“Yeah man, my mum made me do lessons when I was really young. I used to complain about having to practice, but now I’m kinda glad I learned,” he says, smiling brightly. I wish I played an instrument. I begged my Mum to get me guitar lessons when I was younger, but we could never afford it.
“If you like Bring me the horizon, you should listen to a band called Static Heart. Their new single came out last week and I can’t stop listening to it,” he beams.
“Is that your boyfriend?” I ask Teddy as Elijah heads off to do his own tasks. It’s incredibly nosy but I’m trying to fill the silence. Teddy scrunches up his face at me.
“Oh no. Definitely not,” he laughs as he starts showing me around the shop. “He’s been my best friend for years now, may as well be my brother at this point.”
“Oh, I have a best friend like that,” I say, thinking about Kai. He said he was off to Newquay to pick up some art supplies today. He’s going to bring back some new records for us to listen to as well. I offered him money for them but he said it was his welcome home present. He’ll be heading out round about now, but he also mentioned stopping by the surf shop to see Harry first. I’ll see him later on back at the house to tell him all about my first day.
There’s seating areas and a lot of bookshelves housing every genre of LGBT literature you could think of. There’s also some non-fiction books and comic books in the back. There’s a massive selection, I wish this was here when I was younger. Fifteen year old me would have lived here day and night if he could.
“So we sort everything by Author, so all your Adam Silvera’s are in one place, T.J Klune books are all together. You know what I mean?” Teddy asks, placing a few books into their respective places on the shelves.
“Okay, but what about age range? Are they separated?” I ask, not knowing if it’s a stupid question but I want to understand as much as I can so I can get it right.
“You’re a question asker. That’s always a good thing,” he says, smiling at me. “Yeah so we have YA and Adult shelves, then there’s some kid stuff in the back of the store,” he says, pointingto the respective areas. We walk up to the counter where there’s the till as well as a beautiful aluminium coffee maker and fridge with a glass window. There’s queer flags and rainbow magnets attached to the side of the fridge.
“I’m gonna teach you how to use the till, but do you want a coffee first?” He asks, holding an empty cup in his hand.
“Yes please,” I say politely.
“I’d like one too,” Elijah pipes up from nowhere.
“I wasn’t offering you one, go away,” Teddy retorts, but places another cup down anyway.
“Thanks, Teddy Bear,” Elijah says, the two of them laughing. The coffee starts pouring out in a massive jug, the smell seeps straight into my nose. Teddy hands me mine, while Elijah grabs his and heads off again. I take a sip of it, almost burning my tongue off. The taste is… okay.
“It’s really shit, right?” Teddy laughs, he fixes his hair before going behind the counter.
“It’s okay, don’t worry. I’m still going to drink it.”
“And that’s why the machine is still here, we’re all caffeine addicts here,” he laughs while placing his cup down. He starts tapping away on the till. It’s one of those touchscreen ones that look a little too complicated for me.
“C’mon, sit down, I’ll show you how to use the till now,” Teddy says, patting his hand down on a stool. I walk round the counter and sit down behind him.
“Okay, so we’re just going to pretend we’re buying one of these books,” he says as he picks up the barcode scanner and scans one of the books sitting on the counter.
“Move up a little bit so you can see,” he says, gesturing with his hand. I do as he asks and can see the book appearing on screen and how much the total is.
“Okay so if someone is paying with cash, what button do you think you press?” He says, looking down at me.
“Oh, so you’re making it a quiz?” I laugh and he simply nods with a grin. I think for a moment before pointing to a button on the screen that has coins on it.
“I can see why you would think that, but that’s actually to calculate the change you need to give them,” he says, before gently lifting up my hand and placing it on a button that says cash on it. The warmth against my skin gives me butterflies. I can feel myself go red as I retract me hand.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t?—”
“Oh no don’t worry about it, I’m just…” I trail off, my mind going blank. I don’t know why I retracted my hand when he was just trying to help.
“It’s fine,” I laugh nervously. I feel my palms go sweaty as I sit them on my lap. If I like him as much as I say I do, why did I just back off like that? Not that I think his intentions were romantic at all, he was just helping me with the till, right? Why would I do something like that? My head hurts thinking about it.
As I try to focus my attention back on the till, a scream bellows through the streets, causing everyone in the bookshop to dart their gaze to outside. Teddy and I look at each other for a short moment before rushing out the door to see the cause of the scream.
Demi, Harry and Kai are outside the surf shop. Demi’s face is wet from tears. Kai’s sitting on the floor with his legs in a basket and his face in his hands. We run towards them.
The windows of the surf shop are smashed. Racks are on the ground. The showcases with valuable items have been smashed, their contents missing. Red paint has been sprayed all over the shop. On one wall in particular, there’s the Bronze family logo with the words ‘Told You We’d Be Back’.
“This is all your fault Kai,” his mother mutters. We all heard it though. Kai doesn’t remove his face from his hands.
