11 Chauffeur

School was about to start and Justin had only seen Emily a few times from a distance. He was embarrassed after the conversation they had the day of the pizza incident and didn't know what to say since she didn't know him in person.

He was hoping to continue avoiding her until he figured out what he wanted to say to make a better impression.

"Hey! Pizza Boy!" Emily jogged over, wearing her work uniform. "Have you been avoiding me?"

She wasn't wrong but how on earth had she come to that conclusion?! He could only stand and stare.

"Dude, relax. It's a joke. It's just surprising that I never see you since we're only a floor apart. What was your name, anyway? I'm Emily." She smiled and held her hand out for him to shake.

Petrified, he grabbed her hand and probably shook too hard. "Justin."

"Nice to meet you, Justin! Your name fits you better than Pizza Boy."

He chuckled nervously before blurting out the first thing that came to his head: a dumb joke he had seen on Blogr.

"Thanks, it was a birthday present."

She surprised him by bursting out laughing. "That's hilarious, did you come up with that?"

Red-faced, he mumbled, "I'm not that creative. I got it off the internet."

"Ah, the internet. A strange and beautiful place," she said before eyeing him curiously. "Do you work? I know it's random, I was just wondering if that's why I never see you around."

Does he work? Yes, though most of the money he was making these days came from the startups he had helped fund and the freelance site his employees mostly ran for him. He was trying to cut back before starting school. He decided to keep it simple.

"I do some freelance stuff online. School is a bigger priority right now."

"Which school do you go to?"

"UCLA. I'm majoring in Computer Science and Engineering." Justin was surprised that he was able to speak clearly without embarrassing himself now.

"Me too! I'm studying Film and Television. Ideally, I want to be a screenwriter for TV shows," she said. "That's why I came here. I can probably get a fair amount of practical experience on sets."

"Are you not from here?" he asked, already knowing the answer but figuring it was a standard follow up question to that kind of statement. He couldn't give himself away.

"I lived a few hours north when I was younger but I came here from Montana."

"That's pretty far away," Justin said lamely.

"Yep. What about you?"

He was sweating bullets. He couldn't say he lived in the same town as her before.

"California, born and raised. I don't think I could leave."

"Oh yeah ? Where?"

"North," he said simply. There was a lot north of L.A. It wasn't a lie.

"It must be pretty up there," she said. "With the forests and everything."

Justin nodded, despite never going to a forest in his life. He needed to change the topic, fast. "You work at the gas station down the street, right?"

She looked down at her uniform. "Yeah, I've been doing full time this summer but have to cut back to nights and weekends once classes start. I already told my boss and he's cool with it. It was the closest place I could find to here that was hiring and I don't have a car."

An idea suddenly struck him. "When do you have class?"

"On and off from eight to three every day but Friday."

"What a coincidence," Justin said, stretching the truth only a little. "I'm on campus then too. Do you want to just ride with me? Then you wouldn't need a bus pass."

Truthfully, his classes were from 10-2 every day with an evening class on Wednesdays but he could make it work.

Emily's eyes lit up. Not having to spend extra time commuting was very tempting.

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to be any trouble."

"It's no trouble, I'm going there anyway!" he insisted before realizing he should probably be trying to play it cool.

"You're a lifesaver, Justin! I'll meet you in the parking lot at 7:20 on Monday!" She beamed at him before waving and heading off towards the gas station.

Justin groaned and covered his face once she left. What had he done? He was a night owl by nature, making sure he didn't have any early classes on purpose. And now he had to wake up early anyway.

Remembering the brilliant smile on Emily's face at the thought of not having to take the bus, he told himself it was worth it.

He hadn't been able to do anything to help her since she moved to Montana. He could consider it as making up for all the presents he couldn't leave in her locker.

Monday rolled around and Justin angrily snoozed his alarm several times before remembering he actually needed to get up because Emily was depending on him. He sleepily rolled out of bed and almost cried in frustration when he saw the sun wasn't even fully up yet.

Half-asleep, he struggled to eat a bowl of cereal with a fork and almost brushed his teeth with his roommate's toothbrush. That near disaster woke him up for real.

At 7:15, he hastily buttoned a light blue and white striped shirt and rolled up the sleeves because it was still warm for September before grabbing his backpack and heading downstairs.

Emily was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking radiant in a bright purple blouse and dark wash jeans.

"Good morning!" she greeted cheerfully.

"It's a morning alright," he mumbled before yawning.

She laughed. "Why'd you sign up for 8 AM classes if you're not a morning person?"

"I must be a masochist," he said dryly, making her laugh again. He was completely serious. He was sacrificing himself for love.

Sensing his tiredness, Emily was quiet on the ride over, only speaking once they reached the parking lot. "Thanks for the ride!"

"No problem," he said before waving goodbye and heading towards the engineering building.

He rubbed his eyes and decided that he was going to take a nap before his first class since it was still early. He easily found an unoccupied couch and set an alarm for 9:45 before immediately falling asleep.

Over the course of the semester, it became normal for students in the engineering building to comment on the guy who was always asleep on the couch in the corner in the mornings. Some of them even wondered if he was homeless. Justin was too tired to care about such comments.

His nap refreshed him so he was able to go to his three classes without any problem, settling down in the library to do some reading homework before Emily got out of her last class. As agreed, they met back at his car at 3:15.

"How were your classes?" Justin remembered to ask. He was fully awake now and intended to talk on the ride home.

"They were alright. We mostly went over syllabus stuff. You?"

"Same here. Why they have to take an entire class period just to go over that, I'll never know. I want to get into the real stuff."

She smiled. "Someone's eager. What do you want to do with your degree, anyway? You never said."

"Cybersecurity, I hope. Building better firewalls and protecting people's information."

Justin was already doing pretty well for himself, considering he was only eighteen. He didn't technically need to work. But computers were his first love so he may as well keep himself busy with them.

An ironic choice since he was so good at breaking into firewalls and stealing people's information, but who better to make them than someone like him? He was still embarrassed about the handful of times he'd had to resort to hacking to get information he was too chicken to ask for.

"Wow, that's cool. You must be super smart!"

"Not really," he said meekly.

He didn't want her thinking about how good he was with computers. That could be a disaster.

"Smart people always say that," she teased, making him blush.

In all the time he thought about actually talking to Emily in person, he had never thought about how deadly she could be. His face was constantly on fire these days.

The car ride couldn't end fast enough. Emily thanked him again and excused herself to get ready for work.

Once he was safely back in his apartment, Justin told himself that he really needed to build up an immunity to this girl or he would never make it to the end of the semester seeing her twice a day.