I know The Devil

~It’s either the flu or Love…

The symptoms are the same.

“Does that big grin on your face have anything to do with the newest neighborhood’s gossip of a hot rich guy who seemed to have lost his way to Beverly hills and now dwells amongst us lowly commoners?”

I scowled at Stacey, at this point agreeing with Mom. Law Tyler was surely the hottest topic my neighbourhood was having a feast on currently.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I denied lying flatly even as she gave me a smug grin bouncing on her heels in her flashy everything enthusiastically and I could tell that soon she would be prodding at me for dets (An abbreviation of details.)

“God, I had caught barely a peek of him when he was talking to Ron yet I had lost the ability to speak for a while. He is so unbelievably perfect.” Stacey chirped and I intentionally busied myself with initiating a discussion with old Mr. Jacob who suffers from dementia and was one of our longest, faithful customers. Today, I indulged him as he told me about his wife who was playing hard to get but he’ll surely get her and make her the mother of his children. I smiled at his words, knowing that he did that already even as I took the note his wife would have tucked in at the right side of his lapel jacket with familiarity and seeing her note I gave old Jacob a smoothie in a to-go cup, biding my time unhurriedly not at all looking forward to a continued confrontation with Stacey who eyed me aware of what I was doing as I told Mr. Jacob yet again to greet this beautiful woman he was talking about when next he saw her.

With blue-dyed hair, Stacey’s choice of clothing was as original as they come. Today she was wearing a pale peach gown, a yellow scarf which she knotted on her neck twice, her bright pink boots made me cringe whenever I turn to get an order from her and peek at them incidentally so it’ll suffice to say that Stacey had a colourful personality.

Just like her strange fashion sense says the girl who was a collector of black and grey hoodies, her personality was hard to miss. Boisterous, original and categorically honest. Though most times too blunt and honest for her own good like when she had told Mr. Grant who had come for his usual scones and sandwiches noon order that his wife was acting extra cranky to him because he couldn’t get little dicky up. A piece of information she had come across after Mrs. Grant had way too much to drink, in a pub down the road.

But she was easy to talk to than the rest of the other staff so we were acquaintances of some sort.

I was relieved when Stacey had to step out from behind the counter and had Diane replace her. Though I thought Katie was an unapologetic gold digger, who had wanted to become friends with me the minute she had been hired so I could introduce her to the rich guys in my school, at least we barely talk so although I found her biting her lips thoughtfully more than once no doubt wanting to ask me about Law Tyler, she couldn’t because she had been a real bitch to me after she discovered I wasn’t even a tad bit interested in discussing Evans high school. She had mistaken my reluctance for pride, if only she had known…ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

I let out a low sigh even as I squared my chest and made my way to cranky Mrs Harley’s booth since she was on the row I would be covering. She was mostly moody and full of complaints which we had to entertain as she told her long string of divorce stories, how badly she had been treated by a man she had dated for two months and how her children didn’t want to see her in-between orders.

“Look at who is dealing with cranky customers with a smile. Oh, love!” Stacey whispered after I returned finally from Mrs Harley’s booth looking exasperated.

I handed her order to Diane who in turn gave it to Selene, our chef while I waited for the food ignoring Stacey who seems to be so enthusiastic about poking fun at me than offering services to the very hungry-looking unattended customers in her row.

“I don’t know much about smiles but I know you’ll lose yours when Garrett leaves his office and struts inside here noticing that your row is unattended to while you seem eager to gossip.” I taunted, reminding her of our potbellied boss who didn’t hesitate to slash our wages into two at the slightest misbehaviour.

Diane laughed too hard and I could tell it had everything to do with the strange animosity she seems to harbour specially for Stacey who just frowns and rushes towards her row, fixing her name tag and her smile which had gotten crumpled a bit after my snarky retort.

***

I set my plastic bag of clothes next to the laundromat while I wiped out the washers and dryers because though I’m not a germaphobe, you can’t be sure that the washer didn’t get used to wash a semen-stained comforter from the whore house down the street or a puke stained shirt.

I checked on the setting just to make sure, fighting hard to retain the scowl that is normally etched on my face as I sat down on one of the uncomfortable seats next to my clothes knowing that leaving my churning clothes unattended to in itself was a risk I wasn’t curious to try out but slowly a grin spread through my face especially as I remembered the events of the day.

It was fifteen minutes for my shift to be over when I had noticed that Diane, who normally was meant to man the paying counter now was missing from her position and instead her flirtatious laughter which was way too squeaky today floated across the dingy room making me roll my eyes as I knew she just had to be flirting with few of the college students that came around this side once in a while if she was trying that hard.

I sat down behind the counter not at all happy that I had to pen down records of all that was sold today because regardless of how hard I wanted to turn a blind eye to someone being anything but proficient in their work, I couldn’t stand it.

I was on the third order when Stacey sauntered towards me, looking all bubbly and sparkles which was a huge turn of events, especially since the last time I saw her she was still fanning a grudge from my snarky reply to her.

“You have a pending order at table 27. That’s your row.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course, nobody would help me cover my orders even though I was obviously busy here.

“Cupcakes just this once can you__”

“No,” Stacey vehemently refused before I could voice my request, “Especially if it means you get to do Diane’s work for her. I’ll go get her and you would cover your table.”

I followed her with a notepad wondering if Mr. Garrett planned on introducing the digital method of doing these things and what was so hard in covering just one table in my absence.

“Hello,” I fixed a perky smile and lifted my face from the book. “What are your__ Law?”

I knew we held everyone’s attention at this point because although they were doing a good job of pretending like they were all busy; Customers with their food and staffs minding their jobs. The sudden silence in the bustling room was their giveaway.

“I wanted to see you.” He gave me a lazy drawl already answering my unvoiced question.

He was seated with Reynold, Ron and Jared all my brother’s close friends but it was more than obvious they had just accompanied him both literally and figuratively because he was the one that held everyone’s attention. I heard an audible gulp and a gasp, perhaps more than two. And then giggles.

God… he held my attention too and I had seen him just this morning.

“You know you’ll eventually need to make your order?”

“Only if you are on the menu.”

“That is so cheesy,” I scrunched my nose fixing him a pointed stare.

He gave me a little grin that helped falter my senses and make me feel boneless for a while.

“Maybe because love doesn’t need to be so intellectually demanding. It could be sickening with tropes, full of obvious accurately figured out scenarios before they happen and still be love. Cliches could be beautiful.”

I believed him. He was beautiful.

“Are you done? because I want to steal you away from these people?”

I opened my mouth to speak but Stacey beat me to it already aware I wanted to make an excuse. “Yes, all done.”

I glared at her a little even as Law smiled appreciatively for her input. “Live life a little, Prudence.” She added being all so helpful.

I held back a grin, as Law raised his brow, “Care to live a little?”

I chuckled and placed my hand in his because he was gorgeous and I’ll probably say yes to anything he had in his mind because I was hopeless like that.