Always, Tulip

▫️Four

Ginelle's pov

"Elle!" Jordan shouted from somewhere inside the bookstore, his voice cutting through, startling me. It was a bee hive of activities around me as everyone rushed here and there to make sure that everything was perfect.

The book display would be happening in an hour and we were expecting a mega sale. It was one of the new releases by a famous author and we were so honoured to have them.

"Coming," I answered to Jordan's dramatic calls as I rushed to his direction. My voice wasn't as loud as his thus he kept on calling having not heard me before.

Good thing I had put on my white converse so running around wasn't going to hurt my legs. I greeted a few colleagues on my way till I got to the shelves were Jordan was barking off orders.

"Get the numbers right!" A new recruit tried balancing some books in one hand as she tried keeping up to Jordan's words. Just like all my friends, we spoke too much and especially Jordan, he talked faster.

"Jo!" I approached them to rescue the girl who adjusted her large glasses to the brim of her nose as she turned to face me.

"You are finally here," he sighed in relief as he stared at a paper in his hand. "The numbers are all mixed up and I'm trying to sort them out." Jordan gave the girl beside me a stink eye.

"How come, I checked yesterday." I took the paper from him as I discreetly dismissed the girl. She had been almost close to tearing up. Jordan's temper wasn't an easy one to deal with.

"Everything is mixed up!" He ran a hand over his face turning around to look at the remaining books as I went through the list again. There was nothing unusual from what I could see.

"Lora will be here soon," I did a quick a calculation then sorted the numbers out, placing orders in their right columns and in no time everything was in place.

"Done!" I handed Jordan the file in a smile. I had been good in math and that came as an hindsight this morning. Jordan sucked with numbers. It gave him an headache as he always said.

"Wow!" He cross-checked the new inputs then ruffled my hair, "Smart girl," I stuck my tongue out to ridicule him of his defeat but he ended up pinching my cheeks, something I didn't like.

"Let's finalize this," I released a small huff and rolled my eyes but followed him anyway to the front. The books were already displayed so we went round checking if they were in the right numbers.

I had handed out the invitation cards with Jordan a few days back and we hoped it would match up to Lora's standard. She had left this task in our hands after all.

"I think we can open up now," Jordan turned to me and I nodded at his words. Everything was ready. I walked to the entrance and changed the sign as I fully opened the wide doors.

There was already a small crowd gathered and they almost pushed their way inside were it not for Jordan's intervention. I would have been squeezed into nothing, I was already small.

"Stay out of trouble!" I glared at him as he turned to flick his hair and head in. I laughed out so loudly that he narrowed his eyes but hurried back inside. Jordan couldn't slay anymore, his hair was no more.

It was warm outside and I stretched my arms walking a few steps away from the entrance to get a bit of sunshine. I was too young to be tired this early.