Hitchhiking

Part 3

Callie:
I work at a local coffee shop here in Enterprise called Roasters Room. It's an adorable family-owned business. I love working here. It always smells like fresh coffee beans and sugar. My boss and coworkers are so lovely to be around. I could almost call some of them my friends.

Mitchell—Mitch—Allen is my boss and owner of Roasters Room. He inherited the shop when his father passed away several years ago. He's a tall, stocky 30-year-old with medium-length brown hair that's always neatly pushed back with just the right amount of gel. His beard is short and perfectly cut and clean. I've never seen him wear anything else but tan slacks with a brown leather belt and shiny polished dark brown Deer Stags shoes. He wears any variety of colors of dress shirts under whatever wrinkle-less casual business vest he picks that day and somehow, he pulls it off.

Mitch does it all; tends to customers, politely bosses his workers around, takes care of finance and scheduling duties, and everything in between. I admire his hard work.

When I walk behind the counter and clock in, right on time at 3:00, I'm immediately greeted by Mitch. "Good afternoon, Callie. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing all right, thank you. And you?"

"I'm doing just fine, thank you." His smile makes mine grow. "Are you okay with running the shop for a bit? I have to step out briefly. I shouldn't take too long but if you're uncomfortable, I can wait."

"No, please. I'm all good. Take your time." I politely wave him off, earning a sweet, warm smile from my boss.

"Thank you. I'll keep this in mind when it comes time for raises." He winks at me and quickly but swiftly collects his belongings and leaves his shop.

Now that I'm alone, I let myself relax. My after-school shifts aren't too bad. On a normal shift, I'd get around 50 to 60 customers in the span of five hours. It may seem like a lot, and sometimes it feels like that, but when I enjoy working, it doesn't feel like anything. And I love my job. Mitch is gone for just under one hour. I guess "stepping out briefly" meant he'll be gone for an hour.

"I didn't expect to take that long. My apologies," Mitch says to me when he enters the empty cafe.

"It wasn't too busy. Don't worry," I assure him.

Mitch takes a seat behind the counter with me on one of the few stools. "How's school going?" he asks. Mitch and I have a good relationship, almost like the relationship I have with my brother: distant but I feel like I can actually talk to him when we do. And that's how it is, I feel like I can tell Mitch anything, with obvious exceptions, and I have.

"Pretty good. Finals are coming up, though. Kind of nerve-racking."

"Are you still graduating early?"

"Yes. So basically, I just have to survive finals and then I'm pretty much done with high school."

"That's got to be exciting."

"Definitely. I'm so ready to leave all this high school drama behind." I smile as we talk.

"High school drama. It's been a little while since I've been in school. I can imagine the drama has evolved. In my time in school, we had cafeteria food fights and class pranks. Am I right to assume there is a difference?"

"Yeah, big difference. But wait, you actually had food fights in the cafeteria?" I smirk.

"It was a weekly debacle," he chuckles.

"And you call a food fight drama?" I tease.

Mitch laughs lightly with a head shake and a playful eye-roll. "I thought so until now."