Down But Not Out

Chapter 9

"Hey Sum" I greeted my best friend as she walked around the counter to stand beside me. She crushed me to her in a big hug before pulling back.

"Hey Liz" she grinned at me as I perched on the edge of my stool before Summer looked over at Josh who was watching us, "-hey Josh" she said, sending him a flirtatious smile. Josh nodded and said hello back, but his gaze landed back on me and I knew he hadn't missed the flirtatious smile that my friend had sent him. I looked away, gnawing on my bottom lip as I watched the customers look around the shop.

"Hey Summer, since it's your day off could you lend us a hand? We're selling the stock off and could use the extra help in case we get more customers than usual" Josh asked, sounding hopeful.

I looked up at my best friend to see her nose twitching in thought. She shrugged and glanced at me before her gaze settled back on Josh.

"What do I get out of it?" she asked and I saw, from watching his body language, that Josh looked stunned. He looked at me and I knew he was asking for help. I huffed a sigh at how my friend had to be a pain.

"You get a free tee from the new line as well as a coffee" I said. Summer looked away from watching Josh to look at me. She smiled and nodded.

"Okay then you've got a deal" she announced walking back around the counter to wander around the shop in case anyone asked for help. I felt Josh's glare on the side of my head but chose to ignore him.

After a while a girl with waist length strawberry blonde hair- which was perfectly straight, something which had to be natural- walked into the shop, and I found myself watching her while Josh served his customer. They were chatting away so he didn't see how lost the girl looked.

Summer approached her and they exchanged words, but that only made Summer look lost as well, so my friend looked my way, her eyes begging me for help. I grinned and found myself laughing slightly before gesturing at my friend to take over from me.

"Just mind the till, ask Josh if you need any help" I said into her ear before walking over to the customer, not bothering to wait for Summer's reply.

"Hi there, can I help you with anything?" I asked and the girl turned around from searching through the Unisex racks to smile at me.

"Hopefully, I'm shopping for my boyfriend, and he mentioned that this line had a denim jacket that he wanted, but I have no clue what he means" she explained looking slightly lost but I smiled at her.

"Well then, I'm your girl. Follow me" I said and walked over to the men's section before gesturing to the denim jacket.

"At the moment this is the only denim jacket that we have until the new summer range arrives, hopefully within the next week" I explained and she nodded at me but looked relieved.

"So do you know what his size is?" I asked her and she looked shocked.

"No I never thought to check. Usually I go shopping with his sister and she knows his sizes, but she was too busy working today" she explained and I nodded, trying to think of a way to help her decide what size he would need. Then I came up with an idea.

I turned around to face the tills and saw that Josh was watching me so I waved at him to call him over. He frowned at me but slid from his stool and walked over to me anyway.

"What's up?" he asked me and I smiled.

"So, this is our manager Josh. Compared to him what does your boyfriend look like, height and weight wise?" I asked the customer. She bit her lip while sizing Josh up and I saw how much restraint it took him not to shift his weight from foot to foot. I frowned at him and he smiled at me when he saw my expression.