Sometimes

Chapter ten

I’d yawned so many times in the last five minutes that I’d lost count.  I could feel another one threatening to bubble to the surface as I wiped a damp cloth lazily over the counter top.  The smell of disinfectant was burning my eyes and  I wanted nothing more than to close them and go to sleep.

    “Stop yawning, Harri.  You’ll put the customers off if you keep giving them the ‘fly catching’ face.”

I shrugged and backed into Leanne, dripping water from the cloth all over her new green skinny jeans.

She rolled her eyes at me.  “If I’d have known that you were going to be a zombie this morning then I wouldn’t have let you come last night.”

    “I’m not ten.  I can handle late nights,” I replied.

Leanne laughed.  “Evidently not.  You’ve been wiping the sides with a screwed up apron.”

My eyes widened as I studied the cloth in my hands.  Leanne was right.  I’d been using one of ‘Retro shack’s’ aprons to clean up spilled slushies and smoothies.

    “Oops,” I said.  “My bad.”

Leanne took the apron from me and sighed.  “Yeah, your bad.  Look, why don’t you sit down for five minutes and let me serve?”

I shook my head, ignoring the hair that fell into my eyes.  “No.  I have to keep working.  I’ll only fall asleep if I get half a chance.”

    “Okay.  If you’re sure,” Leanne said.  “Just don’t have any more attempts at cleaning.  I’ll get someone else to do it.”  She smiled as her phone sounded from her pocket.  “Just try not to poison the customers.”

I aimed a salute at her and watched as she studied the screen on her phone with a beam.

    “Who text you?” I asked, leaning forwards to try and catch a glimpse of the message.

Leanne jumped backwards and shook her head, holding her phone to her chest.

    “Please?” I asked.

    “It’s only Sonny,” she said, stashing her phone back into her pocket.  “He was saying something about the film last night.”

I turned away quickly and tried to ignore the way my heart was beating against my ribs as if I’d just run a marathon.  “Oh.”

    “Yeah,” she continued, hovering over my shoulder as I took an order for a banana smoothie.  Even the sound of the blender whirring didn’t shut her up.  “He was saying about how cool the special effects were.  I mean, didn’t that fight scene look so real?”

I rolled my eyes at the glass I was pouring the smoothie into before smiling up at the customer.  “£1.50, please.”  The girl handed me a five pound note and I counted out the change to the sound of Leanne describing how cool the laser guns were.  “Thanks,” I said.  “Enjoy.”

The girl smiled, gave Leanne an odd look, and then left.

    “And I’m the one scaring the customers away,” I mumbled.

    “Huh?” Leanne asked.  “I was talking about the laser guns.”

    “I know,” I said, turning back around to face her.  “I heard you.”

Leanne cocked her head to the side.  “Oh.  Good.”  She straightened back up and smiled.  “Did you like the film?”

I nodded and set to work wiping the counter down again, with a cloth this time.