Chapter 970: Work Affairs
Today was Thursday. Also known as the fourth day in our seven-day weekly format.
Not as universally beloved as the weekends but not exactly as vilified as the days preceding it. It just… kinda is. Smacked dab right in the middle of both; the epitome of being just another day. Except today wasn't just any other day.
No sir, it wasn't.
At the stroke of midnight tonight, I can officially consider myself having survived another year of existence. And accounting for all the things I've had to deal with in just this single year alone, that was seriously saying something. I deserve my own crowd and ovation, I don't care what anyone says.
For the time being though, it was still a dozen hours away and then some before we could start hosting any award ceremonies in my honor. Besides, I still had five hours in my shift, and being the only employee in the early morning rush, the orders just kept on coming.
Hayley's prior marketing campaign continues to be a smash hit with the locals—today being the third day running that the shop was teeming with patrons. Which was good business, no doubt. But not so great when you're the only one manning the entire front of house.
"You really should have a talk with your manager," Irene said, perched in her usual spot, her usual drink sitting to the side of her usual messy pile. Her gaze had this bite to it, watching pensively as I cleared the countertops, served some tables, and tended to the cash register in the span of a single exhausting minute. "Is it really so hard to hire another person to assist in the morning?"
"We got enough staff," I assured her. "It's just that everybody's caught on to the fact that Nick tends to be extra grumpier in the morning. Everyone always dreads opening with him. All that stress, and so early in the day—who would want that?"
"I wish you wouldn't," she said, looking on at me in dismay and exasperation. "You might think you're being a hero, like usual—but in the real world, we call that exploitation. You're overworked."
"You say that while sitting beside a large stack of paperwork day in, day out," I said, scoffing. "And somehow I'm the one that's overworking myself?"
"And you say that like you think I can't handle it."
"So then why can't I?" I asked her. "After all that's happened… you don't really need me to prove to you that I can, right?"
"Not if I can help it," she said, grudgingly accepting my point and silence with a sip of her drink.
I took her now empty cup as soon as she was finished with it, slinking it behind the counter. "Besides," I said a short moment later, sliding the cup right back to its place, steaming and swiveling to the brim with her third refill of the day. "It's not like I'm the only person here in the morning that can put up with him, y'know?"
In no better example of my words, a big cardboard box emerged from the backroom, carried over by a pair of slender arms followed by a large beaming smile peeking partly from the side.
"Delivery!" Hayley announced, dropping the box and flapping it open crouched down on the floor. "Milk's here. Told you I got you," she said, taking two at a time and restocking the nearly depleted fridge under the counter. Her face was flushed but elated. I suppose anyone would look like that if they also had to book it to the nearest grocer and back after realizing we were running desperately low on dairy. "Just remind me to kill Bruce when he gets here, alright? I told him to tell Nick yesterday if we were running low on anything."
"Noted," I said, taking a fresh carton straight from the box to finally clear the backlog of cappuccino orders piling up. "But maybe next time something like this happens, get the others to text me instead, and then I'll talk to Nick."
"And ruin the chance for my employees to have better communication with their manager—that's your suggestion?" She said, looking like an overgrown gremlin still squatting on the ground.
"It's that or your business," I said, piling said orders onto a tray until I ran out of space. "Either or—you're the boss, boss."
Through God-given reflexes and coordination, I managed to balance the tray out past the narrow counter-space and through the overpopulated mess of occupied tables, successfully delivering the orders before the complaints could start rolling in about how slow our service was all the while turning a blind eye as to why that could be; not like it's more packed than sardine cans in here or anything.
Walking back to my station, I returned to find that Hayley had gotten the rest of the remaining orders covered. Several different orders all with vastly different ingredients and methods already piled neatly onto a tray ready to serve.
Sometimes I forget that just because I'm kinda good at mixing drinks doesn't mean there wasn't anyone better, and Hayley was a lot better than I was, that's for sure. And with her help, we managed to carve out a little moment of reprieve. A few minutes where there's nothing left to do but stand and smile.
"Maybe I could tell Nick to try and be nicer?" Hayley pondered aloud, still hung up on the prior conundrum. "Like I guess he could stand to smile a little more. Think he will if I tell him?"
"Ever see a lion bare its fangs?" I asked. "I think it'd be kinda like that."
"Screw it. Never mind that now. I got other pressing issues in mind anyway I need to address."
"Issues like what?"
"Like you," Hayley said, shifting around toward me and leaning her weight against the edge of the counter. "You don't think I know about you?"
"Know about what?" I asked again.
"What you've been hiding, downplaying, not mentioning—like, think I'm not gonna notice it?"
Somewhere over across the countertop, I noticed Irene's pen had stopped scribbling in her grip; her gaze peeking just slightly over a propped-up folder to watch.
"Your birthday," she finally said when, presumably in her eyes, I continued to play dumb. "It's tomorrow."
"Oh," I said, trying not to let the immense relief show in my eyes. "That's what you meant. I mean—yes—yes, it is."
"You know your date of birth is on your application form. So you but more particularly me, have known about this for a long time already," she said, the sudden shift in her demeanor and tone from fellow acquaintance to looming employer. "What I'm wondering is why hasn't there been a single leave application on my desk from you yet for tomorrow. Care to explain?"
I don't know many bosses who would complain about an employee not taking any time off. Anywhere else, and I'd be a model worker-bee. Not here, though. Not Hayley.
"I'm still coming in the morning tomorrow, aren't I? Same shift," I simply said. "I have the rest of the day to celebrate."
"It's your birthday," she said, her words lingering with heavy emphasis. "See ordinarily, ordinary people would be clamoring for the whole day instead of just some of it."
"Do you know how many days I've taken off since I got here? I didn't want to push it."
"Write the form," she demanded, somehow coming off more like a threat than a request. "And be sure to spend the day tomorrow wisely, you hear?"
A new order whirred through the mini-printer, but before I could read the request, Hayley snatched the ticket from my fingertips and hid it securely behind her back.
"Wisely," she repeated again. "You understand what I'm getting at?"
As a matter of fact, I do. With Hayley, whenever there was something with her, it could only really mean one thing.
"I'm not going to be with Amanda tomorrow, Hayley," I said.
"What?!" she exclaimed, so shocked she dropped the bossiness from her tone. "How come? Why not?"
If only there was a way to tell that I wasn't exactly keen on spilling every single privy detail about my love life… but I suppose being best friends with a very significant portion of it warrants her at least some leeway.
"Hayley, the ticket, the order's not—" I reached out to try and take the slip of paper from her, but she just retreated all the way out of my reach, customer service be damned.
"No, wait, what?! I don't understand. First Christmas, then New Year's… I would have thought for this at least… dude, you're three for three. Are you sure you're even dating at this point? Like you know how bad this looks for you, right?"
"Only if I don't have a good reason," I said. "But as a matter of fact, I do."
"Oh, do you?" Hayley said, slowly folding her arms with the noxious air of incredulity. "Let me guess, does this reason have a name as well?
Impulsively, I felt my gaze be pulled to that very sole reason, over past Hayley's shoulder and meeting Irene's with her lips delving into the contents of her cup, just calmly assessing how exactly I'd diffuse this situation.