Nightmares ➳ Connor McDonough/ Before You Exit Fanfic { edited }

Twelve

Gwen's POV

I arrived at work the next day, fifteen minutes late, but I knew Braiden would just give me a mild punishment. Nothing I couldn't handle.

"Hey Brai," I greeted. He was behind the counter, as usual.

"You're late," he informed me. Although, I already knew that.

"I know. I just slept really late last night and I forgot to set my alarm."

"That doesn't sound like you at all. The alarms you set on your phone are practically your life. What's been going on with you lately? Is it Connor?" he asked.

"You're being so annoying! Just give me my punishment already."

"Fine. Just put the prices on all the new arrivals. If you think that's a pretty mild punishment you're dead wrong. Just wait until you see how many boxes arrived," he said.

To be honest I'd rather spend hours and hours in a cramped room instead of answering Braiden's questions. Especially in a music store full of nosy customers. But yes, I was late because of Connor. He decided to take me on a last minute Starbucks date while we were on our way to work and we just kind of, lost track of time.

I opened the door to the back room and Braiden wasn't lying. There were about twenty boxes piled up on top of each other and I knew this would take me forever but I had to do it.

I reached for the box on the very top of the pile and immediately regretted it when three more boxes came tumbling down and fell to the floor with loud thuds.

Unlike Connor in his shop, we didn't really print out price tags. Nope, we write all of the prices by hand and with this many CDs I might go through five or more permanent markers to finish everything.

It was about five hours into my punishment for being late, when someone knocked on my door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"It's Connor."

I smiled and told him to come in.

"Whoa," he said as he saw the pile of boxes.

"I was late this morning, so this is your fault," I said, motioning to all the boxes and CDs that were scattered out on the floor.

"I'm sorry." He looked really guilty, but the truth was I didn't really mind that I was going to be stuck here for the rest of the day.

"It's fine. I don't mind," I said honestly and he smiled.

"Can I at least help you?"

"Only if you really want to," I replied and he sat down right beside me.

"Just to let you know, I have pretty bad handwriting."

"That's fine. I just want to get this over with."

I handed him three permanent markers and he grabbed a box from the pile. He immediately ripped the tape off the top and opened the box, revealing what was inside.

"No way," Connor said, obviously trying to contain his excitement of some sort.

"What is it?" I asked, peering into the box that he had just opened.

Inside were a bunch of CDs of a band called Rascal Flatts that I had never heard of before.

"Remember that day when I told you about my favorite band and their new single?" he asked and I nodded.

"Well this is their new single. I've been looking for this everywhere but I could never find it anywhere."

"Well, they got delivered to us a few days ago," I informed him, but I don't really think he cared much about what I had just said.

"Can I buy one?" he asked.

"I'll give it to you for free if you help me put prices on all the CDs in all these boxes. Deal?"

"Deal", he replied as he shook my hand firmly.

After what felt like an infinity, all the boxes were empty and all the CDs were labeled.

"Thomas is gonna hate me," Connor whispered to himself and slightly chuckled, but I was still able to hear him, considering the very small distance between us.

"Yeah. Please apologize to him for me."

I checked my watch and it was already closing time, and of course Braiden knew that too.

"Gwen! You and Connor better get your butts out of there unless you want to be locked in here overnight!" he yelled and Connor and I struggled to get up without kicking the huge pile of CDs we had created.

As soon as we emerged from the back room, Braiden was still behind the counter reading some kind of book.

"Are you done?" he asked. I think Connor and I both knew that the question was directed to me, but he answered anyway.

"Yeah," we replied in unison and Braiden raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I think we're gonna head home. Bye Brai," I said and noticed Connor tense up a bit after I called him Brai.

"Bye Gwen. Bye Connor," he replied in a monotone voice.

Connor intertwined our fingers together, which made me pretty confused, but I liked the contrast of his warm-kind of-sweaty-palm against my cold one. It gave a slightly comforting feeling. Something that I've been longing for for quite some time.

"Can we stop by Starbucks?" he asked as I noticed that we were already walking down the sidewalk.

"Your addiction will forever confuse me. I mean what's so special? It's just coffee, right?"

"Well, yeah... sort of... but it's good coffee. So can we please go," he begged and I rolled my eyes, but he must've taken that as a yes, because the next thing I knew, he was dragging me into the popular coffee place and ran off to the counter.

"Do you want anything?" he yelled halfway across the store, which attracted some attention from the customers and employees.

"No thanks. I kind of want to sleep well tonight," I replied.

"Don't worry. Now you've got me for that."