Coffee Shop Soundtrack (Marianas Trench)

Chapter Thirty Four

"So Matthew, this is where you're gonna be working," The petite gestured to the shop floor as if Matt hadn't seen it before. "And, uh, your job is basically to make the store look as presentable as possible. You know, um, put clothes in size order, fold ones that look messy... all that. Does that make sense?"

Matt nodded, tugging at the sleeves of his jacket. It was seven thirty in the morning of Matt's first day of work. He'd been shown around by a colleague, Ashley, who was apparently the assistant manager here. She was small and had dyed her hair a lilac, allowing it to fall down across her shoulders so it reached her waist. She had deep red lips and heavily lined eyes, but it suited her. Her pale complexion made the makeup and the facial piercings stand out more. She tossed her hair back again, scrutinizing Matt's appearance.

"Oh, you need to wear our clothes when you're working..." She said, gesturing with pointed fingernails to the men's section. "Shall we go find you something?"

"Sure." Matt said, blushing a little. "Thank you."

She nodded and headed over to a pile of black v-neck t-shirts. "What's your size, Matthew?"

"Medium? Or a small... I'm in between. Oh," He said, interrupting himself. "I, uh, I'd prefer to wear long sleeves. Can we find a jacket or something? A sweater?"

Ashley eyed him cautiously, but nodded nevertheless. "Sure." Her eyes lit up as she recalled something. "Oh! There's a new line of these really cute grey sweaters that's supposed to be put out today. You can wear one of those and put them on display!"

"That sounds good, thank you, Ashley."

"Not to worry." She placed the shirt back on the display, grabbed a pair of black skinny jeans and led Matt to the back store room, where three boxes of these sweaters sat, waiting to be placed in the store. She cut open a box with a pair of scissors that'd been lying around, and extracted a grey, knitted, v-neck sweater and held it up to Matt.

"See? D'you like that?" She asked, and Matt looked at the sweater but before he could answer, Ashley seemed to trail off in thought, answering her own question. "Yeah, yeah, it's nice. This and those jeans I got you. Oh! Also..." She rushed back into the store and returned in an instant, clutching a white collared shirt. "This, wear this underneath. Okay? Go change."

"Uh, do I have to pay you for this?" Matt asked cautiously.

"No, don't be silly; you work here. Just go change."

Matt did as he was told; changing in one of the store's fitting rooms. The outfit looked good, Matt thought. He gathered his clothes and shoved them in his backpack before exiting and going to find Ashley again. She was at the tills, writing label off for Matt.

"Hey, do you go by Matthew or do you prefer something else?" She blushed as she looked back at the computer screen. "I meant like Matt or something. Not, uh, 'M-Dog', or... or something like that."

Matt laughed and shook his head. "I like to be called Matt, if that's alright."

"Ah good, because I would have been shocked if you'd said M-Dog." She smiled, retyping the name. Her smile fell and was replaced by a grimace. "This goddamn machine... It's just turned off again. Piece of crap." She tapped her fingernails on the tabletop impatiently.

"When does this store open?"

"Eight... so, in like, ten minutes." She checked the clock. "Do you have any questions?"

"Not that I can think of."

"Sounds perfect. Lunch is at two but you get a small break at eleven. The only people in today are me, you, and Danny, who's usually late." Ashley looked over at the door to see a tall, muscular man struggling to open the door with his hands full of two cups of coffee and his keys between his teeth. Matt rushed over to help.

"I got it." Matt held the door for the man, and he looked up, nodding gratefully. The man walked over to where Ashley was leaning on the counter and set the to-go cups down on the side, extracting his keys from his mouth and looking over to where Matt stood.

"Thank you... I, ah, I don't know your name."

"Here." Ashley called, handing Matt his now finished badge. "This is M-Dog." She said with a wink, laughing loudly at Matt's raised eyebrows and wide eyes. "I'm just kidding, this is Matt, he's the new guy I was telling you about. Matt, this is Danny."

"Oooh, it's lovely to meet you, Matt."

"You too."

Danny removed his jacket and put it behind the counter. "Ah, balls, if I had known you were coming in today I would have got you coffee. I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't worry about it!" Matt brushed it off, not feeling offended anyway. "It's fine, I had some before I left anyway."

"Ah, I'll make it up to you one day."

"Babe!" Matt called through the house, fairly confident Josh had said he was the only one in today. Sure enough, Josh emerged from the kitchen with flour on his clothes and through his hair. He smiled when he saw Matt.

"Hi! How was work?"

"Really good, actually. My co-workers are lovely. There's a girl called Ashley and a guy called Danny. They're really nice."

"And what's with this fancy get-up?" Josh asked, moving closer to Matt and playing with the collar of the sweater. Matt looked down.

"Oh, I have to wear their clothes when I work there."

"Hmm." Josh mumbled, pulling Matt close and kissing him. "You look sexy."

"J-Josh." Matt chuckled, leaning back to look at his boyfriend. "What about you? How was your day?"

"Eh, same old, same old. I watched cartoons, and played with Tux, and did some coursework..."

Matt took some of Josh's flour dusted fringe in his hands and shook his head. "Why do you have flour... all over you?"

"I was cooking you dinner like the good housewife I am." Josh joked. "Pasta, the extent of my culinary abilities. C'mon, it's nearly ready." Josh grabbed Matt's hands and dragged him through the kitchen.

"Why the fuck do you have flour on you if you're making pasta?!" Matt exclaimed.

"I'm... I'm not sure."

The food Josh'd made was good. They ate it at the table and watched Tux eat her dinner, then play around in the dining room. Then they washed the dishes, and Josh didn't even break one plate. They moved downstairs to Josh's room, deciding on a movie marathon, starting with The Notebook. Matt fell asleep halfway through, so Josh just muted the movie and turned the lamps off, snuggling down and falling asleep too.

A/N: I know this is very late. My laptop broke along with my finished version of this fic so I'm reluctant to upload because I've made changes since I had my saved OneNote version. I'm sorry.