Room 304 (mxm)

Chapter 9

"Hey Bill. Is everything alright?" Liu Jie asked concerned when Bill arrived at work on Monday afternoon.

"Yeah, why?" Bill asked in confusion, not having felt as if he were behaving oddly.

"I don't know... It's only 4:21. You're shift doesn't start for another 9 minutes and you're already here." The cook gave him a suspicious, amused look.

"Ha, ha. Very funny," Bill grumbled drily though he knew Liu Jie had a point; he was usually never early for work. "My classes finished early," Bill lied, without being able to explain what compelled him to lie so much lately. Ever since he had met Tyler, every second word out of his mouth was a lie even though there was barely ever any good reason behind it; it wasn't even as if he lied about important things – no, just random rubbish that didn't matter anyway, but the giant secret that the hustler had become in his life compelled him to be secretive about everything else. Including today about the fact that he hadn't gone to band rehearsal with the G's because he still felt like crap about that phone conversation with Tyler yesterday.

"Alright then." Liu Jie shrugged with a grin while Bill tied his apron to begin with work.

Of course, before he got there, Li Jing stormed into the kitchen. "Bill! I see you outside. You still no quit smoking! But you here early," she went from angry to delighted in a second.

"I'm working on it," Bill sighed; that was another lie because he hadn't actually been working on that at all, and in the past week he'd smoked a lot more than usual.

"Give him a break, boss. It takes a while to quit." Liu Jie patted Bill sympathetically on the shoulder.

"Quiet, Liu. You smoke more than Bill and you no even try to stop." The short, Chinese lady rolled her eyes at him before rushing towards her tiny office in the back of the restaurant and calling over her shoulder. "Good see you so early, Bill. I proud of you!"

Bill nodded numbly, having the strong desire to say 'don't get used to it', but he remained quiet and went to his station instead to begin with the orders that slowly began to come in from the first early afternoon guests.

It wasn't long before Andy showed up, exactly one minute before his shift started, and this time Bill was the first to greet him with what he hoped was a simple 'hey'.

"Hey," Andy beamed at him, obviously very happy that for the first time Bill had initiated the conversation.

The afternoon passed like any other at work, except today he conversed a bit more than usual with Andy, and again he was surprised at how nice the bleached blond kid actually was. Once dinner stress rolled around, they didn't have time to chat anymore, but it had still been nicer than on other days when Bill couldn't wait to get out of there.

As the last guests finally left the restaurant shortly after 11 p.m., Bill hung up his apron and washed his hands in the sink where Andy was still busy cleaning the last dishes.

"You up for a drink before bed?" the blond asked as he put away the last of the pots.

"Not tonight. I have to be in class at 9:30 tomorrow. But thanks." Bill sighed, stretching a bit and massaging his neck that was sore from staring down at pots and pans for a few hours. "Maybe another time though?" he added quickly before Andy thought he was turning him down; he really was exhausted and had to be in class tomorrow.

"Sounds good, let me know." Andy grinned, and Bill went outside for a much-needed smoke before heading home. Today had been one of those days that really didn't need to exist. He hadn't done anything productive at all and had just spent the entire day waiting for it to finally be over.
The only positive aspect of his Monday had been that he had actually managed not to think about Tyler for nearly 48 minutes during dinner rush. He needed to celebrate the small successes in life.