Bed of Roses | e.n.

Excerpt: Curiousity Killed The Business

{thanks to @BYEunicorn for the cover}

Excerpt: Curiousity Killed The Business

   "Can you fix this?"

Tom bobbed his head up and down to the beat of the music that blasted through his headphones as he flipped through the pages of a magazine, pausing when he reached a selection of different guitars as he surveyed through them, settling his eyes on a maroon-colored acoustic that had bronze strings and a size 14 body.

"Um, excuse me?"

Instead of answering, Tom belted out some lyrics from the song he was listening to; unaware of the frustrated girl behind him that was trying to catch his attention. The sudden outburst surprised the girl, making her jump a little as her eyebrows drew together in annoyance.

Finally deciding she had enough, the girl leaned forward and tapped Tom on the shoulder, making him jump. The jump caused his headphones to slide off of his head and around his neck as the magazine fell to the floor. Hastily, Tom scrambled out of the chair and ripped his headphones away from him, setting them down onto the desk he had had his feet up on not so long ago. The girl raised an eyebrow at his scrambled actions.

"Hi," Tom breathed out, his face heating up. If his mother had seen him act this way in front of a customer, he would get an earful for sure. "What can I do for you?"

On the other hand, though, she couldn't blame him – this particular customer also seemed to be his age, and quite pretty.

Brown hair fell past her shoulders and came to rest at the sides of her chest, dark with streaks of light in it. Side bangs framed her heart-shaped face, hazel eyes staring back at his blue ones with a hint of desperation in them. Her nose was slightly flat, and her lips similar to Angelina Jolie's, small traces of freckles splashed across her cheeks. She was wearing a navy blue hoodie that was way too large to be hers and black leggings paired with black boots, with a black beanie snugly placed onto her head - and she was way too over clothed to be out in this kind of weather.

Is she... is she holding a blanket?

"Can you fix this?" the girl repeated her earlier question and Tom had to take a moment before the words settled in, and he moved his gaze away from her face to inspect the large piece of fabric the girl placed onto the counter.

It looked like it had gone through war.

Tom could tell it was filled with felt before, but now there was barely any left, only the covers left, thin and skimpy. There were two large holes that took up the bottom part of the blanket, and Tom could tell from the different type of fabric that they had tried to patch it up by sewing it together, but had obviously failed tremendously. It looked pretty old, which was probably why it was so torn up.

"Uh..." Tom began nervously, feeling the piece of cloth in his hands. I can see why she wants to fix it. It feels comfortable in the inner cover, but the outer looks like a troll ate it and threw it right back up. "I don't think that we can, miss. It's already gone through a lot of processes, and I don't think it can take much more."

Tom didn't know why, but the look of defeat on the girl's face made something inside him twist uncomfortably.

"But we'll see what we can do," he rushed to explain, feeling a little better when the girl looked up at him, a spark of hope in her eyes. "There's a reason why Patch It Up! is the best sewing-slash-tailor shop in town," he said and winked at her.

Holy mother of God, someone just shoot me now.

To his relief, the girl actually laughed. The embarrassment had soon vanished and was replaced by a smile. "Well, I would hope so. I've heard a lot of good things about this place. I just hope you can fix up that old blanket of mine."

As the girl smiled at him, Tom couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't seen her before.

"Hey," Tom began and the girl raised her eyebrows at him questioningly. "How come I've never seen you before?" Tom blushed. "A-around here, I mean."

"We just moved here," she told him, her eyes scanning the room. "That's a beautiful dress," she said, pointing to the baby blue dress that stood in front of the store's window on display.

"Yeah, my mom made it," he said proudly. Patch It Up! had been in the family for a long time now and he was always helping out with the shop to lessen his mom's stressful schedule.

"Well, please tell her for me that she's a wonderful tailor."

Now, why aren't there ever any girls like her here? "I will," he told her gratefully. "That means a lot."

"She deserves it," she smiled. "Well, anyway, I'll just leave it here, I guess, and hopefully I'll have an answer by tomorrow?" she asked and Tom laughed, nodding.

"Sure will. But before you leave," Tom called just as she was about to exit. She turned around and playfully gave him an annoyed look. "Why didn't you just buy a new one?"

The smile fell from her face, and so did her eye contact as it fell to the floor. "I can't."

"Well, can you at least tell me why?"

"I just can't."

And, as usual, Tom's curiosity brought out the jerk in him. "Well, I'm fixing your blanket here, so the least you can do is tell me why you didn't just decide to throw this piece of shit away."

At his rude words, and Tom's face had paled at the realization, a look of anger quickly descended on the girl's face as she marched back towards him. Tom thought that she was going to slap him - because that's what any girl would do - but she didn't. Instead, she took back the fabric and stomped right back to the door, but not before turning around and sending a glare towards the seventeen-year-old.

"Fuck you."

And then she was out in the warm air.

The faint sound of the song still playing from his earphones was the only thing Tom could hear and he gulped, disappointed with himself.

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