Against All Odds

Chapter 27

Eve

Manners and patience are two thinks that some customers these days seem to lack.
I don't hate my job exactly but when customers complain when I'm trying my best it makes me frustrated.
Lunch times are always busy so normally we have three waitresses. Marie, Sophia and me.
Sophia is a friend from school (mainly Charlotte's friend but we get along). She's blonde in hair colour and mind but lovely without a bad bone in her body. Today is her day off which left Marie and I. Let's just say I don't get on with her. She's older and thinks she's all buddied up with the manager so always slacks off.
Throughout the day, numerous customers from her side of the cafe had been forgotten and ended up asking me when they'd be served. To be fair, most of them had been pretty polite.
Now another man and his wife have been ignored by the person who's supposed to be serving them and it's pissing me off. She gets paid more than me yet does fuck all and let's me clear up her mess.
Well I've had enough.
As I walk into the kitchen I immediately pick out Marie, leaning against a kitchen work surface. The cook she's talking to, Henry, has an irritated expression on his face. I'm not the only one who dislikes this slacker.
"Marie are you going to lounge about here all day doing fuck all or are you actually going to do your job?" I say loudly and she frowns in my direction.
"Excuse me? Who are you to talk to me like that?" Marie puts a hand on her chest and feigns a hurt expression.
"I'm the person who's been working my arse off all day, doing your half as well as my own." I snap back, recognising my own anger. It's growing by the second.
"Well good for you." She forces a smile down at me...did I mention how tall she is? Of course her height helps her think she's above everyone else. "Now get back to work before customers start missing you. Little miss perfect."
Did she really just call me that? Seriously?
"I'm doing the job I'm paid to do as well as yours which I'm not paid to do! Why don't you put any effort in? You don't deserve to get paid if you're going to carry on doing nothing." I grit teeth in anger and Marie smirks deeply and I frown, wondering what that's about.
"Oh I get it." She takes a step forward so she's literally looking straight down at me, trying to make me feel small as hell. "You're jealous. I get paid more than you. Is that what this is about?"
"No of course not..."
"We all know about your financial situation." She sneers. The kitchen quietens a tad as she says this, pots and pans laid still. "Clearly you're jealous. Are you not earning enough to buy yourself any decent clothes? Is that why you always look like such a slag."
"You don't know what you're on about." I clench my fists in anger. What right does she have to know about my families situation.
"Oh but I do. August the second, two thousand and thirteen." She chuckles quietly and I freeze. How can she remember that? Why would she remember that? "The day your whole life...went up in smoke."
She seems pleased with her imaginative language but I've had enough. She thinks my family dying is funny does she? I'll teach her.
I lunge at her. I smack my fist straight into her ugly face.
Marie changes in an instance. One minute she was queen bitch number one and now she's a crying wreck. She stumbles away from me and drops to the kitchen floor, hand pressed to her bleeding nose. That, of course, is when the manager walks in.
"What the hell is going on?!" He yells in his usual commanding voice. "Why are no tables being served?"
Lucas walks in just then and doesn't seem surprised at the scene he finds, just a little bit annoyed.
"You okay?" He mumbles to me as Marie begins crying into the managers arms. No doubt she's feeding him all sorts of lies. Lucas slips his hand into mine, squeezing it gently to show his support. For some reason this calms my behaviour and my anger lessens.
"Eve Harper, come into my office." The manager, Tom Bailey, orders after hearing Marie out. She looks smug. Too smug.
Lucas gives my hand another squeeze and tells me he'll stay right here.
I follow the manager into his office and watch as he closes the door behind us.
