Chapter 11
Josie
Tonight was fucked.
There was no other word for it, really. I don’t know whether it was a full moon or people were just being assholes for the sake of it, but I’d had enough. My feet were aching. The left hand side of my jeans were clinging to me thanks to the sticky drink accidentally knocked in my direction. My head was throbbing. And I was starving. Like seriously, I could eat a horse type starving. As I carried the long forgotten plate towards the kitchen, the cold, uneaten chips taunted me. What I wouldn’t give for five seconds of peace to be able to stuff my face. But no. That would mean the universe was on my side. And it obviously wasn’t. No, today it wanted to kick my ass. Well, fuck me, it was doing a bang up job of it today.
“Hey darl,” some guy with bad teeth and worse dress sense growled at me.
Luckily for him there was three feet of bar between us otherwise my knee may have connected with his balls. Accidentally, of course. After handing him his beer, I moved as far away as I possibly could. One of the others could deal with his disgusting ass. My turn was over.
“Josie!”
I spun around and saw Courtney, the new girl, waving at me. Anyone would have thought we were standing on the opposite side of a football field the way she was dramatically trying to catch my attention. This was only my second shift with Courtney and, being the bitch I am, I couldn’t help but hope it was my last. She’d already dropped more glasses than she’d managed to get back. She couldn’t pour a beer for shit, and I’d spent pretty much the whole night giving out free replacements when she stuffed it up. And don’t even get me started on her ability to take a food order. I mean, how hard is it really to take the customer’s order and hand it to the kitchen? This place was old school and very simple. You wrote the order on a notepad and slipped it in the rack on the counter between the bar and kitchen. Then ten or so minutes later, the order would appear and you took it to the customer. Not exactly rocket science. But somehow, Courtney managed to make me look like a freaking genius. Three times, three fucking times, she’d taken an order, written on her notepad, and put her notepad back in her pocket. She didn’t hand it in.
Biting my tongue, I saved my attitude. Getting pissed at Courtney probably wouldn’t do any good. She was more than likely too dumb to even notice or she’d burst into tears. After the day I was having, the last thing I wanted to deal with was an emotional idiot. Idiots were hard enough without adding tears.
“Yep?” I said, popping the ‘p’ and offering her a fake smile that hurt my face.
“Didn’t you say you were off at nine?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s already quarter past.”
Shit! I hadn’t even looked at the time. I was supposed to be home. Mia was cooking and she was saving me some. And when Mia cooked, you wanted to be home. One quick look around though, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Not for a while anyway. “Give me a sec?” Courtney nodded before flicking her long hair over her shoulder and strutting away.
I ducked into the office and fished my phone from the bottom of my handbag. First I needed to call Jenna and see if Matilda was okay. I was supposed to pick her up. I hated not being there for her, but if I couldn’t be, at least Jenna was. She treated Matilda as if she was her own.
Impatiently I waited for the call to connect. “Hello?”
“Hi Jenna. It’s Josie.”
“Hey! What’s wrong? You sound flustered.”
“Just one of those days, I guess.” I didn’t want to worry Jenna. She already had enough problems and I wasn’t going to add to it by telling her Courtney was an incompetent moron. Jenna was smart. Hopefully she’d figure it out for herself. And for my own sanity, I only hoped she’d figure it out soon.
“Are you on your way?”
“Actually, that’s what I’m calling about.”
“What’s wrong?” I could hear the alarm in Jenna’s voice and I hated myself for putting it there.
“Calm down. Nothing really. It’s just pretty busy here at the moment and Courtney…well, you know she’s new, and doesn’t really know…”
“Her ass from her elbow?”
I laughed.
Hard.
Fuck, it felt good.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to! Are you sure you’re okay? I can try to call in one of the others…”
“It’s fine, Jenna, really. I mean, I’m already here, and it’s only a couple more hours, but Matilda…”
