k a t e
Kate shoves her hands in her jean pockets, only half listening to the manager of the little record store.
"Alright Katelyn, it looks like everything is set. Since it's your first day, try to be cool with Michael, you guys are working the same shift." John says.
"Kate." She mumbles.
"Huh?"
"It's Kate, not Katelyn."
"Okay." The older man says with little care, grabbing the keys and making his way to the door.
"Wait, so you're just leaving?" She cocks an eyebrow.
"I have stuff to do, and we don't get that much business. You guys will do fine, don't worry."
As soon as the door closed, Kate walked behind the counter and sat in the chair, already bored.
The only reason she even applied here was because her mom wouldn't stop pestering about her not having a job. She was a freshman in college. She barely had any free time as it was, but it's okay, because now she will have completely none due to this job.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a tall boy with a head full of red hair made his way into the store carrying a plastic bag.
"Hey, you need any help?" She spoke up, eyeing the boy, who was now rummaging through the records and switching the order of a few.
He doesn't move, clearly not hearing her, over the music playing through his ear buds.
"Hey dude, c'mon I have to put those back in order." Kate states, now annoyed that she has to fix the placement of the records that this guy was ignorantly moving.
His head lifts up, and he removes the chord from his ear. "Sorry, what?"
"Those are supposed to be in alphabetical order."
"Oh no, I fixed it. Uh, The Beatles were in that row but they needed to be right here." He signals.
"Oh." She nods. "Thanks. You must come here a lot."
"What?" The boy asks with a chuckle, before his eyes widen. "Oh , I'm Michael. You're the new girl. Katelyn, right?"
She sits up in her chair. "Kate."
"Right." He says now walking to join her behind the counter.
Before she could even pull out the chair next to her for him, he flung his body over the counter and does it himself.
"I'm so glad John hired someone else to work shifts with me. Shit got real boring, real fast here." Michael laughed pulling out two cokes, a family size bag of Doritos, and a pack of sour patch kids out of the bag. He placed the items on the table as Kate stared at the contents. "You're Australian." She notes.
"I am."
"Can I have one of those cokes?" She boredly asked.
"Well duh, I wasn't just going to shove my face right in front of you." He says, pushing all of the food items more to the center of the desk.
She stares at him with a raised eyebrow.
"What? You don't like Doritos or Sour Patch Kids do you."
Kate said nothing only continuing her stare as an involuntary smile plays across her lips.
"Look dude, I don't know if this is going to work if you don't like Doritos or Sour Patch Kids." He says acting as serious as possible, while tossing a chip in his mouth.
"They're okay." Kate says nonchalantly, sipping one of the coke bottles.
"They're okay?"
"They're not great. They're not bad. They're okay."
"Alright have you not tried Sour Patch Kids or something?'' Michael raises his voice, clearly in disbelief that Kate could think these snacks are anything other than amazing.
"Well no. But I've had nacho cheese Doritos." She adds, playing with the cap on the bottle.
"What? Alright. Number one, this isn't lame ass nacho cheese this shit is cool ranch. Great chip, highly recommend. And number two, how have you never had a Sour Patch Kid? It's probably the best candy there is."
"If I try them will you stop nagging me." Kate says with an eye roll, losing interest in the matter already.
"Probably."
Kate sighs, then reaches into the large blue bag pulling out a chip.
She glances at Michael and gives a fake smile before putting it in her mouth.
It was pretty good. It was not the best thing she'd ever had, but it was pretty good.
"Eight out of ten."
A smile stretches across Michael's face. "I'll take it. Now this." He nudges the candy bag toward her and she repeats the process.
It was actually really fucking good. Kate loved sour candy and the fact that it then became sweet just made it so much better.
"Damn. That's really good." She smiles grabbing a few more.
"I told you! See, you think I'm just some immature college boy who doesn't know his food. Now, please tell me you've had a twinkie before?"
