A New Life Under Desert Skies

Chapter 7: Precaution

The sound of breaking glass reached Clint's ears as he stepped into El Pueblito. He scanned the room and saw Ellie, the newest server, standing in the middle of the room with dishes strewn in front of her like a wave. She was barely 18, short and heavy-set, with long blonde hair she kept tucked behind her ears.

Dominic's head appeared in the kitchen doorway. The memory of doing the same thing last week replayed in his head and Clint took a few steps into the restaurant to defend the young woman. But to his surprise, there was no yelling. Instead, Dominic hurried to Ellie's side and took the tray from her hand.

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking his employee up and down. Ellie, wide-eyed and trembling, nodded. "Good. I'll send Marcus over to help clean up this mess. Be more careful next time, okay?"

Again Ellie nodded and began stacking the dishes on the floor. Marcus joined her a moment later, and Clint watched the boss disappear back into the kitchen. What the hell was that? While he was grateful that Dominic didn't take his bad attitude out on Ellie like he had on Clint, it was still confusing.

Clint got clocked in and out onto the floor, double checking that the morning shift had accomplished all the extra tasks of cleaning and food prep. While he was counting the containers of salsa roja, he heard Dominic saying goodbye to everyone on his way out. However, as he passed Clint, Dominic merely shot him a disgusted glance and left without a word.

"Damn, dude. What did you do to make the boss hate you so much?" asked today's main cook, Alexander. "He was back to his old self today until you got here."

A frown creased the corners of Clint's eyes and he shrugged. "I literally have no idea. He has acted this way from the moment I set foot in the restaurant. I just thought that was how Dominic always behaved."

Alexander shook his head. "Nah, he's usually a pretty chill guy. The only other times I've seen him act like that was right after his father died, and when Tito got caught skimming the tills. He was the assistant manager before you, and had worked for Dom's dad for years. Lazy sucker, but none of us could believe he'd been stealing from the restaurant."

"Sounds like he has a hard time controlling his emotions when things go wrong." Clint closed the refrigerator and rested his hip against the door. Now that he thought about it, he did remember a few times as kids that Dominic had been bullied and spent the next week lashing out. He'd buried those memories beneath all the good times and they held quite a bit of dust.

"I guess so. But that still doesn't explain that look he just gave you. Best be on your best behavior, amigo. Maybe he's just paranoid that you'll be a repeat of Tito." Alexander shook his head and placed the burrito he was making in the window. "I'm sure he'll relax once he is sure you won't steal from him, too."

Clint nodded and scuffed the floor lightly with his shoe. "Yeah, I'm sure you're right. He doesn't have to worry. I've never stolen as much as a piece of gum." He gave the cook a cheeky grin and returned to the front of the house to make sure everything was running smoothly.

Which it was. The broken glass was long-since cleaned up and everywhere he looked, he saw smiling customers enjoying their meals. It didn't take long to put the interaction with Dominic out of his mind and the rest of his shift went by smoothly. He chatted with the regulars, practiced making some of the orders, and joked with the dish washers.

"And that's a wrap!" Clint said as he checked the front doors and assured they were locked. His back and feet ached from being on them most of the day, but knowing he got to go home soon gave him a second wind. "Let's see how fast we can get cleaned up and out of here, yeah? I'll take care of the tills while you guys clean up. I'll help with anything left when I'm done!"

The staff nodded and split up to take care of the closing checklist, and Clint grabbed the three drawers from the tills. Just as instructed, he brought them to the back room and locked the office door. His conversation with Alexander played in his mind as he pulled out the deposit envelopes and began writing the date and till number on them.

Alexander had said that none of the staff believed Tito to be a thief. It seemed a little suspicious when paired with the fact that an outside party was in charge of actually comparing the daily report with the amounts in the tills. He knew Dominic had told him not to count the money before putting it in the safe...but that left him wide open to anybody accusing him of theft as well.

So he pulled a sheet of paper from the printer and wrote the date in the top corner. He carefully counted the money from each till and wrote it down before sealing the envelopes and dropping them in the safe.

With that finished, Clint returned to the front to email the daily reports to Martha. Before pressing send, however, he noted the cash numbers for the day on his page. To his delight, they lined up perfectly. "Sweet. Nothing to worry about," he whispered and folded the page so it would fit in his wallet.

By then the staff were pretty much finished cleaning. Clint did a once-over of the floors, checked for any stray rags, spot checked the dishes, and declared everyone free to go. Everyone filed through the employee door in the back and disappeared into their cars, leaving Clint to walk alone back to his apartment. Usually he enjoyed this solitary time; it gave him a chance to be alone with his thoughts.

But tonight he was stuck in a loop of memories from the past. It seemed that blowing the dust off the less-than-pleasant parts of his childhood with Dominic opened a door that wasn't so easily shut. He remembered nights in each other's rooms where he'd woken up in Dominic's arms. Exploring the woods behind Dominic's house and being asked if he liked anybody. The way Dominic had clung to him the day he found out his family was moving. The letters that arrived weekly for the next year, nearly illegible in Dominic's 12-year-old scrawl.

At the time, their 2-year age gap hadn't seemed like a big deal at all. But the more Clint soaked in the memories, the more he realized that his best friend might have developed feelings that Clint was still too young to recognize. Just as he had developed feelings he had no name for.

But that was all in the past, now. Or was it? Deep in his heart, he felt something dormant begin to reopen. The angry, hateful Dominic that he'd been dealing with at work was so different than the "usual self" Alexander had mentioned. The version of Dominic who was kind to Ellie after doing the same thing he'd reamed Clint for.

There had to be something deeper going on. He found himself longing to regain this small part of his dead past which was placed in his way. After everything he knew had been ripped from him, crossing paths with his old best friend felt like a gift of providence.

He didn't know what he'd done to make this version of Dominic hate him, but he was going to find out. And he was going to do everything in his power to get his cheerful childhood mate back.