It's Complicated: A Zombie Romance Novel

Saturday Night Woes

I looked at my watch and then down at the single item about to be purchased. What could have been so important that this customer had kept the store open forty-five minutes past closing? A black universal car charger sat on the counter between us. I held back a sigh as I rang it up.

"Is that all for you today?" I asked. I couldn't tell her to get out, not even with my tone of voice. But I could try and get her actually to pay for her purchase.

The all-important pink cell phone for which she needed this charger rested up against her face. It had been glued there when she walked in and was still there now. No wonder it needed to be charged.

"So Nick, what I was saying before I was interrupted?" she glared at me across the counter as if I was the one wasting her time, "Oh yeah! Tonight's going to be epic," she squealed.

If I could have gotten away with plugging my ears, I would have. So the all-important person was Nicholas Wilder. The most popular boy in my grade and Gabbie's current flavor of the month. I wanted to roll my eyes so bad. Mom got you this job; you don't want to blow it. Not many places hired sixteen-year-old sophomores. It would be even more impossible if I got fired. And there was the fact that my plus sized self-was on camera. Nothing like video evidence to seal one's fate.

"That will be two nineteen with tax," I said, ignoring the jab. Gabbie swooshed her perfectly straight black hair at me as she put her purse on the counter. Please be getting out your dad's credit card I begged her silently in my head. Gabbie had a tendency of believing the world rotated around her and that credit card. Lee Ann, my best friend, walked up to the empty soft-side bin.

"Problem?" she asked. Even though we both knew Gabbie from school, this wasn't the time or place to bring up the connection. Gabbie ran in different circles from us. Ok, mainly me. Lee Ann, the typical blonde bombshell, could move in any circle she chose. My brown hair was a novelty at my school only because it was attached to a white girl. Yeah me for being the minority.

"I have a twenty percent coupon in here someplace," Gabbie said, using her free hand to dig around in her purse. She emptied handfuls of receipts, her wallet, and some random change out on the counter. Somehow I was expecting more, like the coupon she was holding up the transaction for.

"I know it's in here somewhere," she said, shifting the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could use both newly manicured hands to search. She turned her Louis Vuitton upside down on the counter. Still no coupon.

"I could have sworn," she started to say. She lost her grip on her cellphone. It clattered to the floor. The scream was so loud I couldn't stop myself from plugging my ears.

When she reached down to pick it up, she exposed the bite mark tattoo that gave her the nickname Bite My Butt. She'd gotten the tattoo because of her love of everything zombie, but let's just get real. No one called her Zombie Girl; it was all too easy to refer to this five foot tall, Indian, pompom-toting princess as Bite My, well do I need to say more?

"It's ok," I said. Turning to Lee Ann, I asked, "Can you key me for a complementary coupon?" even though we both knew I didn't need a key for that. This was what they instructed us to do so that people didn't think we could give coupons away on any transaction.

"When you're done here come join me on soft side," Lee Ann said as she headed back out onto the floor. I nodded.

"Your new total is a dollar seventy-five," I said to Gabbie, pushing a lock of brown hair out of my eyes.

Bite My Butt had the courtesy of nodding into the phone. It was back on her ear. Out came the so precious credit card. Less than a minute later she'd scooped everything back into her purse and vanished out the doors.

Just as I was walking over to lock them, a guy stuck his head through the doors.

"You open?" he asked, trying to shimmy through the apparently closed doors. Momentarily cut off by his gorgeous tan and bright green eyes I didn't say anything. I hadn't seen that color of eyes in over a year. Not since Tommy. A cold chill shot through me. I rubbed my shoulders.

"Sorry, no," I said. I tapped my toe waiting for the guy to close the door. He gave me a look over, not that there was much to look at and turned back to the parking lot. I watched until he hopped into a black 1969 Corvette convertible.

"Wow," I said as I locked the door and started cleaning the floor, "Nice car." That's when I noticed a paper Bite My Butt must have forgotten. Curiosity got the better of me. I opened it up only to look down at a party flyer I knew all too well. My brother Brian just happened to be hosting it.

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A/N: Thank you for reading! Please vote and comment if you enjoyed this.