Eureka

9

The sound of the door handle turning jolts me awake. I sit up and reach for the knife in my boot only to find that I'm not wearing them. Confusion fogs my mind as I look around to figure out where I am and what's going on. 

Small, dingy office, super comfy couch, a tall good-looking dude.

Cool.

Cool cool cool.

I snap back to my senses and stare up at the man assessing him further. It's just Carson. I relax a little and stretch to work out my stiff muscles. Carson has his arms crossed over his chest and is staring down with a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. 

"Mornin', sleeping beauty," He grunts out before moving to his desk to sit.

"Mornin', boss," I mumble as the initial adrenaline wears off. I look at the clock and it is 3 in the afternoon. "I see you were unable to wake me," I say with a cheeky grin. He chuckles in response and shakes his head.

"You were dead to the world. I didn't have it in me to make you get up again," Carson says.

I put my hand over my heart and lean back slightly, a barely audible "Awe," comes out of my mouth. So thoughtful.

"Here, your schedule," He hands me a paper that has a calendar with all my shifts written in. Almost all of them are during evening hours. Looks like I'll be behind the bar for most of them. My next shift is this very evening. He watches me with a small smile while I read through the schedule for a moment before speaking again, "Did you know that you snore?"

I puff out an indignant gasp and reach over to slap his arm with the paper in my hand in mock outrage. "I do not, you dirty little liar! Take that back."

Carson laughs and shakes his head no. I pout a little before tossing my hair over my shoulder as I turn, effectively slapping him on the face with the long ends before I cross the small room to sit back down on the couch. His body shakes with smothered laughter as he rubs his cheek where my hair whipped him.

"Ugh, fine. I might snore. Whatever. Did you even sleep?" I heard him mumble a 'yes' and I rolled my eyes dramatically as I fell back on the couch for a moment before lifting the schedule to look at it again. "Well, it looks like I need to head back to Millie's and get changed for this afternoon," I said, glancing over at him expectantly. I keep a playful scowl on my face as he watches me in amusement.

"Yep, let's go."

I grab my boots that were placed at the end of the couch and slide them back on my feet. I don't remember taking them off last night. I breathe out a small relieved sigh as I see my small knife still tucked in the inside of my boot where I stitched a small holder to keep it from sliding down further into the boot. It tends to get overlooked when I'm frisked and has come in handy many times when I needed to cut myself free of a difficult situation.

We climb into his old truck and rumble down the narrow back streets in town. On the way he explains to me that even though I mainly have night shifts, I can trade with any of the other servers to get a night off. He gave me every Sunday and Monday off knowing those would be the slowest nights there, and gave me random other days off that varied by week to give me a chance to have a normal night life outside the bar. I have the option to work a server shift if I trade with one of the other servers, but otherwise he wanted me at the bar.

He said that I had brought in a good deal of money and that his customers already seemed to like me. Apparently the girl that left last night was over charging out of town patrons and keeping the extra money if she knew they were going to pay cash, plus he had caught her on camera sneaking money from the collective tip stash the bartenders tend to keep on busier nights. Carson is a no nonsense kind of guy, and apparently her little bits of dishonesty added up to be enough for him to call her out and send her on her way.

I asked him if I could shadow the floor servers so I can get a better idea of the way things worked there. He agreed, apparently pleased with my eagerness to learn everything. In reality, I just wanted to check out everyone I'd be around.

Before I know it, the stunning Victorian home comes into view. I thank Carson for the ride and climb out of his truck. "See you in a couple hours," I tell him. He grunts in response before pulling back out of the driveway.

I make my way up the stairs and open the door. I'm soon swept up into Millie's suffocating grasp. "There you are! I was so worried when you didn't come down for breakfast!" She lets go of me and looks me over. My stomach suddenly starts trying to communicate with Millie at the thought of breakfast. She giggles and leads me to the kitchen while chattering away about what I missed that night after I started working.

She sits me at the table and starts making some food for me even after I protest. "Let me do this! Since you missed out on the real thing," She says as she turns to me and pouts.

Aw, how could I say no to that pout?

I relent with a smile and a nod. Millie stage-whispers "Yes!" and gets to work. After she serves me, I stuff my face quickly. She sneaks food off my plate randomly as if we had been doing this for years.

I tell her about the job and take my schedule out of my pocket and stick it on the fridge so she can see when I'm working.

After figuring out what I want to wear I begin my normal process to get ready. The smell of stale beer and cigarettes are less than appealing as I strip out of the clothes from last night. Stepping into the shower, I let the hot water flow over me. It soothes out my sore muscles further. I'm surprised after sleeping on a couch like I did that I'm not more sore than I am. Especially after driving as much as I did the night before.

It was a pretty comfortable couch, though.

I stand there for a few moments just thinking and stewing over my move and the irritating reason for it. I also find myself thinking about what I could have done differently to prevent what happened. It's the already very dead horse that I had been relentlessly beating since I left Houston the night before last.

Nothing I can say or do will change the outcome. I feel a little foolish for basically running away like I had. I should have just killed them and had the clean up crew come through. I roll my eyes at the thought.

It would have been hell getting the blood stains out of that couch.