Cocktails & Emotions ~ [DR3]

5. Restocking

"There's nowhere I need to be, except right here with you,"
- Foldin Clothes, J. Cole

January 14th 2023

I sigh pressing my fingers into the aching spot in my head which is crying out for rest before my eyes shift back to the stack of cardboard boxes and bottles piled high. Restocking at any time is a chore, a half day at least, but after Christmas and New Year?! It's a marathon task which the thought of is only making the stab in my forehead heighten and tighten. Shaken and Stirred was left with a mere pathetic five bottles of wine left in its inventory before this delivery - a fact I wish I fully realised when accepting that Codie was 'sick' today and I was going to be left to the task alone.

I don't believe for a moment that he is sick. If Codie is sick, it's only with a hangover - a self induced illness which he'll get no sympathy from me for suffering with. Kat let slip at the event we worked last night that Codie was out with friends first going to some house party then to a club downtown. She went all red in the face and wide eyed after the words fell from her, most likely realising who she was speaking to. On the face of it all I'm annoyed, even going as far as to be short with Codie when he rang faking a 'stomach bug' this morning. I kept my words short and sighs heavy through the speaker of the phone.

Another side of me, deep down, understands. He's worked endless late nights and crappy shifts over the last three, maybe even four weeks and now that it's over he just wanted to have one fun friday night with his friends - as all 19-year-olds would want. I just wish that he'd chosen another day to call in sick for some rest.

Any other day.

With the mountain of things to move around, clean, re-organise and re-shelve I'm going to be here all day, it's already just after one and I've barely made a dent in the delivery that arrived at the storage facility ninety minutes ago. With a quick sip of the bottle of water I brought along I get back to it. I fall into a rhythm, removing whatever bottles of liquor were left in each section, cleaning and then pushing matching bottles from the new delivery to the back, setting the older (sometimes half used) bottles back at the front. I repeat the action over and over until my back begins to ache from the awkward hunched position and my phone buzzes repeatedly, desperate to be my distraction.

I straighten, reaching for my phone expecting to see Mum or Dad calling, most likely with Emmy at the other side of the line. I can't tell if I'm disappointed or excited when instead I see 'Daniel Ricciardo' displayed in the white bold writing of my screen. Beyond an awkward 'Merry Christmas' bulk text that I'm pretty sure Daniel sent to everyone in his phone we haven't spoken a word since the gathering on Christmas Eve. As far as I've heard, he'd been spending most of the holidays in New York, then some time LA (in both of which he apparently owns homes) with no concrete date of return - and when Daniel has so few responsibilities who could blame him?

My finger slides across the screen to answer, a feeling of nerves eating at me so much when the call connects that straighten in anticipation. What time even is it in LA right now? Am I being drunk dialled? I can't think of anything worse, if Daniel is as talkative as he is sober I can't imagine drunk - well, I can. The drinks on Christmas Eve managed to get him to just the right side of tipsy and he began to talk about the kart his Dad built him as a Christmas gift when he was a kid. Maybe the whole thing wasn't as obnoxious as I first feared.

"Hello?" the questioning answer comes from me almost nervously.

"I'm baaack," Daniel's familiar voice sings in reply to my question, the sound lightly crackling through the speaker of my phone. The excitement in Daniel's voice makes a laugh fall from my lips, or maybe it's just because he almost sounds giddy and playful and it's something I'm not sure I've heard from him before. Up until now, even our most fun conversations have had a coolness and often glum edge to them. Even after saying only two words, Daniel sounds lighter. Happier.