Fate

Chapter Three - Young Love

Chapter Three – Young Love.

 I had to work with my crazy Chinese boss for two hours and every time I looked at him he seemed to be staring back as he expected me to have a mental break down and start throwing fruit at customers. I tried to avoid going out the back all day, not wanting to be intruded with questions from Mason. Nothing more unusual happened in those two hours except that Oliver stayed sitting in the same position, not moving anywhere. I wondered if he was in shocked or maybe he expected me to be coming back. After two long hours of serving customers, making smoothies and attempting to avoid eye contact with anyone my boss finally left and I relaxed a little. However, I relaxed a little too much and left my only other co-worker out the front and went to grab some stock that Mason had forgotten, only I had forgotten he was still here and I instantly met his gaze as I walked to the cupboard.

He smiled a sympathetic smile, “Are you alright?” I shrugged, yeah my best guy friend has been missing for eight days, possibly murdered and I’m here stuck between loves and making fruit smoothies, never better. When I didn’t answer he continued, “I’m sorry, I overheard your conversation with the boss, I honestly don’t know how you’re working through all this. You’re really strong.” He gave yet another sympathetic smile and turned away. A small smile crossed my face, my parents didn’t know I was going through this, not like they’d care anyway, and Millie had been surprisingly quiet and didn’t want to talk about it at all. I breathed out heavily catching Mason’s attention again, “I’m not strong.” I hadn’t even cried since Gus’s disappearance but I just felt like everything was crushing me down at this exact moment in time, his disappearance, the theory Oliver had suggested, Millie being quiet, my confused feelings about Mason and my inability to even look at Oliver. Suddenly I felt a tear start to roll down my face, then another and another I tried to wipe them away but a strong, loving and caring hand got there first. Mason pulled me in tight hugging me, not caring that I was drowning his chest in my tears. I could feel his heart beating and I smiled, he was so alive and real, which was something I hadn’t been sure of through the last week.

As one last lone tear rolled down my face I pulled my head out of Mason’s chest, yet I still clung on his arms and he still clung to mine. I looked into his deep dark blue eyes my heart beating faster and faster. He stared back into mine somehow making me feel like everything was ok when it clearly wasn’t. I whispered a “Thank you,” he pulled back a loose hair out of my face, obviously this morning’s hair style session was a waste, his hand tenderly touching my skin and before I knew it we were moving closer and closer our faces inching towards each other as our lips finally embraced in an entrancing kiss that seemed so wrong that it was right. As our lips pulled apart I forgot everything that was happening, I forgot Gus was missing, I forgot I was at work and I forgot Oliver, my three year crush, was sitting outside the store. I gasped, Oliver would have seen what had happened! Mason looked at me, confused, I ran out the front but Oliver had gone. I sighed not realising that my co-worker out the front was staring at me her eyes round and wide, “I-I saw that” she finally confessed. And suddenly everything seemed to come crushing down, I knew we weren’t supposed to have relationships between employees, yet along hook up at work. I smiled at her a sad but hopeful smile and she thankfully received the message, “It’s ok, I won’t tell.”

 I let out a sigh of relief and went back to serving customers as if nothing had happened, yet the kiss kept replaying in my mind again and again. Was this how it felt to be in love? Was I in love? Was it not right to be in love with someone almost six years older than you? I kept remembering what my boss said, ‘boys are bad.’ Boys are confusing more like it, I thought to myself. They’re not bad, and besides Mason isn’t a boy he’s a man. Like that made it any better. Somewhere between my co-workers confession and my millions of instant questions in my brain Oliver came back and sat in the exact same place he was before. Where did he go? Bathroom? Probably, he’d been here since I started work, almost four hours ago. A farewell snapped me out of my newest list of questions, it was the co-worker leaving. “Bye!” she said, showing no emotion, “I promise I won’t tell.” Yes, because yelling that across the store really secured the secret.