|| Secret Lies ||

Chapter Four

Dead again. For a place with half decent coffee, no one ever came here. Lucy was manning the front desk and Katie had full trust she'd let her know if anything interesting happened. Hence, chores.

Shuffling around the back on a precariously placed bucket, Katie performed a balancing act as she tried to pull another bag of beans down from the high shelves. One would think that their boss would think about the height of the two people he put on shift at the same time, so someone could always reach, but noooo. Why not make things as inconvenient as possible? And it wasn't even like she was close to reaching them, clocking in at a lofty 5'4, and Lucy was even smaller. They had no chance.

Cursing her boss under her breath, she finally grasped a bag and stumbled off the bucket with a groan of relief. A faint sheen of sweat, half from strain and the other half from fear, covered her forehead.

Visions of a clean, neat desk, maybe with a few crumpled up sheets dotting it, swam across her eyes as she desperately wished for someone to get back to her about her hundreds of reporter applications.

Anything but this.

Katie trudged back into the front of the shop, beans in hand.

"Yep. That'll be 9.89. Debit or credit?" Lucy lazily stood at the register as a scowling old woman gaped, affronted.

"10 dollars is an awful lot for a coffee, young lady!" She practically hissed, and Katie walked by as fast as she could so that Lucy wouldn't drag her into it. Drowning out the sound of the woman beginning to squabble with her coworker was the hurricane of noise created as she started to grind up all the beans bit by bit.

"Well! It just so happens that our manager is right here! Katie!"

Desperately, she pretended not to notice, praying that the beans would somehow grind louder.

"Katie?"

She reluctantly turned, plastering on a bright, cheerful smile before stepping towards the register.

The truth was- there was no manager. Their cheapo boss only ever had two people on shift at once, but Katie seemed the most responsible and was therefore put in very reluctant charge.

"Hi, Ma'am! What can I do for you?" Katie tried, voice high and as close to genuine as possible.

"How come your prices are so high! This is ridiculous! It's highway robbery!"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry you feel that way. We do try to keep the prices down, but this isn't a chain restaurant and it's tough to turn a profit selling coffee for three dollars."

She stared at the woman, beginning to get exasperated as she realized what she was holding.

"Also, you did order our largest size-"

"And I should get a good deal!" the woman interrupted, and Katie bit her tongue, fixing her smile quickly.

"Look, Ma'am, it-"

This time, the bell interrupted her and she froze dead in her tracks, smile faltering. Lucy paused too before meeting Katie's eyes. They looked up in unison as a man pushed through the door, bell tinkling loudly as it clinked against one of his curling ram horns.

A genuine smile crossed her face as she recognized his bright grin and thickly dotted freckles from across the room. The guy from yesterday! Claud!

"Hello, sir! We'll be with you in a minute!" she called over, ears growing hot as he nodded back and slid off his sunglasses. "Ma'am, as that is the largest size, it costs more for us to produce-"