Back Road

Chapter 1: Superstore Shenanigans

"ELS!!!!!" Two voices yelled as I walked in the door to my department at work. I saw my best friends coming my way and I couldn't help but laugh at their enthusiasm to my presence. "Hi baby dolls, how has the day been treating you?" I asked figuring I knew the answer but wanting to hear what they had to say anyway. "Oh you know, same bullshit just a different day. Theresa is on her regular power trip so be warned." Jade said as she rolled her eyes. Yeah, I knew it. Work was always way more stressful when Theresa was here. She was one of our three bosses and pretty much everyone's least favorite. " As long as my bitches are here, I don't give a damn what that woman does. She's not gonna run me out of my job." I said with an edge to my voice. Theresa drove us all crazy, she was very good at pressing your buttons and then gaslighting the higher ups into thinking she wasn't the problem. Besides, I was here to get that bread and leave.

"Also Randy is having another orientation today and I heard he has a couple of new hires for our department." Keylynn said with a mischievous smile. "Oh yeah? Let's hope they work out better than the last ones." Our turnover for this department was insane, we needed a crazy amount of people to keep this running smoothly, I'd been learning that recently because I kept being left in charge.

"Hopefully we will get a hand in training them, so they won't be so overwhelmed. You know how Theresa likes to throw people into the fire." Speak of the devil, my least favorite person decided to enter that back room as if she knew we were talking about her. "Well good morning, Miss Elana." She said with that sugary sweet fake smile of hers. She calls me 'Miss Elana' because she knows it irritates me, I've told her that about a hundred times and yet she still does it.

"Good morning, Theresa." I said with as much of a smile as I could muster. I tried anyway but my face will tell you what my mouth doesn't. "So, I wanted to talk to you because Randy is bringing in some new people and one of them starts today. I was hoping you wouldn't mind showing him around and training him a bit just to get a feel of things." She said, causing my eyelids to raise a little due to utter shock. Normally, she never asked me to train people even though I know this place like the back of my hand. "Sure, I can absolutely do that. I haven't trained in a while, it will be nice to get a change of pace." I trailed off slightly in my own world, thinking about training because that meant I could avoid at least some of the chaos today might bring.

"Perfect, the orientation group should be strolling through here soon. If you want to introduce yourself, so our new hire is aware of who he will be meeting back up with." She said, her sugary smile grew wider, this is starting to feel like a test. Either way I'll take it, I know I'm a good trainer.

"I can do that, after I show them around, I'll start showing them what goes on back here and go from there." I said with a confident smirk. I was about learn this person up. "Alright, sounds good. Thank you, Miss Elana." She said with that same damn smile. I gritted my teeth and with my words dripping in sarcasm replied," You got it, dude." I walked away after that.

"Oooooooh, Els gets to train the newbie." Keylynn said with a smirk. "Yeah, maybe you'll get some new eye candy babe." Jade said looking at me with a goofy expression. "Y'all already know, that all I'm gonna do is look if that's the case. I have way too much going on for any distractions." I said, causing them both to scoff and roll their eyes. "You've been wound up pretty tight lately babe, maybe you should have someone help you work out the kinks, you know?" Jade looked at me with a bit of concern, and I understood why. Lately I hadn't been able to hang out as much and I was pulling as many extra shifts as I could to stack some cash. Jade and Keylynn were super understanding, especially because they knew I was still getting used to all the financial responsibilities that came with having your own place.

"I have perfectly good rechargeable friends at home that get those kinks out just fine." I replied with a dirty smirk. They both had a good laugh and Keylynn added," we know babe, but sometimes it's nice to not have to do all the work." She was right, that sounded nice. I just didn't want all the trouble that could come along with it. I had tried the friends with benefits thing a few times and it never worked out as well as I had hoped. They normally ended because of miscommunication and things getting a little too real for one or both of us.

"And this is where the magic happens." Randy's loud voice came from the entrance of the back room. My eyes followed his voice, analyzing all the new faces walking through. I remember my orientation and how nervous I was. It looked like teenagers made up most of the group besides an older woman and a guy that when I caught sight of him, I kinda forgot what was happening. This dude was damn fine. I silently prayed I wasn't training him, because for the brief second we made eye contact I'm pretty sure he saw the immediate reddening of my cheeks. 'No distractions, Elana' I told myself. 'Come on girl, you know that boy is a walking distraction.' I rolled my eyes at my own brain. Oh man, This is gonna be bad for my health.

"And this is Elana, she's gonna be showing you around today." The sound of my name pulled me from my thoughts and I looked up at Randy to see who he was talking to. And of course, it was the walking distraction. I looked over at him and gave him a good once over. Definitely checking him out because my eyes were still trying to take him all in. "Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Elana, as you've heard, what's your name?" I asked with a nervous smile. "I'm Jude, it's nice to meet you too." His smile reached his eyes and I swear I saw those bitches sparkle. Good lord, help me. "So do you have anything else you need to do before I can start training him?" I asked looking to Randy. We were interrupted before he could respond.

"Elana, can you help me please?" I looked behind me to see one of the younger girls from outside, looking very nervous. "Absolutely babe, what's up?" I asked smiling trying to calm her nerves. "Okay, I have a customer outside and she's missing part of her cold items. I went to go grab replacements but we are out of stock on some of the things she ordered. What should I do?" Her voice had become frantic again. "Hey, it's okay. Don't stress, we can handle this. Just go back outside and ask her if she wants us to try and substitute the missing items. If not, grab her order number and name and let her know that we will refund the items she was missing. If she ends up being a Karen, come get me and I'll handle it." I instructed with a reassuring smile. "Okay, thank you so much." She said looking relieved. "Anytime girl, there is normally a way to fix things like that, so just come find me when you need help." I reassured one more time. She thanked me one last time and went back outside looking a lot more at ease.

I turned back around and realized that I totally forgot there was this hot ass new trainee behind me. Him and Randy both staring at me looking impressed. "Sorry about that, she hasn't ever dealt with those things before." I said, the nerves in my stomach returning. "No worries, good job handling that situation. Well, I'm going to take the rest of this fine group to their parts of the store. Jude is the only new hire for this department today, the other will start tomorrow." Randy said, and looked over to Jude. "Elana here will teach you all you need to know, and from what we have just seen, I'd say you're in capable hands." I smiled at the compliment. "Yeah, I can see that. Very capable hands." Jude responded, his eyes meeting mine with his same smile. Shit.

Randy looked between the two of us for a second and shook his head. "You kids have a good day, and Elana don't throw him to the wolves." He said. I laughed and replied, " No promises." In a singsong tone. He just shook his head with a laugh, and lead the rest of the group back out of the room.

"Sooooooo, let's get started, shall we?" I said, trying not to let my awkwardness shine through. His eyes met mine again, and he smirked a little, saying, "Yes, let's get it."

Dope, this was gonna be a fucking distraction.

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Authors note: I hope this chapter gives you a better understanding of Elana a bit. I'm kinda just making things up as I go, so I hope it's interesting so far. I do have a general direction I want to go with this but I don't want to force the writing process, since this is supposed to be an outlet for me. I hope whoever is reading is having a good day, or this will at least help you get your mind of things! Until next chapter!