Stella

1. Stella

I spun around from the stove as I heard the key turning in the front door, being careful not to drop the phone I was holding between my neck and ear.

"Yeah Mum, I'm doing fine. I'm just making some noodles for dinner and I'm going out later tonight." I spoke into the phone. I smiled at my roommate Mia as she came through the front door and we made eye contact.

"Out? It's a Thursday," my Mum answered, a disbelieving tone to her voice.

"Yes, and I'm 22, why would I stay inside when I could be getting lit," I laughed and she chuckled back at me.

"Okay, stay safe. Who are you going with?"

"It's gonna be me, Mia, Jasmine and a couple other girls from work," I answered knowing that she wouldn't know who any of those people were.

"Alright, well stay safe and don't get too drunk." She said her tone going soft.

"Don't worry I never do, I've gotta go Mia just came in. Love you, bye."

"Bye baby," she said hanging up the phone.

I turned back to the stove, and turned off the fire underneath my food as I called out to Mia. I reached up on my tiptoes to the cupboard, grabbing two bowls and dividing the noodles between them. I slide the bowl down the counter to Mia as she comes into the kitchen.

"Hey girly, soup or no soup?" I asked before I poured the contents of the pot into my own bowl.

"No soup," she grabbed two forks out of the drawer and passed me one before she sat down and twirled her noodles around her own fork.

"Okie dokie, how was work?"

"It was okay, we're starting to get a little bit busier now so I'm probably going to have to hire more people."

"Okayyy, why do you make it sound like that's a bad thing?"

"Because, I've struggled to find decent members of staff enough as it is. And now I'm gonna have to go on a manhunt just to find, what, two or three people that aren't complete shit,"

I tipped my head back as I laughed, almost choking on my noodles. "Mate, that is gonna be long. But I'm sure it'll be fine and won't even take that long. And anyway, I already told you I'm happy to help weekends if I've not got anything planned."

"Yeah, I know what you said. But, I'm not being funny you'd probably just come and piss about the whole time. I know you've got barista experience and whatnot but that was like 2 years ago."

"Urm, excuse me! Don't be so cheeky, and stop slurping like that as well, if I was there you'd be chilling. I only quit that job like 14 months ago, and I worked there for years so I defo remember how to make a cup of coffee,"

She rolled her eyes as she smiled and kept slurping, "okay fine, I'll consider letting you help if I get really busy but I'm calm at the minute. I should actually be glad that we're getting busy but it's bittersweet I guess. I didn't even get a break, hence the slurping. Anywho, enough talk about work I didn't take weekend off to still be worrying about work. When's Jas and the other girls coming?"

"Okay, fair enough. Urm, I'm not sure I think she said eight Cus she's staying here so she's gonna get ready with us, two or three hours to get ready and then the other girls can come as we can start pre-drinking before we go out." I picked up my phone to check the time and saw that it was quarter past 7. "It's quarter past now, so she should be here soon. Do you wanna shower first or shall I?" I said making my way over to grab her bowl and put them in the dishwasher.

"You go first, because you'll be in there for a year,"

"Okay, okay, I'm going now," I stalked passed her to my room grabbing my shower-cap, towel and speaker. I made sure my speaker was connected to my phone before I hit shuffle on one of my playlists and the music started to blast out of the speaker.