The Break Up Plan (BoyxBoy)

No Longer Single

Eating one of Mooove Over's phony hot dogs must have been an all time low. I was crouched in the corner of the break room, packing the sausage away like that rat from Ratatouille swallows cheese, and I felt dirty. This shift was just going terribly. As part of some corporate requirement, the store owner dropped in for a visit. Meaning that for the entirety of my shift, I had Morgan's cigarette breath coming down on my neck.

To keep my body regulated through the bouts of boredom, I snacked. Bailey hated it. He said that skimming the merchandise by giving myself samples of ice cream or chowing down the crushed Oreos messed with inventory checks.

I couldn't care less about Mooove Over's precious inventory checks but Morgan did. Morgan didn't let me get a single sample of Brownie Cheesecake or Pina Colada Sorbet. After hours of hardly getting a sip of water, a break time granola bar couldn't cut it anymore.

So like the desperate minimum wage employee I was, I–*gag*–paid for a single hot dog at the start of my break. What a fall from grace. Most of the time, the sight of those hot dogs swimming around in their own lukewarm juices had me recoiling in horror. Working in food service truly lifted the veil.

If I wasn't making money off those meaty slugs, I would warn every little league trio that rolled in here asking for the kids' meal to run over to DQ instead. While I never explained to customers why the bath of horror made my blood curdle, I at least promised myself to never consume one of those hot dogs. And yet, here I was, chomping one down like a maniac while trying to forget what I was eating.

Emerging from the break room with a grease and shame-covered mouth, I remembered that our store owner had already been gone for an hour. If Morgan's ugh setting hadn't been turned up to extreme, I could have had a respectable snack.

But life will do anything but be predictable. Morgan was still behind the counter, handing out cones with an uncomfortable smile. Bailey was on register today, meaning that all the incoming customers got to hear about his fabulous college boyfriend.

"I honestly wasn't sure when he approached me on Bumble," I heard Bailey say as I re-tied my apron. "Two years is a lot, you know? But for an older man, he's so down to earth."

The father daughter pair stared ahead blankly, looking as confused about what was happening as I was.

"Your total's $12.32."

The shift dragged on slowly, leaving plenty of chances for Bailey to talk. And, as the customers seemed less and less interested to hear about Bailey's whirlwind romance, he became more intent on sharing the stories with me.

As far as Bailey knew, I was as single today as I was the day we first met. Informing him about my new, British boyfriend might help to shut him up. But Rin had to be the first person I told.

In hindsight, Bailey was a great motivator for me to tell Rin the truth. After his 7th not-so-humble brag about Matt from U of T, I was right at my limit.

"We're 10 minutes out from closing so I'm going to head to the back," Morgan sighed, the smile sliding off her face like the bowtie she ripped off her neck. "Call me if you need me and please, try not to need me."

If she hadn't been slacking off as manager for so long, she might have remembered that minutes before closing was the worst time to pull out. We always got a final wave of people right before we closed. It's like the little yellow font on google maps warning them that we were closing soon just made them want ice cream more.

As expected, we were T minus 7 minutes from closing the doors when two people came in. One was a girl ordering for herself and 5 other people judging from how she read off her phone.