Sweets - 𝘈 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺

107 - Just Do It

After having taken another week off of work at Ruby's, Alexa finally walked through the doors of the neon illuminated building, her chest feeling tight and anxious.

This is exactly why she had taken an extra week off. This awful aching, anxiety in her chest. And it of course sunk even deeper into her chest when she went to put her purse down in the kitchen and ran into Johnny.

"Hey, Alexa."

"Hey," Alexa answer quietly.

"Can we go talk in my office for a minute?"

Alexa stopped dead in her tracks, her whole body seeming to break into thoughts of fight or flight.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

"Um. Yeah, s-sure." Alexa replied as she held her purse strap tightly, hoping it would tether and ground her. She followed a few steps behind Johnny before he opened the door for her and gestured for her to enter.

His office was always a comfort. He had low lighting, bookshelves with binders full of past tabs and files and god knows what else. But it almost made it feel like a little quiet library. He even had a couch along the wall. She knew he had spent plenty of nights here when he first opened Ruby's, but soon the couch morphed into a steady comfort.

It was a couch to vent, it was a couch to sleep, it was a couch to cry, it was a couch to laugh.

She had always loved his little office, but now, right in this moment, she dreaded it. It felt like a shrinking prison cell. The binders on the walls full of everything she had done wrong in life and how there was no way to atone for any of it. The couch, a bed of nails waiting to puncture and destroy her the moment she approached it.

He gestured for her to sit on that very couch she had just been dissecting in her head. She sat down onto it carefully, surprised he didn't have her sit in the old, firm chair sitting across from his desk. That one seemed much more aesthetic for firing someone.

But maybe that's why she never saw anyone sit in it.

She was even more surprised to see him sit right beside her on the bed of nails. No. The couch. Stop it, Alexa. Relax. If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

"I wanted to check in."

Alexa looked up from her hands in her lap, just realizing then that she had been picking at the skin around her nails. She saw concern and worry in his eyes.

"Check in?"

"You've had a lot going on this month. I know while you were gone the last few weeks you filed it as a 'vacation' but..."

Alexa looked from his worried eyes down to the floor. She wasn't sure where this was going but her heart couldn't take it. She couldn't go through this twice.

"So should I just not even clock in?" Alexa interrupted, lifting her head, trying to hold it high.

"What?"

Alexa's cheeks burned but she tried to stand her ground, "Are you firing me or not? Cause if you are, just do it. You don't have to drag it out."

"Alexa—"

"What, Johnny?" Alexa asked, a snarl biting into her words.

"Why on God's green earth would you think I was going to fire you?" Johnny asked simply, sounding confused.

"Well, that's what my other job decided to do when I was asked to walk into my boss' office last week, so..."

"Jesus, Lex, I'm so sorry." Johnny said. "Can I—?"