🥀Raven and Wolf🥀

Chapter 11- Action and Reaction

The morning is cold and dreary. Its almost as if the sky is trying to break from its domain with the how the clouds roil, how they occasionally grumble with thunder.

I never see any lightening, a blessing I suppose.

Today I have to bring out my umbrella again, just so that I don't look like a drowned rat by the time I get to Mandy's. And not that it helps much anyways, with the rain and wind mixing, it falls in slanted sheets of almost impenetrable water.

Today sucks, I can already feel it.

Inside I close up my umbrella, shaking it off outside before closing the door. By the time I'm able to look around, I notice that the whole place is alive with light and some few people who've come in this morning.

I go to the back, getting my apron and clocking in. When I'm done, I first go to Lili since I'll need my table's tabs.

She's grinning ear to ear when I approach her, looking like a possessed clown.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," her words end on a giggle. "Your boyfriend is back and he's refusing service from me. I've officially started shipping you two. He's honestly so polite for being... well, for looking... You know what I mean."

My eyes scan the room, landing on one figure very particularly. She was right, he is here.

And he's refusing her service... because... "okay, thanks for letting me know."

She hands me her notes and the tabs before walking off, her Jimmy Choos of the day clicking on the linoleum flooring.

I know better than to ask by now, so I grab a pot of regular coffee and go to deposit it at table ten.

I feel his watchful gaze on me all the while I move, like a sort of second skin. "No food, right?"

When I meet his eyes, hazy musings from last night flood back into the forefront of my mind. I can't keep my eyes on his for much longer than a second or two, knowing that I'm blushing already and unwilling to humiliate myself any further.

Get it together.

"No, thank you."

I nod, quickly shuffling away to avoid any further embarrassment.

And all throughout the morning I curse at myself for letting my mind wonder last night. If I had just been good, I would actually be able to look the man in the eyes without feeling like I'll die while doing so.

I continue to badger myself all morning about all the ways I've screwed up.

When the morning fades into lunchtime, very few people come in, predictably. Today is usually the day people treat themselves at one of the fancier restaurants in town. I mean, it is Friday after all. Who would want to end the week with food that slightly smells of a music festival.

There's only one person left when Lili leaves on her break, not questioning me on my choice of not taking mine any more.

And when the man at table seven leaves, I feel my heart sputter before I remember why I'm even nervous in the first place.

Right...

I take to cleaning, making sure that I look busy enough to not be disturbed. And yet, of course, that doesn't work out the way I planned.

"Ghost." He catches my attention when I pass by his table, and like the dumb girl that I am, my head swivels on instinct. "Come here for a second?"

The soothing, melodic tone to his words hijack my brain, I would assume, because I don't listen to him because I want to.