"Marie tells me you've been slacking off, leaving all the work to her. She also said you've been quite a bully to her. Now you assaulted her I'm afraid I have no choice but to fire you. I can't have violent slackers working for me." Mr Bailey sits down at his desk and shifts some paperwork around, looking for something. His words bring my anger up to the surface again but even I know how irresponsible it would be to speak back to your boss. He finds what he's looking for and hands it to me. It's a letter which I take with caution. "This is your pay up to the end of this month. Please get out of my cafe and take your boyfriend with you."
I don't bother to correct him. I don't bother to tell him the truth. What good would it do? Even if the other employees back me up, Mr Bailey wouldn't give two hoots. Everyone knows Marie has him wrapped around her finger. You can't change what a person wants to believe.
"Thank you sir." I say through gritted teeth. He nods in my way but I can see this conversation is over.
So I walk out, making sure my heads held high. Henry tries to speak to me but I'm not interested right now.
When Lucas sees my facial expression he grimaces and together we walk out of the kitchen and out of the café, Harvey and Benji following in confusion.
"What happened?" Harvey questions as I tear my apron off and slam it into a near by bin.
"He fired my sorry arse." I growl in annoyance.
"Shit..." Harvey shakes his head and Benji gasps, pointing accusingly at Harvey.
"You said a bad word!"
"How observant of you." Harvey winces. "Should I take him home?"
I nod, not really feeling up to going home and facing my other brother.
"Benji do you mind going home with Harvey?" I kneel to his level and he gives me an obedient shake of the head. "Thanks little man, I'll come home later."
They walk off, Benji's previously excited form now downcast and gloomy.
"Didn't feel like speaking to your brother yet?" Lucas asks, reading my mind.
"We need both our incomes to keep our family stable." I shrug, trying hard not to feel guilty but failing. "I should have known better than to kick off."
"Anyone would have lost it." Lucas gives me a crooked smile and I shrug in response. "Come on, let's go hang at the skatepark."
I agree and the two of us head to the skatepark.
"I hate this place." I mutter under my breath as we rounded the corner to the familiar ramps that Lucas so loved to skate.
"Oh shit yeah, I forgot. Sorry." He stutters and I notice his cheeks burn red slightly.
"Are you blushing?" I raise my eyebrows, a smile growing on my face.
"No!" He shoves his hands in his pockets and averts his gaze. "We can leave if you want."
"No it's okay, it's not really the place I hate. It's a person." I sigh, the smile falling off my lips. The threat of Stan is always in my mind.
"He's not contacted me at all since I won that competition so I'd say we're in the clear." Lucas reasons and I bite my lip, knowing in my heart that isn't the case.
Lucas stuffs his hands in his pockets and fetches a packet of cigarettes and I cringe as I watch him put the death stick between his teeth, lighting the end and inhaling the smoke. He notices my reaction and cocks his eyebrow.
"Against smoking huh?"
"Just don't see the point in it." I shrug. "What does it actually solve?"
"I dunno it's just relaxing." Lucas eyes me intently as I watch the exhaled smoke drift into the distance.
"You get addicted. Too reliant on a deadly substance that's doing more bad than good." I shake my head and waft the smoke away from me. "And this shit makes me feel sick now I quit."
"Why did you start?" He asks in curiosity.
"Needed some sort of outlet for my emotions. Just seemed to calm me down." I sigh, dragging my eyes away from his actions. Even though I believe smoking is bad, I can't deny how hot Lucas appears with a fag between his lips, smoke curling around him.
"Maybe I should quit too." He suggests, taking the fag out of his mouth and staring at it. We both watch the fire burning the cigarette and for once I wish I could know what Lucas is thinking. "I'd quit for you."
His words surprise me and I meet his gaze through the smoke. Suddenly the cigarette is thrown onto the damp ground, uttering a slight hiss as the fire burns no more.
What am I supposed to reply to that?
I open my mouth but I'm still unsure what to say.
Lucas steps forwards and brushes his finger tips against my cool skin, a desperate sense of longing filling his dark eyes.
"You're amazing, you know that right?" His voice is deep and his hand is making my heart rate pick up significantly. I should move away from his touch. I should tell him to stop. But I don't. I can't. "Can I kiss you?"