Cell phones were basically useless.

Jim barely used his for anything.

He hardly had friends or family to text or call, having moved from Dublin to avoid them all. He never really belonged with other people.

He grew up with his single mother, Starr, and his sister, Janine. Both of them were dark haired brown eyed beauties from birth. His mother went to parties sometimes, which was fine, and drank in moderation, which was also fine. Both Jim and Janine understood that she was an independent adult who loved fun and deserved to let loose.

Janine was shy as a child, playing princess with her imaginary prince and house with her imaginary husband. Jim remembered asking her once, "Do you always play house because we don't have a real daddy?"

She had ended up crying quietly so mother wouldn't hear.

Nowadays Janine was a stunning young woman, a spitting image of Starr. She was beautiful and intelligent and even went to college. All in all, the favorite child. Jim and Janine were always close as children, but adulthood had forced them their separate ways. No traumatic incident or mind-boggling fight, no, they split the boring way. They drifted apart.

Jim was amazed by how often she actually crossed his mind.

He had no friends throughout elementary and middle school. He stuck to himself, keeping quiet as the silly teachers talked about how cute and smart he was, and oh so well behaved, they'd muse. The other children were tired of the teachers using him as an example. They did something worse than bullying - they ignored him. Completely denied his existence, pretended he was a ghost as they looked right through him.

High school came around. He attended his first real party, drank his first alcoholic beverage, ate his first weed brownie. Maybe he got his very first blowjob there too, but he honestly couldn't remember. He was popular, a ladies' man, and discovered he was a gay ladies' man.

There was another boy his age, maybe a year older, a boy by the name of Sebastian. He was Jim's first real friend, and got him into more trouble that he would've gotten himself into.

To this day, Sebastian's whereabouts are unknown to Jim. They hadn't contacted since graduation.

After Jim graduated, he attempted college. None seemed interesting. So, whatever, he thought, and quit. He got some job bartending and got enough money to move into an apartment in London. Needless to say, his mother was disappointed.

He'd been bouncing from job to job ever since, leaving when he got frustrated or bored, and he'd been working at that coffee shoppe for about eight months. It meant free coffee, which was great, but it also meant impatient grad students, which wasn't too great.

Spitting in their coffee was always a delight.

Or placing a dirty napkin in the bottom of their cup.

Or boiling the water for too long to burn their annoying mouths.

Best and worst of all, adding more ice than coffee, so it becomes an awful slush within ten minutes.

Jim was a sadistic bastard. It was brilliant.

And now, there was an all new character in Jim's storyline. One with dark curls and blank parsley eyes and long white fingers. One with scars on his veins and cracks in his lips. One who only watched cooking shows and only drank vanilla coffee.

Jim groaned and rolled over, trying to get to sleep.