“Venti iced goodberry mocha”
I shouted at the clutch of elves and half elves animatedly talking to each other in the Auto-Biography section of our store as I saw a walking scowl of a man sporting a shock of red hair and crooked name tag with a poorly scrawled “Darren” on his green apron came to pester me again for like the fiftieth time today. Stopping a good foot into my personal space he proceeded to drop one of his handy clipboards on the counter and grunted
“Inventory.”
at me while one of the half-elves from the group had paused from picking up their goodberry mocha I had just made. Reaching over and grabbing the clipboard I give a half-hearted smile to the half-elf who made a weird smirk as I turned away from the counter and marched into the back room full steam feed up with the fill in manager and his attitude from our sister store across town. Stopping once the door swung closed, I let out the breath I had held in my chest and breathed in a familiar acrid smell thorough my nose. I hated how the backroom still smelled like the burnt beans they let the new girl try to roast yesterday. Wrinkling my nose and rubbing the points of my ears that were still a little chapped from the freak cold spell that decided to hit us here last week in the great state of Kentucky. I started bobbing my head along with the pen in my hand as I counted boxes of sugar packets and napkins sporting our name “The Inkfell” hoping I managed to count inventory out correctly the first time for once and didn’t give Darren the wannabe wonder a reason to pester me again.
It took almost 20 minutes for me to finish counting with the occasional double count here and there to be sure I didn’t screw up too bad this time. Leaving the bottom signature line blank considering the bold and Italics line at the bottom saying, “Only Mangers Can Complete Inventory.” I head back to the front of house, seeing Megan had come in as my shift relief and put the clipboard back on the wall under the shiny new label saying “Inventory” as I started to take my apron off and threw it onto one of the coat hooks behind the counter and headed toward the time clock. Looking over at the rows of chairs set up for our monthly book reading I see most of the elves and half elves had taken seats waiting for Liltilanna to come out and start her reading. Picking up my time-card I could hear the office chair click as Darren got up and poked his head out of the office door with a frown and said.
“Your late clocking out”
Which I answered by dropping my time-card into the punch clock as we stared at each other. His eyes narrowed at my silence and asked.
“Did you actually count everything or did you just pencil whip it again?”
With his head still stuck out of the door frame waiting on my response I just turn around and walk away giving a small wave as I called out back to him.
“Have a good night Darren.”
Hearing a muttering noise from the office as I came out from behind the café counter, I see Darren grab the clipboard from where I left it and disappear into the backroom, probably for the next hour or two like last time trying to find any mistakes I may have made.
Taking a second to stretch and knock off some of the coffee grounds that had found their way onto my sweater and jeans. I look up to see a cute half orc guy sporting a denim jacket and a Godspeed You! Black Emperor t-shirt staring to blush a little bit as he realized I had caught him staring at me as I had been brushing coffee grounds off my chest. I watched as he finally was able to break eye contact and he scurried away with his head and eyes cast down over to where the gaggle of elves where sitting in anticipation.
Looking at my watch I realized there was still a good little while before the show started so I walked over to where I had seen the cute orc guy grab a seat and saw that he was sitting by himself near the back holding a rough looking paperback of one of Liltilanna’s earlier books. His attention was on the opposite side of the store where the speaker was supposed to come out from as I went over and plopped down into one of the empty seats next to him. I smiled at him as his head flipped around with a look of surprise and a touch of terror as his eyes went wide as he recognized me. Oh, this was going to be fun I thought to myself.
I watched as he opened his mouth as if to say something and I saw an adorable pair of pointed fangs or wait was it tusks I never could remember the difference. I watched as he proceeded to open and close his mouth a couple more times making a small squeak one of those times. I figured I would finally end his suffering as I stuck out my hand and said with a tilt of my head and a smile.
“Hey I’m Wynn”
He froze up stiff for just a second as a couple of switches flipped somewhere behind those blue eyes as his mouth turned into a smile and his sage green hand gently grabbed my copper one.
“Hi, I’m Burt”
