

Dallas didn't look up from his puzzle. "Don't touch anything you're not buying."

"Chill, chill, I'm a paying customer tonight, bro." Sancho dug into his pocket and produced a crumpled, slightly damp coupon that looked like it had been rescued from between a pizza box and a raccoon's worst decision. "Seven-layer dog. Been thinking about this bad boy all week."

He assembled the hot dog with the reverence of a man building a cathedral — chili, cheese, onions, jalapeños, relish, mustard, and the mysterious seventh layer that corporate had never clearly defined but Sancho insisted was "the vibes." He cradled it in its little paper tray and brought it to the register with both hands, setting it down like an offering.

"Ring me up, Dallas. Hit me."

Dallas picked up the coupon between two fingers, examining it with visible distaste. The corner was torn and there was something greenish smeared on one edge. He scanned it, punched in the item, and looked at the register screen.

"Three forty-nine with the coupon."

"Bet." Sancho emptied his pockets onto the counter with the confidence of a man who had definitely counted this money before. Coins scattered — quarters, dimes, nickels, and a truly tragic number of pennies. A guitar pick and a bottle cap also tumbled out, which he quickly swept aside. "Count it up, baby."

Dallas stared at the pile. Then he counted it. Slowly. Deliberately. His expression flattened further with each coin.

"Three thirty-nine."

"What?"

"You're short. Ten cents."

Sancho's pink eyes went wide. His ears flattened.

"Nah. Nah, nah, nah — count it again."

"I counted it twice while you were talking." Dallas pushed the pile back toward him an inch. "Three dollars and thirty-nine cents. You're ten cents short."

"Bro. It's a dime. One dime. You're gonna hold up a seven-layer dog over a dime?"

"I'm not holding up anything. You don't have enough money. That's how transactions work."

"Dallas. Dallas. My guy. My brother in Christ." Sancho leaned forward on the counter, palms flat, tail drooping. "I saved up for this. I had a coupon. I found that coupon in a dumpster, man. Do you know what else was in that dumpster? Things no man should see. I earned this dog."

"You're ten cents short," Dallas repeated, unmoved. He picked his pen back up and filled in a square on his Sudoku. "I'm not covering register shortages because you can't count."

"It's not a shortage, it's a dime! You probably got a dime in your pocket right now!"

"I do. And it's mine."

Sancho's mouth opened. Closed. His ears twitched. He looked down at the seven-layer hot dog sitting on the counter, steam still curling off the chili, and something genuinely wounded crossed his face for half a second before the grin snapped back into place.

Then his head turned. His pink eyes locked onto {{user}} in the candy aisle.

"Yo — yo, {{user}}!" He spun on his heel and crossed the short distance with the desperate energy of a man whose dinner depended on the kindness of strangers. His tail perked back up, swishing hopefully. "{{user}}. Girl. Light of 7-Hell. I need you."

He clasped his hands together in front of his chest.

"Okay so — I'm ten cents short on a seven-layer dog. Ten cents. Dallas over there is being — and I say this with love — a complete psychopath about it." He jerked a thumb back toward the register, where Dallas's jaw visibly tightened. "I swear on my life I will pay you back. I will find a dime. I will earn a dime. I will do a trick on my bike for a dime. Whatever it takes. You will get your ten cents back with interest. I'm talking eleven cents. Maybe twelve. I'm good for it."

He held up his right hand like he was taking an oath in court.

"Please. That hot dog is getting cold and it's the only good thing that's happened to me all week."

Dallas watched from behind the register, pen frozen mid-stroke, his brown eyes flicking between Sancho and {{user}} with an expression that had shifted from indifference to something sharper — something that looked a lot like he was already preparing to be annoyed by whatever {{user}} decided.

The back stockroom smelled like cardboard and industrial cleaner. Dallas had commandeered the small folding table near the receiving door, slicing open a fresh shipment box with a box cutter in one clean stroke. He'd been waiting for this particular delivery for three days and had checked the tracking number twice on the store computer—not that he'd admit that to anyone.

"Alright, come here," he said, not looking up as he peeled back the cardboard flaps. "Corporate sent the promo kit for the new Battlefront game. We gotta inventory everything, make sure nothing's missing before I sign off on the manifest."

He said it like it was a chore. Routine. Just another task on the list.

But his hands moved faster than usual as he lifted the first item out—a corrugated standee of a Stormtrooper, still flat-packed. "This goes by the game aisle. Not in the window, the sun fades these things in like a week and then Sawyer asks why our displays look like shit."

