mistakes // l.h. au

// five //

Days have passed and finally it had come time for Brinley's first day at her new job. The first day of a new job is almost like the start of a new school year. On the first day, you wake up extra early and try to look really nice and then it's like not even a week later you find yourself strutting in ten minutes before starting time wearing the most comfortable thing possible (which to be completely honest, is probably leggings and a hoodie with only a sports bra underneath. Be real with yourself ladies.)

By Thursday morning, Brinley had still not quite fully adjusted to the time changes and quite frankly wondered if she ever would considering she had been nothing but exhausted since she step foot on Australian ground. Jet lag was killer and she's stayed for almost a whole week. Thankfully she only had to be at Vinyl by ten am, so she slept in until half past eight.

She spent as much time as she could trying to look her best not only for the customers and her image as an employee, but also Ashton. She flat ironed her long blonde hair and lined her eyes with black eye liner before pulling a black t-shirt paired with thin black leggings, and tied a red and black flannel around her waist. Long socks and her chunky Docs covered her feet.

Needless to say, Brinley was excited. She arrived at work thirty minutes early and even stopped at a small shop for coffee and a muffin. Ashton was surprised, chuckling about how he usually waited for his friend Michael to arrive thirty minutes to an hour late.

Being her first day, Ashton introduced her to all of the different areas and genres of music, went over the rules of being an employee and even discussed ideas with her about release dates of new albums. That made her even more excited, she loved working there already.

During the middle of the day when there wasn't many people lounging around in the record store, she was given thirty minutes to eat lunch. Brinley had packed herself a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, a water and some chips. Only Ashton and her occupied the store, so Brinley was told eating her lunch at the register was allowed and that Ashton rarely ever minded if the customers walked in while one of them was eating their lunch.

Ashton also gathered his lunch and a stool to join Brinley for lunch at the register as an opportunity to get to know her being as he would see her everyday.

"So Brinley, I noticed your accent. Where are you from?" The curly headed boy inquired, starting the conversation. Brinley was glad that he had chosen to break the dull silence as she awkwardly chewed her food.

"As you can probably tell I'm American." She laughed, "I'm from a southern state called Florida, you know where Disney World is?"

Ashton nodded, recalling the name. "Oh my mate went there for a trip before he went to uni, he said it was beautiful there."

"It is beautiful, but I just wanted to explore some. I knew I wanted to be near a beach and away from my parents, but I wanted to be close enough to where someone I was familiar with could help me if I got into trouble, so that's why I chose to explore here and basically be Carson's roommate for the time being." Brinley explained, while Ashton bit into a ham sandwich with mayonnaise.

"Ahh and Carson is your cousin, correct?"

"Correct, he's my first cousin. My mother and his mother are sisters, so not only do I get to visit him, but I also get to visit my Aunt Carrie and my grandmother while I stay."

"How long are you staying?" Ashton pondered.

"Just until I start uni myself, which is in September. So I'll leave on the twenty-third of August, and have a week to get settled and re-adjusted to the time-zones."

"Sounds like a good thought out plan. You must have been wanting to do this for a good while." Ashton chuckled.

"I've literally been planning this since the second semester of my freshman year in high school." Brinley laughed, "I didn't like high school very much."

"I never did either until I joined my band, then it's like once I joined a band it wasn't that bad anymore. School had became enjoyable, definitely less boring. I know I had started paying more attention in English." He said, laughing before taking a sip of water from his own bottle.

"I knew you had to be in a band." The blonde girl spoke, "You play drums, don't you?"

"I do, how could you tell?" His eyes widened in surprise while his gaze diverted from his sandwich to her blue eyes.

Brinley smirked, "You drum on the countertops, and at first I thought it was just a nervous or fidgety habit but then I noticed that you count along to the beats as you tap and I just knew you had to play the drums because you love playing so much that you drum even when your set isn't around."

"You caught me," Ashton smirked in mock surrender, "but that reminds me, my band has a gig tomorrow night at a house party. You should come and see us."

"That sure sounds like it could be fun." She said in deep thought.

"They usually are, I think you would enjoy it." He commented, grinning.

Suddenly the bell hanging above the door rang and both employees hurried to get back to work as they were reminded that their lunch was now over.

***

The time was now seven o'clock on the dot and with Brinley and Ashton being the only people in the somewhat small store, it didn't take long to vacuum, double check the arrangements of the varieties of music according to the first initial of the artist's or group's name, and gather their belongings before cutting off the lights.

Brinley grabbed her leather jacket from the hook in the back room, and her phone from her jacket pocket when Ashton came strutting in to get his pullover with the store's logo on it and just as Brinley was turning around to leave Ashton called out to her, "It's tomorrow night at my friend's place, I'll give you the address later just think about it."

Brinley smiled in response, "Sure thing." and left the empty record shop walking down the street admiring the golden Australian sunset.

a/n: lol I want to go to a party with Ashton :/

anyways this chapter was kinda boring but it's slowly but surely getting somewhere you guys! yay!! :)

-Cameryn (the Luke girl who is Ashton af)