Agitated Afternoons// h.s

Part-Timer

I adjusted my name tag and brushed out my pants before saluting Malissa proudly. "Reporting for duty manager." Malissa laughed and punched me in the shoulder lightly.

"Shut up you idiot. I'm just really glad to have somebody I know and love to work with!" She embraced me happily and I smiled, hugging her back.

"And I'm just glad I have another job!" I replied with a laugh as we let go of one another. "I can't let Harry keep paying for our apartment." Malissa rolled her eyes at me as we headed out into the store.

"So you're going to work two jobs, which is going to inevitably stress you out, in favor of letting your gorgeous boyfriend pay for our living quarters?" She said with a slight smirk.

"It's not like he's living there!" I argued. "If he was, it would be a different story but he's not."

"Because if he was, Meghan would have to move in with me and then we'd have to get used to having a pop star sleeping under the same roof as us. Meanwhile, the paparazzi would bombard us, we'd never be able to do anything that wouldn't be in the tabloids and.." I put my hand over her mouth. When she went on a ramble this, it was always difficult to stop her.

"I get it. My boyfriend is famous." Malissa laughs as I let go of her.

"Famous. Hot. Generous. You should just let him pay the rent. It's not even making a wrinkle in his income." She points out. It's true but I don't like it when Harry pays for things I should be paying for, like rent or when he buys me groceries or tries to take me clothes shopping at the most expensive stores in town. He doesn't seem to grasp that I am a simple girl and that I don't need expensive things.

"Enough about him. What do I have to do first boss?" Malissa grinned.

"I'll never get tired of hearing that." Malissa first sent me to the back so I could unload a shipment of books. All I really had to do was unbox them and set them on the table. My coworkers and I would have to shelf them later but right now, I had to get them out. Malissa left me alone in the back while she and everybody else opened up the bookstore.

I was content with being alone. There was music playing back here that filled the whole room so I wasn't just listening to myself think. The AC was running and I was making quick work of emptying all the boxes. Pretty soon, I had collapsed my last box. Just in time too because Malissa and a guy I had just met three hours earlier, Carter, returned to collect the books.

"Wow. Good job." Malissa said with a smile. "That was fast." I shrugged.

"Unboxing books is my calling." Carter snickered, grabbing the book cart and setting his stack of books down. "Do you want me to start putting these out?" I asked her. Malissa thought about it for a second a we continued to stack.

"Yeah sure. Do you know where these ones go?" She asked as my phone chimed in my pocket. "You're supposed to turn that off." Malissa said with a pointed look. I pulled it out and glanced at the text from Harry.

"Sorry." I said quickly, putting it on silent and shoving it back into my pants. "And yes, they're cook books. So I go too the food section and then it's just alphabetical order." Malissa nods.

"There should be a wide open space for you to place these so if you get lost, just find that." She jokes lightly. "Put any extra books back here so they can be shelved later and then move onto the next stack." She instructed, gesturing to the other books I had unboxed and placed in neat rows on the table.