THE NIGHT SHIFT

11.30 THE SHIFT STARTS

A cold October night welcomes me as I get off of my car to enter the restaurant, a vintage diner painted in red and yellow stripes. In the parking lot the lights coming from the street meet with the bright pink leds that read "Eat like you're at home" from a sign that is probably older than the diner itself. A breeze messes with my hair and I quickly fix it before walking in. I slept a couple of hours to be energetic for my shift and yet as I close my locker I feel my head get heavy and my eyes struggle to stay open, but it's only the start. I put on my red and yellow apron but I can't find my name tag.

"Ace!"

I yell as I get out of the kitchen. A tall boy, with curly blond hair and big brown eyes, who looks more like a puppy than a human, turns around. The smirk on his face makes the shift feel lighter already.

"Give it back, now!"

He lowers his hands to show that he's wearing my name tag, classic prank. We've been friends since highschool when I moved here in Oakland from Milford. He has the purest heart ever and his smile is the best cure to my boredom, that's probably why we soon became best friends.

"Oh but it looks so much better on me" he teases.

"Alright then, Riley" if you're going to steal my name tag be ready to be called by it.

"I'm just kidding, take it" I steal it back and put it on quickly.

Our boss is a very strict man, rumors say he once fired an old employee for "not stopping a robbery"! That's crazy, but I'm also not sure if I should believe these rumors or not. He's in his fifties, but his grayish hair makes him look at least 65. He's tall and quite overweight, which makes him intimidating, that's why no one ever talks back to him. He has, or well he had, black hair and blue eyes, but when he gets mad they get dark. If he saw that I wasn't wearing my name tag, god only knows what he would do.

"This prank is getting old don't you think?"

"Maybe" sometimes it's hard for me to understand whether he's actually funny or immature, but he makes me laugh either way so who cares.

"You know one of these days you're going to get me fired"

"Don't be so dramatic, Carl wouldn't" Carl is our boss, now, I would never dare to call him by his first name, but he loves Ace and lets him do pretty much anything. How could you not love that pretty kid-like smile and angelic curls.

"Sure... why does he even need two waiters on the night shift? We barely get any clients".

"Maybe he doesn't want us to feel lonely".

He really does have the purest soul.