Sleep

Part 31

I had to admit, CaRtOoNz was determined. But so was I.

He came in to the quaint cafe the following day, right as the clock hit 1:30pm. As soon as I saw him passing the front windows, I dropped to the floor in a desperate attempt to hide.

Alessia shot me a strange look, and I gave a confused shrug. What else was I meant to do?

"Reddish brown beard can't know I'm here."

I whispered, and immediately her gaze shot up to the door as it pushed open. Smiling, she whispered through her teeth at me.

"Crawl out the back, quick."

Glad I'd mopped the floor only recently, I army crawled toward the backroom doorway as quietly as I could, heart pounding loudly.

As I was sliding around the corner, I heard a familiar voice follow me through.

"Hey, I was just wondering if you know Luna? She works here." Luke asked in a friendly tone, and I held my breath as I waited for the reply.

"Uh, I might have heard the name? I'm fairly new..." She trailed for a second, before continuing, "I'm really sorry I can't be of much help."

It shocked me how worried her normally confident voice sounded, and I couldn't help but feel again happy for the people I'd landed as coworkers.

"It's alright." The youtuber replied, a smile in his tone. "If still like to order, would you like something?"

For a brief second I thought he was flirting with Alessia, until a soft voice came in reply, making me smile. Girlfriend maybe? Just a friend?

Resisting the urge to look around the corner, I sat with my back against the wall, waiting for him to leave.

After the register clicked shut, I expected to hear the door, but I didn't even hear footsteps. Instead, a buzz came from beside me, making me jump on the spot. Yanking out my phone, I opened settings to turn vibrate off, switching it just in time for a second message to appear.

Heart still in my throat, I opened Twitter and the message, silently growling at the man. Why was he even being so stubborn about this? He didn't know me, not really. Well, I'd like to think we'd become friends, but not close enough for him to really stress over my sleeping. Maybe just because of the unusual situation? Or maybe he's just a decent person.

Sighing quietly, I pushed away the slight guilt of lying, and sat patiently. It was into a few minutes before Alessia rounded the corner, demanding to know what was going on.

Standing up, I checked for myself that the coast was clear, before brushing myself off and going back to the counter.

"Well, it's a bit complicated, but basically he thinks I start work at 3, and I don't want him to catch me out." I answered the questioning brown eyes, simplifying everything the best I could. I couldn't exactly explain the entire truth anyway.

She leant against the counter, studying my face for a second.

"You're safe though? It's not a bad situation?"

Waving my hands in front of me quickly, I assured her it wasn't with a laugh in my voice.

She was cut off when another customer came in, and she immediately went to serve them. When I heard it was only coffee, I headed into the back room to check the messages I'd forgotten to read.

"CaRtOoNz- you can't just avoid sleep. It'll catch up with you."

"CaRtOoNz- I won't tell him but he's gonna find out eventually anyway."

Not bothering to reply, I just closed the app and headed out to check if we needed to cook any more things.

After a while, Alessia and I were settled in a busy silence, both working at making different foods to fill the depleting stock out front. But then a small laugh caught my attention.

Lifting my gaze, I met sights with the messy girl across the table, a gloved hand pressed to her mouth.

Her cheeks were starting to go red, and I'm not sure why, but I found it funny. Sniggering a bit at her, I crossed my eyes and poked my tongue out, which resulted in a small raspberry sound from her lips, and a second hand flying to help hold back her laughter. She covered her eyes, and I could just quietly hear her starting to count upward.

Laughing quietly was enough to throw her off, and she burst out laughing, still trying to contain it in vain. But the flood walls had broken.

Her joy was contagious, and it wasn't long before I was joining her, face buried in my palms.

Luckily the only person in the cafe was the older singer who sounded to be tuning her guitar, not bothered by two crazy girls.

When Alessia finally started regaining control, she spit out a single sentence, before bursting into giggles.

"I have to admit, it was pretty funny watching you worm your way out the door."

Imagining myself from her point of view, the tears finally started forming in the corners of my eyes, and I clutched my stomach.

We were still giggling half an hour later when Jackie found us, just finishing making another batch of cookies.

She raised one eyebrow, looking between us.

"What's got you two giggling?"

The recently regained control was thrown to the wind and it took a while before Jackie could get a full sentence from either of us.

(917 words)