In The Blood

Chadam

(Chance)

"When we mentioned 6:30 last night, did we mean 6:30 PM or 6:30 AM?" I asked wryly, grabbing a pepper shaker from the cafeteria condiment table.

"Well, technically, I was meaning PM... didn't quite work out that way," Kevin commented, giving his orange juice cap a quick but unsuccessful twist.

"I went home and crashed." Avi rubbed his eyes. "Hard."

"Me too." Kevin crowned at his orange juice and slid a finger under the table that was placed on top of the cap and stuck to the bottle, slicing it in half with his nail.

"Cooofffeee," Kirstie groaned. "Coffee me."

Adam picked up a cup and pressed it to the coffee machine, pressing the button to dispense it... again... and again... and again. "Hellllp, I can't get coffee." He rested a tired head against the machine.

"Lemme see." Chris snagged a muffin from the buffet and went over to give him a hand.

"We were exhausted," Matt said with not one but two yawns.

"I'm still exhausted," Mitch groaned, reaching for a styrofoam cup for coffee but knocking the whole stack over. "Damn it."

"Gahh!" Kevin yelped, having twisted too hard on his orange juice cap. It had finally come off—and juice sprayed everywhere. "Dang it! I am so sorry!"

"We'll get it." A janitor turned around from wiping the window and snapped a 'caution-wet floor' sign into place.

"I feel bad about it," he muttered, staring at his spill.

I pulled a couple of napkins out of the dispenser and placed them on my tray. "Unless you're a janitor, it's not really your job to clean it up."

"Well...," he mumbled, me still trying to extract the last napkin, stuck in the dispenser.

"If it's empty, it's empty," a cafeteria worker informed Adam and Chris, a second worker taking the cups Mitch had just stacked back up.

"They've been on the floor. They need to be thrown away," she told him, Mitch grumbling and throwing his hands up frustratedly.

"Give me five minutes and I'll have fresh coffee out," the guy promised Adam and Chris.

Ah hell. The last napkin was just tearing apart little by little. I'd get a corner, then a side, then the other corner, never fully extracting the whole napkin. Screw it all. I started tossing the shredded napkin back in the dispenser. Somebody else could deal with that.

"Oh God! Austin—Kev—stop!" Kirstie gasped, startling enough to make several of us turn around. We were all looking at her when, somehow, Austin and his breakfast went tumbling over Kevin, now on his hands and knees, trying to clean up his orange juice.

Kevin sat up quickly, knocking a strawberry off his head. "Oh gosh, Austin, I'm sorry. Are you OK?"

"No," he stated. "I am sitting in orange juice. It is wet. I will be wet, sticky, juicy, and citrus-y all day."

"I told you, we'd get it," the janitor said, grabbing his mop and turning around with it just to whack poor Scott in the head with it.

His hand flew up to his head, his tray teetering in his left hand. "Think I'm awake now."

"Sir! I am so sorry!" the janitor apologized, Mitch and Matt reaching out to grab Scott's tray as security and Sawyer laughed at all of us from a safe distance away.

"Kevin's fault," Austin declared, still in his orange juice puddle.

"Why don't you—," I started to say before realizing I was about to the next one to be having problems. Starting to frown at the damn napkin dispenser, horrified, I tried to pinch my hand together like a claw in an attempt to make it a little smaller. Somehow I had managed to insert my whole hand in the little slot intended for napkins—and now stupid me had his hand stuck in it.