Rebound: A 2nd Chance

Jason was in the middle of cleaning up a table when he heard the bell for the front door ring. He turned to the entrance and smiled.

"Hello. Welcome to the Rice&Burger diner- oh it's just you Sammy." The enthusiasm in his voice quickly disappeared as he reverted back to his normal deadpan facial expression and monotone voice.

Samantha giggled "You know maybe you should be as enthusiastic at school as you are when you're helping out at the diner.

It would really help you get rid of the whole bad boy vibe that you have the whole world falling for."

Jason rolled his eyes as if he were annoyed but he found Samantha's straightforward way of talking entertaining.

Jason sarcastically spoke back "You know that I enjoy all of our small talks but I'm kinda busy right now Sammy.

Did you come here for a reason or did you just want to see how us lowly non-millionaires spend our time?"

Samantha looked at Jason with a devious smile on her face "You know what? Now that you brought it up I am kinda hungry. Table for one please."

Jason grabbed a menu and a set of utensils as he brought Samantha to the corner of the counter.

He set everything down and turned to Samantha"It would be a waste to give you a whole table since you're just by yourself. Hope you don't mind a seat at the counter."

Samantha shook her head which caused her long red hair to move around her "Nah it's cool. I've always wanted to sit at the counter.

You get the best view in the place. You get to watch the cooks while you wait for your food. It's almost like dinner and a show except it's lunchtime right now and the show is watching a dude flip burgers on a grill."

Jason caught a whiff of a refreshing scent "That smells pretty good. Is that your shampoo? It's smells like strawberries."

As soon as Jason said that an image of a bowl full of freshly picked strawberries popped into his mind.

A second later a loud gurgling sound could be heard. Samantha looked at Jason and then burst out laughing.

Jason scratched the back of his head and chuckled "Guess thinking about strawberries made me hungry. Strawberries are my favorite food."

Samantha chuckled "R-Really? What a coincidence haha. I just changed to this shampoo today. I bought a pretty big bottle so I think I'll be using it for a while."

Jason remembered something that he had learned from his mom in his past life "Make sure you check the expiration date on your shampoo and conditioner.

Not everyone knows this but they actually can go bad. They won't do all that much good for your hair once they're expired."

Jason was a broke college student at one point in his past life. He thought that he was a genius when he found huge buckets of shampoo and conditioner on sale.

Without a second thought he bought one bucket of each thinking that he had saved himself a ton of money considering that the buckets were each the price of what three bottles would normally cost him.

It wasn't until two years later that he found out from his mom why his hair had been getting worse and worse. 

Before that Jason hadn't known that shampoo and conditioner could expire. It turned out that both of the buckets were a year past their expiration dates.

Jason had a proud look on his face. It looked as though he was happy at the thought that he had helped to spread some useful knowledge.

Seeing the look on his face Samantha couldn't bring herself to ruin his moment 'Should I tell him that that's pretty widespread info? But he looks so happy... I think I'll just let him have his little moment.'

Samantha smiled as she looked at Jason "Thanks for the heads up Jaya. I'll make sure to check the expiration dates regularly."

Jason happily nodded his head before starting to walk away "I'll give you a minute to look through the menu. Just wave me down if you need something."

Jason went to go attend to his other tables as he gave Samantha a moment to look over the menu.

Samantha pretended to be look at the menu as she kept stealing quick glances at Jason as he helped around the diner.

Watching Jason drop off food at the tables while also diligently cleaning after all of the customers after they were done eating made Samantha blush a bit.

Feeling her face getting slightly hot she held up the menu to hide behind it. And then after a few seconds she couldn't help it as the urge overwhelmed her as she stole another glance at Jason before hiding back behind the menu.

'He looks so much nicer when he smiles. He's not a mean guy or anything so why doesn't he try to look that friendly all the time?'

While Jason was taking orders from the customers or talking with the other workers in the diner he had a smile on his face.

Jason smiled whenever they would joke around or whenever something funny happened but this was the first time Samantha had seen Jason with a constant smile on his face.

She felt happy to see that but she also felt something else. She was slightly bothered by something.

'How come he doesn't have any problems keeping a smile on his face with all of these strangers but when he hangs out with me, Kyle, and Shania he has that cold look on his face?'

As Samantha was watching Jason hard at work she suddenly had an idea pop into her mind 'Maybe I should invite Jason to the thing tonight.

I told the girls that it would be just us but if I make Jason bring the rest of the guys from the team then they'll probably be okay with it.'

Samantha had a devious smile on her face as she called out "Hey Jaya! You got plans for tonight?!"