A Season of Firsts

Chapter 3

I have my uniform on underneath my coat as I stride into the lobby of the hotel, having made a two-minute pit stop at home to change.

Felix, my co-worker, greets me as I enter the restaurant I work in – the Cedarwood Restaurant & Bar – through the grand double doors.

"Morning Addy!"

"Morning Felix! How are you?"

"I'm good thanks, how are you? You're looking very chipper." If you couldn't tell from the use of the adjective chipper, Felix is also English. I seem to attract my own kind.

"I guess I am - I've been out skiing this morning and made it down a whole slope without falling!"

"Did it happen to be a beginner slope?"

"That's entirely beside the point, Felix."

His snooty laugh follows me through the door as I head to the kitchen to wash my hands and put my apron on over my black shirt, skater skirt and tights.

As soon as I have clocked in, I go to speak to the restaurant manager Andrea to see where she wants me today.

I love Andrea, she's a sweetheart, and will always swoop in to save you from horrible customers if she gets the chance, but today she has me serving the biggest section of the restaurant for the lunch rush. From when I step foot onto the restaurant floor, I am running around non-stop and half of my day disappears in a blur.

My break coincides with Felix's, and we sit in the break room on a table together, him eating a burger and me with a chicken salad.

I had my first shift with Felix when I started, working together with him and being shown how everything is done here. I warmed up to him quite quickly when he laughed at all of my jokes, even the ones I didn't find funny, and he was patient with me when I didn't pick up on certain things immediately.

He's handsome, with a sharp jawline, strong nose and dull blonde hair styled into a swoop on his head. It's a preppy kind of attractive though, and doesn't do anything for me.

"Got any plans tonight, Addy?" he asks me as he looks up from his food.

"I think Hallie wants to go out to the bar. I'm so tired though, I wish I hadn't already agreed to it."

"Can't you just cancel?"

"You clearly don't know Hallie very well," I laugh, "there's no way she'd let me back out. Plus, I know I'll enjoy it when I get there."

"Are you meeting anyone, or is it just you two?"

"We'll probably end up seeing a few of the guys Hallie works with out. Scratch that, we definitely will, because she enjoys flirting with Chase way too much."

"Sounds good." He says, and leaves the inquisition there.

I feel like he's waiting for me to say something as he sits there giving me puppy dog eyes, so I take a deep breath and ask, "Would you like to join us?" knowing full well Hallie will kill me later for that.

His face lights up. "Yeah, that would be good, I don't think I have anything going on tonight." I know you don't, I think to myself, that's why you just coerced me into inviting you.

"Cool, I'll see you at 8 then?"

"See you then," he replies, and I see him look me up and down as I get up to head back out onto the floor. Gross.

A few hours later, I'm changing out of my work clothes into dark mom jeans and my favourite navy sweatshirt, whilst Hallie dances wildly around my room to a love ballad. She's using my hairbrush as a microphone, and I snatch it out of her grasp to re-do my bun that became extremely dishevelled as I worked.