haze / afi

part 5. evening walk

violet has been spending the day in her aunt's music store. it's been a quiet day, not many customers having made their way in throughout the day. she spent the morning restocking shelves, arranging some boxes in the back room and going on a lunch run for her aunt. lisa insisted on eating food from the local bakery, directing violet there.

lisa walks out from the back of the store, leaning against the counter in front of violet.

"do you think you'll be okay closing up today?" lisa asks, hoping she can trust her enough to lock up the store in the correct way. "i need to pick something up from downtown."

"yea, absolutely." violet looks up from her phone to pay attention. "keys are in the bottom drawer, lock up the back door, lock up the front door and keep the keys with me."

lisa nods with a smile, glad that violet has listened to what she said last week about closing up shop. violet's proud of herself too, glad she'll finally be doing something more helpful for her aunt.

"so, thirty minutes, okay? no later."

"yea, i got it. i'll see you tomorrow, aunt lisa." violet gives her a hug, watching as she gathers her things and leaves the store.

it feels too quiet after that. violet is alone in the store. her aunt is gone, no customers, no music playing, the silence becomes a little uncomfortable.

until she receives a text from ashton. that is the only time there's a noise in the store.

ashton (music store guy):
hey! when do you finish at the music store today?

violet:
not for another half hour, why?

violet waits for him to answer. but a reply never comes. she doesn't understand why he'd ask her that and then not reply. he clearly wanted something..

she gets up from where she's sitting, starting to do the final checks lisa usually does before closing up. she heads around the back of the store all the way to the front, checking all the shelves and racks of cds, vinyls and cassettes. ensuring everything is in the correct place.

after doing so, she goes back to the counter. opening up the till, checking all the money inside as well as checking the card machine. a pretty easy thing to do.

violet walks through to the store room, making sure all the boxes are secure on the shelves, shuffling a few so they're all in the right places for tomorrow morning.

after finishing, she walks out of the room, closing the door, locking it just as her aunt wanted. walking over to the back door, doing the same thing there.

violet, heads back to the counter, picks up her phone, going to text her aunt and let her know she locked everything up, but before she can, she hears the bell above the door.

"we're uh, actually just closing—" she glances up, seeing ashton walking inside. "hey, what're you doing here?"

she shoves her phone into her back pocket, ashton walks over while she does a few last checks, being paranoid she hadn't locked the doors properly.

"do you have plans tonight?" ashton asks, sounding slightly secretive.

"yea, i was gonna have a super fun movie night alone at my apartment." she grins up at him, ashton knowing she's being completely sarcastic about having fun alone. "why do you ask?"