String of Fate

Chapter Seventy Three

I came in from school and dumped my bag on the floor next to the chair. My sister followed me in, already chatting to one of the friend's that we had just left. I sat in the chair and then noticed that my dad wasn't alone on the settee. "Hey, kids, welcome home. This is Jayden. He's the new part-timer we have for the weekends."

"Hi, I'm Kian. The one glued to her phone is Krystal." I said to the new guy, pointing to her. She waved at Jayden before heading into the kitchen without a word to us. I couldn't help but notice that his eyes followed her. "How rude of her to not even say 'hi'."

"Well, it looks like she's busy." My dad spoke, waving a hand. He then stood up and started to head towards the front door. "I'm going to go and show Jayden the ropes. Don't forget to do your homework. You can be free the rest of the weekend, then."

"Fine, I'll be down in a bit to help with the Friday night rush." I told him.

"No need. Krystal said that she'll come and help because she could do with the extra pocket money." He replied, heading out of the door with Jayden following him. Jayden gave me a little wave before closing the door behind him.

I grabbed some food from the kitchen and headed to my room. I loaded up my laptop and put my headphones in – sometimes the noise from downstairs could be distracting. I powered through all the homework that I had until it was nearly seven in the evening. I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat, hearing sounds from downstairs.

There wasn't any cola in the fridge, so, I'd have to go down and get a can from the fridge behind the bar. Dad wouldn't mind. I headed downstairs, the band playing really loudly. I was surprised by the number of people in the pub. There was a ton of people at the bar waiting to be served. "Hey, dad, where's Krystal?"

"Oh, she went out. Her friends had a spare ticket to some concert, so, I said that she could go." He explained. That was the problem with dad, he let us get away with everything. We were meant to help out in the pub and yet she always got out of it very easily. I could, too, if I wanted to, and dad was always wanting to let me off working but I enjoyed working in the pub.

"Mr Jones, we're running low on normal glasses and there's none to be washed." Jayden called from the other end of the bar as he pulled a pint.

"I'll go and collect some." I said, grabbing the holder and heading around the bar.

"You're meant to be doing your homework." My dad told me.

"I've done it." I answered, going to collect glasses. Sometimes, I wished that I was more like Krystal because I was a loner, but, then again, I'd have to go out more. It did annoy me that she always got out of the family agreement we had while mum was away on a business trip. Krystal was meant to work on the Friday nights and I'd work the Saturdays, but I usually ended up working both, like this weekend. It was actually pretty lucky that dad had hired Jayden to work.

I collected up the glasses and headed back to the dishwasher, filling the spare tray with the normal glasses while a load was in. Once I had finished filling the tray, the dishwasher had also finished. I found that half of the tray had the needed glasses in. After switching the trays out, I put the new glasses away around the bar and then went out to collect more.

After I came back from collecting the rest of the glasses, I started to help to serve the customers, the queue seeming to be endless. The alarm on my watch beeped to say that the latest glasses were ready. I finished serving the current customer and then went to sort the dishwasher out. Jayden was already there. "You shouldn't have taken so long if we're in such a rush for glasses."

"Sorry, I was serving a customer. Thanks for the help, though." I replied, a bit surprised by his attitude. It wasn't like I could say anything really bad because my dad had explained that Krystal and I had to treat all the other members of staff like our boss's because we were more like work experience people rather than staff. Jayden pulled one tray out and I slipped the other one into the dishwasher. I held my hands out, giving him a little smile. "I'll sort these out."