Flaunt - Van McCann

The Seafront

Abby's point of view
Van dropped me off home a little after midnight last night. The first thing I did was phone Lily, and as predicted, she went ballistic.

The phone rang for a short while, I hoped she was still up.

"Hello?" Lily finally answered.

"Lily. Oh my God," I didn't even know where to start. The time I spoke to her prior to this I was convinced Van didn't want anything to do with me.

"What?" she asked on edge. She knew I had something important to spill.

"Van!" I spat out excited, hoping I hadn't woke up any of my sleeping family in the house. "I've got a boyfriend now."

"Fuck off. Nah, really? Abby!"

We were on the phone for what felt like hours, Brad had the occasional input everyone once in a while every time Lily raised her voice. She seemed more excited than I was - well, actually I don't think that was possible. I was ecstatic.

And I still am. However, now I'm currently wiping down menus in the café staring at the clock every ten minutes. I was brought back to reality at 9am this morning when I walked through the wooden door of the place I hated spending my days. Work.

It's been a slow day, and functioning on the small amount of sleep I signed up for when ringing Lily last night has definitely been challenging. I haven't been with it all day. I burned the scones, completely fucked up some change I was giving to an elderly man (who unfortunately was not as nice and understanding as I would have liked), and to top it all off I dropped a fresh mug of coffee down my front, staining my clothes and scolding my skin.

But this shift has had it's positives. Fiona's been working too, which had allowed me to talk about Van all day. Of course, I've told her everything. I loved that I only ever saw her at work, as it gave us so much to talk about and catch up on.

It's 4:30 now, and chucking it down with rain. It's strange to think that when I walked to work this morning it was blazing sunshine. It was only a few hours ago when the sky welcomed the dark clouds into the atmosphere, and it's been heavily raining ever since. I tried not to think about the walk home ahead of me, hoping the weather would clear at least a little bit.

The bell above the door rang, bringing me back to reality. Our last customer has just left allowing us to fully clean the place and hopefully be out at a decent time.

"I'm gonna cash up," Fiona spoke up from the other end of the room. "I'm not letting you do it. Not after the day you've just had."

I laughed, it really hasn't been my day. I likely would have counted up the money wrong starting an unnecessary panic.

"Dunno why you're laughing," she teased. "You're lovesick."

I pulled a disgusted face as I completely cringed at such a saying. "Shut up you. I told you, I've had a lack of sleep!"

"Yeah, because you've been dreaming of Van," she threw me a pouty glance, making fun.

"Fuck off- that doesn't even make sense," I cackled. She shrugged in return.

"No but seriously," she then moved over to behind the counter, preparing to cash up the till. "I've never seen you so smitten. I love it."

All I could do was smile in her direction. I loved it too.

I then continued cleaning the menus before placing them evenly on the tables around the café before grabbing the sweeping brush out the cupboard to get on with cleaning the floors. Darren, our boss, had left both Fiona and I to close up due to him having a family commitment and the shop not being mega busy today. This was fine though as all we had left to do now was the floor and cashing up. We'd be out here in no time.