Not all that glitters is gold - but sometimes it's worth the chase.
Madeleine Routledge despised her brother and hates his pack of friends even more. Especially JJ.
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MADDIE WAS HAVING a bad day. Lately, all her days had been bad days, but today really took the prize. Her whole body was drenched with sweat in the summer heat, she was in the twelfth hour of an eight-hour shift because Lindsey had crapped out on her. To top it all off, Topper, Rafe and their pack of preppy jizz stains had just been sat in her section.
She took a deep breath to brace herself and squared her shoulders, pushing down the urge to flee as she made her way over. "Hi, guys, what can I get started for you?"
"Three rum and cokes and whiskey on the rocks. Quickly, please." Rafe smirked at her, his face twisting into what resembled an evil little rat. One of his great joys in life was finding ways to torture her while she tried to work. Maddie was convinced he was a sadist. Maddie was also convinced he never learned the rule of not pissing off people that handle your food.
Maddie's eye twitched. God, these kooks were such assholes. She, however, was a master of customer service and plastered on a wide smile, "May I see some IDs, gentlemen?"
Kelce let out a fake laugh, reaching over with a slimy hand to squeeze her arm. "Come on, Mads, we're all friends here, aren't we?"
"Company policy," she replied coolly, holding out her hand. To her surprise, Rafe actually handed over his driver's license, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
"I think you'll find, everythings in order."
It obviously wasn't but Maddie caught her manager's eye, he gave her a scalding look that told her she had to cater to the bastards every whim, forget, who knows, the law - because in the Outer Banks, money was the law. "Of course, I'll bring those over for you now."
She needed to go scream in the walk-in freezer.
Her manager was on her ass as soon as she finished entering the order, "I don't give a shit about your personal history at all, those kids parents are our most important members so you will serve them with a smile, you will not question them, you will not roll your eyes at them, how many times do I need to tell you this? Do you understand?"
Maddie wanted to roll her eyes at the lecture. She was pretty sure it violated about four of their esteemed HR policies. "I understand that, Dave, what I don't understand why Katie keeps sitting them in my section if I'm such a terrible server."
"Because they requested you, now plaster on that pretty smile of yours and get back to work. And go tell Ivy she's cut."
"What?" Maddie's head snapped towards her boss. "You are kidding right, I opened."
Dave looked unconcerned. "And? You bring in more tips than her and we're fully booked tonight."
Huh?!
He walked off before she could tell him that that was fucking ridiculous, and a wildly inappropriate sexist comment. She stormed into the kitchen passing Ivy along the way who was thrilled to hear that she was going home, and made a beeline straight for the walk-in.
