Let Them Eat Cake

Hell Yeah

The next day once school is out, as promised, the little trio arrive with a few more of their Hellfire shirt-clad friends.
You guide them through motorhead to Hawkwind, Metallica to Queen, slayer to the doors.

You get their individual budgets and load them up with an appropriate amount of music homework, plus a set of blanks each for the inevitable plethora of mixtapes you assured them they would need to make.

You hip bump Chad, "Excuse me, beautiful",  out of the way of the register and get your nerds to form an orderly queue.

Your nerds, you laugh to yourself, well, seeing as you had their leader powerless in the palm of your hand last night, by proxy, they kind of were yours now. Even if they didn't know it.

You make the pleasing sound of register bell dings. Each one writes a note on their receipt and puts it in the suggestion box.

Chad's eyes are wide in awe, "Whoa! How did you..."

You do your best Don Corleone impersonation, "I made 'em an offer they couldn't refuse"

He stares at you blankly.

You narrow your eyes at him in disbelief, "The Godfather?"

He looks like you just asked him to solve the equation for world peace with a stick of gum.

"Never mind." You say, turning back to Hellfire.

"A pleasure doing business with you all" you nod your head at them in thanks.

They smile and go to leave. Dustin stops and does a little run back to the counter, "Eddie said to tell you he'd come by later. He's a bit tied up with something at the moment."

You smirk knowingly, "Oh, is that so? Would you mind passing on a message for me?"

"Sure", he replies.

You feel that power surge through your body, leaning forward on the counter with your fists pressed against its icy cold top, "You can tell Eddie that I'm very much looking forward to him being tied up here later."

"Will do," he chirps, oblivious to anything between the lines.

You could just imagine the awkwardness of that message getting passed on, which was delicious to you.

The work day comes to a close with no sign of your new little project. You had half expected him to come charging through the door moments after he got your message. It was a little disappointing but not totally unexpected. Maybe he was scared, the poor wee thing.

You flip the sign and go grab your box of oddities. You rustle through and find a rusty set of spurs and head on over to Country to find a perfect spot for them.

Country music was big business, so it was right next to the front store window and probably the display you tampered with the least.
Something catches your eye outside as you stretch to burrow the spurs into a mini haystack you made from leftover maze straw. Smoke.
You look at the ground near its origin. There must be at least 8 cigarette ends stubbed out down there, which are now something extra for you to clean up.

You yank the front door open, "HEY!" You yell as you step outside.

In all his startled glory, there was your potential new little pet. You smile, look at the sky for a moment, and then back to him.

"What are you doing out here?" You say in a much calmer tone, folding your arms

"Well, I was gonna come in but...but...I...well", he stops dithering by biting his bottom lip. You notice his chest is rising and falling more quickly.