Five minutes before closing time, I'm back at my register, indulging in my favorite pass-time of my Tuesday shift: door-watching. The only difference is today my stakes doubled. If Mr. Sweatpants keeps talking to me, I'll get another win against Chris under my belt, but it also means Angie will make me watch 'Pitch Perfect' with her. If he goes back to his yes, no, and I don't know responses, I lose to Chris today and likely spend cleaning the bathrooms in the foreseeable future, but Angie'll release the control of the TV over to me. I'm torn.

Chris is about to lock the doors when in walks my guy. He breaks his usual pattern and glowers at me. I wave. He raises his hand in reply and continues with his routine. The moment of truth comes when he pushes his cart full of groceries to my register.

"I printed it out for you." His middle and index fingers pass a neatly folded square my way.

One sentence down, one more to go.

"What's this?" Is he giving me his phone number? That's bold of him. I unfold the paper and inspect a recipe for the coffee-rubbed salmon. A recipe. And from a complete stranger.

"It calls for four fillets," he says. "But you can do a couple too. Fish does not reheat well."

"Wow, thank you." I turn it over to detect a possible trick. A setup. "I'm gonna try it this weekend. Will any salmon do?"

"Yes, but I'd recommend the fillets with the skin still on." He's surveying the drab walls and the worn-out floor of the store. "And remember to grind your coffee extra fine, more like powder. Other than that—it's simple, and I wrote the tips that helped me."

The switch from not talking to me for months to brining the recipe he once mentioned a week ago raises several questions about our exchange. I glance at him and notice no vibes I'd usually summon Chris to assist me with. Mr. Sweatpants is...nice. Some people are just nice. Might serve me well to remember that. Being nice is not that unusual. I can be nice too. "I most definitely will give it a try and report back on how it goes." That was nice, right?

"I'll look forward to that." He stills his head, pauses his gaze on my lips, and moves his eyes up to meet mine. He's not flirting, not at all, but the extended eye contact is not something I can maintain.

I lower my lashes as a shild from his unblinking blue stare. Maybe nice was the wrong word. It's like he sees through me, and into my thoughts. And those are not something I want to share with him or anyone. I pinch the bridge of my nose. I'm overthinking this. He's just another customer. I can stop talking to him now. I've way more sentences than I need to send Chris scrubbing the toilets again. I switch my focus to the paper in my hand.

The margins of the paper are brimming with meticulous handwritten notes in blue. Observations. Serving adjustment. Coffee coarseness recommendation he just gave me. How does he know these things? I've never seen a recipe pairing salmon with coffee in Nonna's cookbook collection. He must be in the cooking world.

"Are you a chef?" My mouth asks beofre I fully comitted to the question.

"No." He shakes his head. "I apologize if I gave you that impression. I started cooking a couple of years ago when I got my own place."

"How did you come up with this fish and coffee combo then? A happy accident?"

"No, I don't drink coffee. The recipe is from a blog I follow. It's right there." He leans over and points at the top of the page. He doesn't smell as funky as I've persuaded myslef.  More of a gym than of a homeless man. "I recommend it."

This should be my cue to stop talking to him, but my curiosity sparks. My mind isn't on my thesis or on what I have to do to get ready for tomorrow. This nice person in front of me holds the entirety of my attention, and I want to know more. The store is empty, and I give my tongue permission to ask away.

"What d'you do then, if you don't mind me quizzing you like this." I fold the paper and put it into the back pocket of my jeans.

"I work at a global security consulting company where I use my knowledge of statistics and probability to do risk analysis for our clients. I can't discuss this with outsiders."

"Sounds both intriguing and...boring? But I love data. And research." Why am I telling him about me? This is not get to know your cashier day. I shut my mouth and busy my hands with scanning and bagging a carton of oat milk. Making customers talk is part of the game, but revealing personal information about myself is a no-no. Not that any of them would care about my love of data.

"Me too. Numbers are something clear, logical, controllable, and, most of the time, predictable." His eyes roam across my head and shoulders and avoid my eyes.

Did I go too far in my questioning? Am I boring him? Or is something wrong with my hair? My attempt at running my hand through my loose wavy mane ends within seconds when tangle after tangle stops any progress. I shove the jumble of it behind my ear. Should I twist it up? No, my messy bun deserves its name. They're a wreck and not elegant or cute, like Angie's.

"Plus, there is no client interaction," he adds, "so I don't need to be in the office."

The luxury. Between school and three jobs, my commute takes up at least three of my waking hours.

"Are you home all day then?" I top the canvas bag with a package of broccoli florets, so they don't get crushed.

"I work from home," he says." Sometimes for half a day, and other times for twelve or more hours straight if I'm in the zone, but I'm not bound by specific office hours. As long as I do my job, the company lets me keep my schedule."

"That must be nice." I give him a curt smile instead of an eye-roll that I'd love to do. What would I do with such flexibility? Every second of my day is owned. "I wish I could do whatever I want whenever I want."

"I have the freedom to do that, but I'm a creature of habit. I keep my routine: exercise every day, work, cook. I clean the house on Wednesdays, visit my parents on Saturdays, and do my grocery shopping on Tuesdays."

"I've got your grocery shopping schedule down, that's for sure, and you can come clean my house anytime." Shit. Did I just say that? That went too far. I add the last item—a bunch of scallions—into his bag and mentally cross my fingers. Should I make a joke? Apologize? I glance at him, but he doesn't seem to mind my outburst and proceeds to give me his credit card. Benjamin Y. Leonards. That middle initial of his made me look up names starting from Y after I first saw it. I've already asked him questions. What's one more? I give my curiosity the free rein it begs for.

"What does the Y stand for?" I point at the name on his card.

"Yo-Yo."

"Seriously?" I can feel my eyebrows touch my hair, they're so high up my forehead. "Your parents named you after a toy?"

"Not at all," he says, matter-of-fact, as if it isn't the first time he has to explain this. "They named me after Yo-Yo Ma, the famous cellist. My mother played the cello professionally. It took Dad a while to persuade her to make it my middle name and not my first."

"That's kinda unique." Dad would've loved his middle name. "Benjamin Yo-Yo Leonards, d'you play the cello?"

"I do, but not well. It's a hobby. Mom started teaching me when I was five."

"I've tried piano and guitar but dropped both. Never got any good at either." I should stop telling him facts about my life. I keep going too far, sharing too much. I clamp up, school my face back into something neutral, and slide back into my professional cashier mode. "Anyway, thanks for the recipe—loved chatting with you today." I give him the receipt and his card back.

"I enjoyed it as well. Good night, Amélie," he says without glancing at my name tag.

"Hey, I'm impressed. Most people call me Emily. Not many know to say an "ah" at the beginning and stress the last syllable. Amélie." I beam at him.

"Amélie," he repeats.

"Good night, Yo-Yo."

"Ben, please."

"Good night, Ben."