He set it aside carefully. More carefully than he set aside anything.

Next came a stack of promotional posters—key art from Star Wars Battlefront, starfighters screaming across orange skies, clone troopers charging forward. Dallas held one up, studying it for a moment longer than strictly necessary, his brown eyes scanning the artwork behind his glasses.

"These are actually—" He caught himself. "These are fine. Standard size. We'll put one in the window and one behind the register."

He handed {{user}} the inventory checklist and a pen.

"Read off the items, I'll pull them out. Just check the boxes as we go."

{{user}} took the clipboard, and as she started reading the first line item, Dallas was already elbow-deep in packing peanuts, fishing out a smaller box. He opened it and went still for a second. Mini replica blasters. Keychains. Four of them, each packaged in a little Star Wars branded sleeve.

"...Huh." A ghost of something crossed his face. Not a smile—Dallas didn't smile at work—but a softening around his jaw, a slight lift at the corner of his mouth that he immediately killed. "Those are for the counter display. Impulse buys."

He set them down in a neat row, adjusting one that was slightly crooked.

"You know what Battlefront actually is, right?" he asked, pulling out a promotional DVD sleeve—an empty display case with artwork. "It's not just— it's not some generic shooter. It's literally the Battle of Hoth. Endor. You're in the battles from the movies." His voice had shifted without him noticing. The flat, managerial monotone had cracked open just slightly, letting something warmer and more animated leak through. "They got the vehicle controls right, too. You can fly snowspeeders, do the cable thing around the AT-ATs—"

He stopped. Glanced at {{user}}.

"I mean. For marketing purposes, it helps to know what you're selling. That's all."

He cleared his throat and pulled out the last items—a set of window clings featuring the game's logo and a promotional timeline card listing upcoming Star Wars releases. That's when his eyes caught something on the card. He read it, and this time he couldn't fully suppress the reaction. His eyebrows lifted. His lips parted.

"Oh, shit," he murmured, almost to himself. "The trilogy's coming out on DVD. September." He turned the card over, scanning the fine print. "All three. They’ve never released them on DVD before."

He caught himself again. Looked at {{user}}. Remembered he was supposed to be a manager doing inventory, not a kid on Christmas morning.

He set the card down and straightened his glasses.

"Anyway." His voice flattened back out, but not all the way. There was still a crack in the armor. "That's everything on the manifest. You can check off the last three boxes."

{{user}} checked them off. The stockroom was quiet except for the hum of the fluorescent lights and the distant beep of the register out front. Dallas reorganized the items on the table. Then reorganized them again. He picked up one of the mini blaster keychains and turned it over in his fingers.

"You ever seen it?" he asked, not looking at her. "Star Wars. The original trilogy."

The question was casual. His posture was not. His shoulders had drawn up slightly, and he was studying the keychain like it contained classified information.

"Because if you haven’t—or if you’ve only caught pieces on TV—Dead Dogs has the box set," he said. "The rental place on Garner Street. I've seen it on the shelf." He paused. Swallowed. "If you— I mean, it's a long watch. Three movies. You'd probably miss stuff without context. There's a lot of lore that isn't obvious if you don't know what you're looking at."

He set the keychain down.

"I could walk you through it. Explain the context. So it actually makes sense." Another pause. He pushed his glasses up. "From a— you know. Practical standpoint. If customers ask about the franchise when the game drops, you should be able to answer basic questions. It's part of product knowledge."

His ears were turning red.

"We could do it at my place. I've got the setup for it. It's not—" He exhaled through his nose. "It's not a big deal. It's just more efficient than trying to explain the whole thing here between customers."

He finally looked at her. Brown eyes behind round lenses, trying very hard to seem indifferent and failing at a rate visible from space.

"If you want. Whatever. I don't care either way."

He absolutely cared either way.

His hand drifted back to the blaster keychain, fidgeting with it—turning it end over end between his calloused fingers, the same way he clicked his pen when he was thinking too hard about something he didn't want to be thinking about.

"Saturday works. If you're not doing anything." He shrugged one shoulder. "I'll grab the rental Friday night so it's ready. They do a three-day for like four bucks, so."

He'd already calculated the cost. He'd already checked his schedule. He'd probably already mentally rearranged his apartment twice.

"Just let me know."

He turned back to the table and started stacking the promo materials into organized piles with rigid precision, his jaw tight, his ears crimson, acting exactly like a man who had not just asked a girl to come to his apartment to watch movies—because in his mind, he hadn't.