Temptations | ✔️

7

~Eden's POV~

Around lunch time during my shift the next day, I looked around in the back room in search of a supposed cleaner that Benjamin insisted that we had despite the fact that I had never seen it in my many months working here. "Ben, I don't think we have it." I called to him, not surprised when he huffed and spoke in an irritated tone. "You're not looking hard enough. I'm telling you it's in there, so hurry up and find it!" He pressed.

I continued searching around for this supposed cleaner we had, still not any closer to finding it even after ten more minutes passed by. As I was looking through one of the shelves, pushing up on my tippy toes in attempt to see better, I heard the front door of the building open and then swing shut. Thinking that Benjamin would maybe handle it for me since I was busy, I didn't pay it any mind and instead just kept on looking around, biting on my bottom lip in frustration. "Get out here, Lane! We've got customers!" Benjamin called me by my last name, impatience in his voice.

A groan left my lips and I hurried out of the room, my back towards him as I shut the door securely. "I don't think there's any cleaner, sir." I stated, glancing over at Benjamin. He sent me a narrow eyed glare and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding to his left where the customers were on the opposite side of the counter.

"Eden?" I heard a familiar voice ask, the low tone laced with surprise. I looked over, taken aback when I saw that Jagger was on the other side of the counter with a woman with tight brown curls that fell around her shoulders and caramel colored skin. "Oh, h-hi." I stammered, not expecting to see him here. He peered down at me and cocked up a brow. "I didn't know you worked here." He mentioned, a confused tone to his voice. "Yeah, I've worked here for a while." I responded, fiddling with my fingers in a slightly nervous manner from the feeling of Benjamin staring at me. Knowing him, he probably wanted me to hurry it up and get them out of here. For some reason, he just became more aggravated every time customers came in despite the fact that he likely should've been used to this by now.

"Um, is there anything that I can get for you two?" I asked, not wanting to irritate Benjamin. Jagger glanced down at the pretty woman beside him, who was looking at me. "We'll take a box of the pumpkin cake cookies." The woman said, giving me a friendly smile. I nodded my head and turned around, grabbing a little box that I began to carefully put twelve of the pumpkin cake cookies into. Though I had never really liked things that were pumpkin flavored, in fact pumpkin kind of grossed me out, even I would admit that these cookies actually smelled nice.

"Here you go." I said as I turned back to the two of them, gently pushing the box across the counter so it was in front of them. Jagger and the unnamed woman split the pay for the cookies after a moment, as they had gone back and forth a little bit before finally coming to an agreement.

"By the way," Jagger began, causing me to look up at him as I slid the change back across the counter. His intense gray eyes met my green-blue ones, making me feel a little bit nervous. "Silas told me you'll be needing to be picked up after work, since your schedule clashes with his and meshes well with mine." He mentioned, the sudden topic change causing me to pause. Silas and I had only spoken about this yesterday, so I wasn't expecting to hear back about it so quickly, and certainly not from Jagger himself. "Y-Yes, that's right. He has the car, so I won't have a ride home after my shift ends." I affirmed, leaning against the counter a little.

Jagger ran a hand through his messy hair, the strands looking soft as they fell back over his forehead again. "Well, then I guess we should swap phone numbers, yeah?" He suggested, one large hand digging into the pocket of his pants before he pulled out his phone. I furrowed my brows, hesitating before I took his phone as he held it out to me, quickly putting my number in his contacts.

I handed it back over to him, our fingers brushing slightly as he took it from me. "I'll text you later, so make sure to add my number when I do." He told me, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. I nodded my head, fiddling with the sleeves of the large yellow jacket I wore. "Got it." I affirmed, pushing a strand of my dark hair behind my ear. He grabbed the box of cookies and handed it to the woman beside him, giving me a light smile before he turned and left the bakery.

"Eden." Benjamin said, causing me to turn my head to look over at him. He was leaning against the wall, narrowing his eyes at me slightly. "Yes, sir?" I asked, a little bit surprised at how...calm he sounded. Benjamin seemed to almost always have an aggravated tone when he spoke, so it was strange when he didn't.

"The cleaner." He said, raising a brow at me. "Find it."

**

When I got home later that night, Silas was in the kitchen as he ate McDonald's, two bags of food sitting in front of him on the island counter. "Hey, E." He greeted when I walked in, popping a french fry into his mouth.

I raised a brow and entered the kitchen, pouting. "You better have gotten me some food, too." I said, standing on the opposite side of the island. Si grinned and pushed one of the two bags over to me. "Of course I did. What kind of brother do you take me for?" He responded, taking a bite out of another fry. I hummed and peeked into the bag, seeing two cheeseburgers and a small fry, which is what I always ordered from McDonald's.

"Thanks." I beamed, running around the counter to give him a hug before I snatched up my bag of food and then hurried off to my room. I got comfortable in my bed after I kicked off my converse on the floor, taking off my oversized jacket before I began to eat. While I ate I decided to watch a movie that was playing on TV, not paying much attention to anything but the TV and my food for the time being. Well, right up until I heard my phone ping when I got a new text message, causing me to look over at it. At first I was going to just ignore it because I doubted it was anyone important, but then I remembered that Jagger said he was going to text me tonight.

Quickly finishing off the last of my food, I went and threw away my trash before washing my hands and returning to my room again. I assumed Silas had also gone to his room as well because I didn't see any sign of him.

As soon as I was back in my bed I grabbed my phone and saw that it was indeed Jagger that had texted me, telling me to be sure to save his number. I did so immediately, sending back a little smiley face and a simple "thanks" for him actually texting me to make sure I had his number. Though Jagger didn't say anything, he did send back a smiley face in response to the one I'd sent. Somehow, it felt almost playful of him.

I just bit my bottom lip and set my phone down, going back to watching the movie I still had on.