Bloom - Greta Van Fleet

Chapter Five

Esme really wasn't intending for her first day working at the cafe to go as badly as it did.

It wasn't even really her fault, and she was pretty sure the manager had a personal vendetta against her, which wasn't a particularly good thing when Esme decided to knock an entire stack of ceramic mugs over on her first day. She wasn't sure what to do when it first happened, choosing to just stand there as the entire café fell into an uncomfortable silence. The thunderous sound had made her freeze, not even noticing the cut in her shin caused by a piece of one of the mugs ricocheting off of the floor.

In fact, it want until Jake rushed over to her with a pile of napkins and began to wipe the blood away that she was finally snapped out of her temporary paralysis.

Jake had arrived an hour earlier, just like he'd been promising to do every day since they first met. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary; Jake went into the café every day to get a coffee, black and unsweetened. Esme liked to joke with him, telling him that he looked the type, to which he'd roll his eyes at her and give her a playful nudge. It wasn't until Jake asked to sit in that the situation became abnormal. She gave him a strange look, questioning his less than normal decision.

"I wanted to work on some stuff."

Besides music and the record store, his only other true passion was drawing. His love for the world of art shone through into his everyday life, having painted every wall in his shop with a different mural, making the already happy space seem even brighter. Josh had told her about the art studio that Jake had put together in his house, something that Esme was hoping to see one day. It begged the question as to why he wasn't using that.

"Fine," Esme passed a cheque over to the teenager who was running the drinks machine. "Go sit in the corner, or something, I'll bring you your drink soon."

From that point onward, Jake had done as he said he would. He sat with his tablet in the corner, pen running over the screen in smooth motions as he watched out of the window. It was to be assumed that he was drawing the record shop, his constant glances in the direction of the building making it pretty obvious. Whenever she got a break from working the till, Esme would watch him, a small smile on her face as she saw her friend in his element, doing something that he loved.

In fairness, the incident with the mugs could partially be blamed on Jake; it was him that had asked for a refill, which in turn made Esme spin around too quickly, bumping her entire body into the freshly stacked clean cups. Not a great thing to do on her first day at all.

Jake had cleaned up the blood prey quickly, managing to stop it from running onto her clean white socks, something that Esme was incredibly grateful for. All the while he spent on the floor at Esme's feet, he was muttering to himself. His tone was somewhat harsh, reminding her of her teachers scolding her for something reckless as a child. If she wasn't sure that Jake's bad mood was because of her, she would've found the similarity amusing, but she couldn't help but feel like a child again.

"Thank you, Jakey." The man stood up, screwing up the tissue in his hands. He held it in a tight fist, a tight expression settled on his face.

"Go put this in the trash." He held out the bundled-up paper to her, which she took with a guilty smile and a nod. She took it into the back, going to put it straight down the toilet. It'd be better in there – more sanitary at least.

It was when she was walking back out front, a dustpan and brush in hand, that she was interrupted by her manager. She was a snooty middle-aged woman, looking down her nose at Esme from the moment she'd stepped foot into the building that morning. Every time she'd spotted the new barista at work, there was something to complain about. Either she wasn't working the till quick enough, or she'd worded a question to the customer in the wrong way. There was something about the whole situation that let Esme know that she wasn't really wanted there.