Sandcastles | Completed

2 | intentional accidents

• • •

My eyes followed every step the waiter took until he arrived at our table, placing our dishes gently in front of us.

"Wait." I popped Jailyn's hand, holding my phone at the perfect angle to take a picture of our food. Once I added the location tag, I posted the picture to my Instagram story and reached for a fork.

She stared at me with a blank face, "Can I eat now?"

"Go ahead, love."

"I can't stand going out with people like you."

"And yet, you're always going out with people like me," I replied with a bright smile.

Coby hadn't specified how long I needed to keep her away from the apartment, but I wanted to give him enough time to do whatever it was he had planned.

The task was easy seeing that I loved spending time with her anyway. It was like we never needed anything to talk about because we always had something to talk about.

Our conversation drifted to her newfound employment status and I tried to brainstorm where she could begin her search, "Look for a job on campus."

"That's the first place I looked."

"Ask Coby if you can be his hype man. You'll probably get special treatment."

She laughed into her hand as she swallowed the last of her water, "You damn right. When my baby blow up, no you cannot hang."

"Here you ladies go." The waiter eventually placed our bill on the table, "It's no rush, just whenever you're ready."

"Do you work next Thursday?" Jailyn asked while watching me examine the small paper.

"I'ma have to look," I mumbled in response.

"HomeGoods is having a sale. You remember last time you said you'd stand in line with me."

I did say that, but that was only because I didn't expect her to actually want to stand in line for a chair. In any case, whether the schedule said I had to work or not, I was telling her that I had to.

As I logged into the app to check the schedule for next week, she continued to try to get me to remember my words and I pretended to have not the slightest idea what she was talking about.

"Aw, fuck." I groaned, sitting back against the seat, "I forgot to clock out."

"Call up there. Duh."

I gave her a look of annoyance, "They take the phone off the hook so nobody can get through. Duh."

You'd be surprised at how many stupid questions people could call to ask about coffee. Maria decided to avoid this by taking the phone off the hook when she was scheduled. It worked when it needed to, but times like this, it was inconvenient.

"You don't have any of their numbers?"

"Just Maria's, and she love tryna act like she follows company policy so she's not gonna clock me out."

"Oh well. It's not like we weren't going to the mall anyway."

This was true, but I didn't even wanna go to work when I was scheduled, let alone on my off days. I sighed and looked at my plate, "You right. I'ma finish this first though."

• • •

"It's been slow all day." Maria relayed happily as she watched me log onto the computer.

"How nice."

"Yup. I've just been sitting back here."

Our store was nearly always busy, a result of being in the middle of the mall, so the occasional slow day was welcomed. When at our busiest, even her lazy self had to do above the bare minimum.