Her hands moved to the ties of her apron.
“No,” she said quietly.
She pulled the apron over her head, balled it up, and threw it at Lawrence’s chest.
“I quit.”
The café went silent. Every eye turned towards them. Hands held cups halfway to lips as everyone watched.
Lawrence caught the apron, stunned. “Matty, wait—”
But she was already walking towards the rear of the shop and the door that would take her out of this situation. Head high, shoulders squared, she didn’t look back.
Sloan stood there, dripping with lukewarm tea and coffee, watching her go.
The door to the back area swung shut and Matty was gone.
For a moment no one moved, then Lawrence turned back to Sloan, stammering, “I’m so sorry, I’ll—”
But Sloan wasn’t listening.
She was still staring after Matty, and at the now closed door at the back of the café.
Chapter nine
Matty fumed as she yanked her rucksack from the locker and dragged a spare T-shirt out of it. She yanked off the Compton’s Coffee T-shirt and tossed it to the floor, pulling on her own clean one with the giant sunflower on it—the one that had made her smile that morning.
She heard Lawrence coming and decided the skates could wait. Right now, she just wanted to get out of there and away from the humiliation.
It was an accident. How dare they put the blame onto her.
Opening the fire door, she walked outside into the bright sunshine.
“Matty, come on… Please don’t quit,” Lawrence called after her.
She kept walking.
The alleyway eventually spat her back out into the square. The fountains were edged with curved concrete seating, and she plonked herself down on one to kick off her Vans.
It took a minute to pull on the skates, lace them up, and then she was off again, gliding across the square, dodging a woman with a pram and an older couple walking arm in arm.
Anger and adrenaline pushed her on. She’d actually quit—actually said it—and thrown her apron at Lawrence like she was in some dramatic scene from a film. And now what? Now she was down to one job, one income. Rent was due and she’d just walked away from half her pay.
And all because ofher. The woman she’d been thinking about all night. The woman who’d made her pulse race with a single look, a single word. The woman who’d just humiliated her in front of a café full of people—for nothing.
Oh, sure, her fancy jumper had coffee spilt on it, but it wasn’t the end of the world, was it? Not when that jumper probably cost as much as the half of the rent Matty had just lost.
The sun was too bright. Everything felt too sharp, too loud.
And then she saw her.
Sloan.
She was walking across the square towards the car park, still dabbing at the stain on her jumper with a fistful of napkins, head down and shoulders tight.
Something snapped in Matty and she changed direction, skating straight towards her.
“Hey!”
