Under The Nautical Star (Lesbian, GxG)

Two

My bedroom door opens early Saturday, and I hear footsteps coming in the room. Whoever dares to disturb me is gonna be surprised with my weird sleeping position.

There's a familiar crunch of cereal as that someone says in a bored voice, "Kaydee, what the fuck is wrong with you? Who sleeps sideways on the bed and keeps their legs on the wall?"

I twist my head to face Dumb-ass, finishing off another spoonful of cereal. Currently, he's growing out his hair after going as Walter White for Halloween and decided not to get a stupid bald cap. Which is why I call my brother Dumb-ass. Because he doesn't think shit through.

"I'm in the middle of something," I say.

He laughs. "Like what?"

"None of your business."

"Sure." He takes a bite and then says while chewing, "Mom wants me to get your ass up before you end up being late for your shift today."

I grunt in response. The clock told me I don't need to get ready for work for another two hours. I can spend my free time staying in my bed and not move. 

Dumb-ass stares at me. "Welp, I did the best I could." He turns to leave the room. 

I stay as long as I can before my bladder starts protesting. Groaning, I roll out of bed and stumble into the bathroom next to my room. 

After I'm done, I head downstairs, because I'm up so might as well try to human. Mom's in the middle of her usual lottery scratch off tickets. 

"Morning," I mumble. I shuffle through the cupboards looking for anything Dumb-ass hasn't eaten yet. 

"It's noon, Kaydee," Mom corrects. I swear her voice is softer than Cassie's. "But good morning to you, too."

A single package of Pop-Tarts are hiding behind a box of cereal I just moved. I grab it and rip into the packaging, not bothering to see what flavor I'm shoving in my mouth. 

"Do you work tomorrow?" Mom asks. She ties up her dirty blonde hair so she can see me without issue. "And if so, is there a way you can call out?"

I'm halfway up the stairs to get my phone before I stop. "Wait, why am I ditching work tomorrow?"

Mom polishes off the current ticket and counts how much money she won. It join two other cards in the winner stack. The loser stack has more. "I need a helper for Christmas shopping," she tells me. "One of the things I'm getting is for Eric, so obviously he's not coming with us."

"Can we get him a poop plush?" I suggest.

She grabs another ticket and scratches out the set of numbers before playing Bingo. "I'm not taking any more suggestions from you."

"Aww, why not?"

"Because the last suggestion you had was taking Eric's birth certificate and making a copy with the words 'Dumb-ass McGrumper' Photo-shopped over his name."

"He would have liked it!"

"Uh-huh. Let me know about your schedule."

I grab my phone from the nightstand. Before I even get to the current schedule I have to delete all other photos of the past schedules. 

"Mom!" I call out. "I work three hours tomorrow! Do you know how ridiculous it would be to call out?!"

"Not as ridiculous as only working three hours," Mom responds. 

Ow. If she's gonna be like this, I might as well get out the house until I start work.

__________

Damn, my coworker knows how to use eye shadow more than I do. The different shades of red overlapping each other on both eyelids look as if they'll lighten up when he gets angry.

Bruce, the hulking college student, greets me in his deep voice: "Thank God you're here."

"Why?"

I clock in and then straighten the recently-returned items, getting more annoyed the more I noticed the lack of care. Whoever returned a cake pan without washing it is so gonna pay for it. 

"My girlfriend put makeup on me while I was sleeping," he says with a sigh. "Didn't realize until I was getting compliments from several patrons an hour into my shift."

Getting onto the computer, which is already wearing plastic Christmas trees and the mistletoe plant all around it, I select the names of the item-returners and put them in the "To be fined" category. I'll write my comments on why they should be fined later. "Did you think about going to the bathroom and wiping it off?"

Bruce shakes his head. "I completely forgot my eyelids got vandalized the whole time I was on break. But hey," he picks up and shows me several slips of papers with numbers on them, "I can always show this to Ash."

Puzzled, I clarify, "Are you showing her other people she can practice her makeup skills on or that you can find someone who won't attack your eyes with little brushes?"

He grins. "Haven't decided yet." The papers are shoved into his pocket. "Anything you want to rant about before I go home and set my evil plan to motion?"

"It's less of a rant and more just 'I need to get this off my chest'. But yeah. You should clock out and rinse the makeup off first."

It's a part of our relationship: he gets to be my therapist without the common sense filter, and in return I help him whenever he doesn't understand a task. 

"Deal."

Within minutes, I'm already getting into the details with the not-Secret Santa. Bruce listens intensely, and waits as I stop my story whenever a patron comes up with an object to check out.

"Who do you want to get?" Bruce asks, after I wrap up the story.

"This really cute girl," I say. "What she wants for Christmas is vague, though."

Before I left that classroom yesterday, I just so happened to notice Teegan's words scrawled out, "Give me whatever." There's not much to work with that.

"If it's vague, you can use it to your advantage. Get her a box of chocolates. A box of puppies. A box of explosives to use at her cheating ex's house."

"The last one's redundant. She has her own ways to get rid of cheating exes." There was a time I walked in on her conversation with her friends about this girlfriend who cheated on Teegan. I didn't hear how she got revenge, but I got the gist the girlfriend was no more.

He shakes his head in amusement. "Okay." He pulls out his phone, looks at it and stands up. "Just got a text from Ash. I should go."

"Tell her I said hi," I call out as he leaves the small library. "And that she did a good job on your makeup!"

"I'm not gonna encourage her with that, and I don't care if it's from you!"

"Ugh." I turn to the customer getting to the counter. "Hello! Did you find everything alright?"

She nods before giving me several tools. It doesn't take much effort to fall under robot mode, where I daydream while pretending I'm all there while going through my customers. Like usual, I daydream about Teegan, and her reaction to my gift when we exchange them at the Christmas party.