Fatal Infatuation [18+]

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"Oh, God." I groaned, rubbing my face. I woke up in my bed with a smoldering headache and no recollection of what happened last night. The only thing I remember is... a face. A man's face. 

"Oh, God!" I repeated, a little louder as I shot out of bed to the sound of my roaring ringtone. I felt around my bed for my phone until I felt it on the inside of my blanket, and I scrambled to dig it out. The phone continued to ring and I looked at the screen as the name "Kash" radiated on my face. 

I hurriedly pressed the green button and held my phone to my ear. "Hello? Evelyn?" Kashvi's voice rang in my ears. 

"Yeah, it's me." I replied, cringing as I heard my own raspy, dehydrated voice. 

"Oh, Ev, I was so worried." She wailed. I furrowed my eyebrows and put her on speaker-phone as I stood up out of bed. 

"Why?" I yawned, stretching my arms. 

"You seriously don't remember what happened last night?" She asked, concern ridden in her voice. 

I froze. "No, what happened?" 

"You and Mateo? Me punching him in the face?" She muttered. 

Suddenly, every realization set in, and I groaned in embarrassment. The embarrassment was replaced with fear when I remembered every detail of the situation with Mateo. I could only take a long pause, making Kashvi repeat herself. 

"No, I heard you. Did we- are we fired?" I asked, biting the inside of my cheek as I was overwhelmed with anxiety. 

"Someone got fired, but it wasn't you or me." She replied, anticipatingly so. 

"It wasn't Leanna, was it?" 

"No, it was Carter." She sighed. 

'Carter?' I thought to myself, furrowing my eyebrows. Out of everyone, why did he choose to fire Carter? After all, Carter was the only one who showed him any empathy that night. Carter was also one of the sweetest, most reliable people at work. He treated everyone with kindness and respect, and he instantly lit up any room he walked in. Firing him was... a strange choice. I felt awful for him. 

"Oh yeah, we have a meeting at 9." Kashvi piped up. 

"What? But it's Saturday." I whined, combing my fingers through my tangled hair. 

"Yeah, well, Leon called it." 

I stopped what I was doing. Leon was the past owner of the cafe. He owned it with his wife, Mira, until they both made enough money to drop out and pursue whatever passion projects life had in store, including, conceiving an insufferable little boy named Mateo. They put Kashvi and Leanna in charge of the cafe, bestowing upon them every duty and hardship that they left behind. But they took it with pride, and they turned it into an amazing and inviting workplace. Because of this, they never had any reason to call a meeting, especially a meeting that was so serious it had to take place on a weekend morning. I ended the phone-call and hurriedly got dressed, not bothering to eat breakfast. 

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Leon sat at the table with a stern expression on his face, his thin lips turned to a scowl. "What the hell went on last night? I know my son came home with a busted lip and a broken nose after going out with you animals, so will someone tell me what happened?" 

We all sat in silence, and I looked down at my lap. Mateo scoffed and looked at us, "Come on, one of you tell him!" 

Leanna stood up slowly, inhaling. "Well, we went to Melrose after work to hang out, and, well, a little disagreement broke out." 

"You took my underage son to a bar and then assaulted him?!" Leon bellowed, the vein in his neck almost popping. 

"No, sir. We would never allow Mateo to drink alcohol under our supervision, and it wasn't exactly... assault." Leanna explained with a polite smile, making hand gestures. 

"And he is not underage, he's just under 21. Don't make it sound like I abused a child." Kashvi insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Oh, so it was you?" Leon muttered, rubbing his temples. "Look, I don't care, just don't make a fool out of the good name of this establishment." 

Mateo's face twisted into one of disgust and offense, looking at his father incredulously as he just processed the words that came out of his mouth. "What do you mean you 'don't care'?" 

"I mean, I don't give a damn what you do as long as you're not sitting on your ass at home playing video games." Leon sighed, standing up and straightening out his suit. "Now, enough shenanigans, get back to work." 

"It's Saturday." Leanna politely interjected, raising her hand. 

"Oh, right." He nodded off into the silence, grabbing his ringing phone out of his bag. "Also, I need the records of all the financial expenditures from the last 2 years, who's in charge of that?" 

I raised my head and looked up at everyone as they turned their gazes to me. I felt my face heat up as Leon looked at me with an expecting look. 

"You, who are you?" He asked, taking a call and talking to me at the same time. I couldn't tell if he was talking to me or talking to the person on the phone. 

"Me? I'm Evely-" I replied hesitantly, only to be cut off by him. 

"Yeah, that's great, sweetheart. I'll keep that in mind." He rolled his eyes and turned away, shifting his attention to the person he was on the phone with. I shrunk in my seat with humiliation. 

After a while, he turned back to us and shoved his phone into his pocket with an irritated sigh, rubbing his temples again. He looked down at me one last time with a serious expression. "Get those expenditures to my son at the end of the day, I don't like waiting.", before he walked off. 

He looked at me over his shoulder, "Oh, and seriously, don't interrupt my phone-calls ever again."