Recall: Doing Love Over

Chapter One

The light held a constant red color as I cranked up the 70s music that was playing on the radio. It's by far my favorite era of music. Before I knew it, the light switched to green and the car behind me laid on their horn. I sat there for an additional minute before the light turned to yellow and I pulled through, leaving the person behind me stuck at the light for another rotation.

Asshole.

My boss called me into work because we have been short staffed lately due to a lack of willing to work employees in the area. Which is fine by me, but with school looming around the corner and football practice tiring me out, it's been stressful. I finally reached my senior year of school and have been under a lot of pressure about which university I am going to attend. There's been scouts in and out of practice the last week which has added a huge stressor to my life.

However, as my favorite teacher always says: money drives the way people think.

He's not wrong though. It's a huge reason that I said that I would come in today. Supposedly a new hire that we had never showed up today which puts the business in an even worse position.

I turn the corner and slow to an almost stop immediately. There was a group of people crossing the street but not using the sidewalk at the intersection. Sometimes I just don't understand why people can't cross where they are supposed to.

With a right turn I find myself parking outside of the restaurant. The parking lot of full of cars and people that are lining up to come into the building. Just a typical day in the restaurant industry. I enter through the backdoor and quickly slip an apron on before clocking in for the shift.

As soon as I make it into the kitchen I see my boss scrambling to make the orders. Hanging in front of her was ten plus tickets of food that needed to be made. I pull down the oldest ticket and start to help my boss with it.

"Daniel!" Lisa chirps. "Thank you so much for coming in on short notice! The new hire never showed up today and it was just Katie and I working until you got here. Katie doesn't quite know how to serve yet so I've been helping all the tables and she's been trying to help run drinks. Can you make the food? People have been understanding so far, but we don't want to make them mad."

"Yes ma'am," I swiftly reply. Even though I've been working for Lisa over half of a year, I still enjoy properly addressing her. One of the huge reasons is that she makes a huge fuss out of it.

Her forehead scrunches up, "Danny! How many times have I told you to just call me Lisa?"***

        "I just find it more proper to call you ma'am then your real name," I return kindly.

        She smiles, "It just makes me feel really old when you address me that way. Now enough chit chat! I need you to start cooking before we get backed up on orders and people will begin to get upset."

      Lisa started piling more orders for me to cook for the people. Since I was working this morning all the food I was able to cook breakfast foods for the people that were sitting there talking. I took a deep breath soon before I open the kitchen door to see Lisa frantically pulling her hair in frustration. She handed me the pad of paper and pen, directing me over to the tables to serve the customers. Easily I could see that she needed to get away from people so I just assumed that she was going to head back to the kitchen to cook the food by herself since we were the only ones here.

        I hurried over to the table with two menus for the older couple seated at the table, "Hi welcome to River Side Diner. My name is Daniel and I will be your waiter today. Now what would you like to start out with for drinks?"