“Thank you,” I murmured against his neck. “You’re the best.”
Austin pressed a kiss to my temple. “Anything for my sub.”
Chapter 2
Are you fucking kidding me?
I almost said it out loud. My internal filter was just gone, and the customers strolling in through the front door made a whole lot of anti-holiday spirit want to come tumbling out of my mouth.
I checked the clock on the register. 5:19.
In theory, we closed at five-thirty tonight. After all, it was Christmas Eve, and management didn’t want us to think they were monsters, so we got off “early” to spend the evening with our families.
Early. Because even if we did manage to get out of here on time, leaving at six totally meant we’d magically teleport into our houses, showered and dressed and ready to be festive and shit.
But we weren’t getting out of here on time. There was no way. Not with lines at every cash register and at least half a dozen people still wandering the store, some of them with their arms full of stuff they’d still need rung up.
God help me, if someone asks me to wrap something tonight, I will burn this entire place to the ground.
Fortunately, the couple at my register was unaware of my mental threats of arson, thanks in part to my expert-level poker face.
Unfortunately, it was also thanks in part to the earnest conversation they were having.
“Are you sure your aunt will like this?” The woman held up one of the decorative candle holders they’d put on the belt. “Seems like she’d prefer something a bit…simpler? Not quite so busy?”
The man quirked his lips. “Hmm. You might be right.” He turned to me, features scrunched with earnest concern. “Do you mind if she runs back and swaps that out for something else? Will that hold you up too much?”
“No, it’s fine,” I said in my customer service voice with my customer service smile while mentally hating his wife with my customer service heart, mostly because she’d taken off with the offensive candle holder before I’d even had a chance to answer.
And so began the closing time chain reaction.
As long as I had a customer at my register, I couldn’t turn off my Lane Open sign, since that made customers feel unwelcome and rushed (that seemed to me like a feature, not a bug, but I didn’t make the rules). As other check stands closed, the stragglers got in the remaining lines, which meant that while I waited for this guy’s wife to come back with a “simpler” gift, my line got longer.
She eventually returned, and I finished ringing them up. While they took their sweet time gathering everything and putting it into their cart, and the next set started unloading things onto the belt, I grabbed the opportunity to shoot a quick text to Austin:
Running late. IDK when I’m getting out of here.
I hit Send, and I felt like shit. I was holding up dinner again. The family would probably be starving by the time I busted out of here, showered, dressed, and made it home. Merry fucking Christmas.
“They let you text on the clock?” a woman said testily as she put her purse down.
“Sorry about that.” I deserved an Oscar for sounding that sincere. “Just letting my family know I’m running late.”
The next woman in line frowned. “They keep you here late? On Christmas?”
I was so tired, I almost let my poker face slip. If Austin were here instead of me, he’d have absolutely said, “I wouldn’t have to stay late if assholes like you weren’t here.”
That made me chuckle, which was enough to keep my customer service smile in place. To the customer, I said, “Not too late.”
“It’s still unprofessional to text while you’re serving customers,” the first woman snapped.
“Sorry about that.” I started scanning her items. “Did you find everything okay?”
While I rang up the snotty asshole, Chloe and Rachel were near the front door, eyeballing the clock and waiting for the right moment to drop the rolldown doors. Then Chloe went to the customer service stand and picked up the microphone.
“Attention shoppers,” she chirped into it without a trace of irritation. “We’ll be closing in five minutes.”
A few people checked their phones or watches…and then continued meandering through the store as if five minutes was more than enough time.
Oh thank God. This meant we had a fighting chance of getting out of here before my eightieth birthday.
Customers kept coming. I kept scanning. Between customers, I paused for a swig of my water, and I checked the time. 6:35. We were well past closing, but there were still people in the store.
I texted Austin again: Don’t wait. Be there when I can.
I didn’t even care if a customer got annoyed this time. There was no sense letting the family stay hungry just because I was stuck at work.
More customers. More scanning.
“Oh,” a lady said, gesturing at some toys she’d just bought. “Would you mind gift-wrapping those for me?”
Sheer exhaustion had eroded my internal filter, and the words “Are you fucking kidding me, Karen?” almost slipped out of my mouth. Fortunately, muscle memory took over, and my customer service voice responded with, “The ladies at the gift-wrapping desk should be able to take care of that for you if they’re still open.”
She glanced at the desk, which was all of twenty steps away. Louise and Aimee had their practiced smiles in place, but they were also quickly wrapping things up—so to speak—and getting ready to bail. Now that I’d put them on a customer’s radar, they’d know they had about two minutes to put up the Sorry you missed us! sign and disappear.
I finished ringing her up, and—
“Oh, thank God!” A woman smiled brightly as she pushed an overflowing cart up to my check stand. “Made it in time!”
An hour after closing is not in time, my brain said, but my mouth managed, “Yep, you did! Did you find everything all right?”
“A little too well.” And then, to my horror, she leaned out of the aisle and called out, “Bill, this one’s open!”
The approaching rattle of shopping cart wheels made me cringe, and it took so much work to keep Customer Service Sam in place as a man—Bill, apparently—pushed another giant, over-loaded cart into my line.
Of course I smiled in that way that told people I was absolutely not thinking I hope no one gives you anything except fruitcake stuffed with candy corn and someone buys your kids trumpets, drum sets, and noisemaking toys that randomly come on during the night and can’t be turned off because they’re possessed by Satan.
Look, it was after closing on Christmas Eve, there was no way I was making it to dinner with Austin’s family, and these people had just bought half the store. Wishing horrible food and demonic noisemakers on them was only fair. And it amused me, which kept me from collapsing under the weight of my exhaustion.
Or, more likely, breaking down crying with frustration.
I missed my boyfriend. I missed his family. I missed existing outside of this place.
With a lump in my throat, I scanned one item after another. Every piece of merchandise I scanned and bagged was a few more seconds I was here instead of eating those amazing cinnamon cookies Austin’s mom made. Every credit card that took ages to scan (which they always did this time of year because the systems were overloaded) was another moment I wasn’t insisting I could totally drink his dad’s eggnog without getting too drunk. Every time someone darted out of line to grab just one more thing they’d forgotten was a few more minutes without sitting on the couch in ridiculous Christmas sweaters with my Dom’s arm around my shoulders.