She's Too Naive

Chapter 13

The afternoon rush was proving to be difficult for Ara and I. Kayla wasn’t working today, leaving it up to the both of us to handle the shop on our own. Thankfully, we had been working for a little over a week now, meaning we had a pretty good idea on how things ran.

I apologized profusely as I finally gave an older man his order after he had been waiting for a pretty long time. He grumbled under his breath before walking back out the front door with his drink in hand. All the tables were filled up, leaving people to either sit outside in the blazing heat, or take their orders elsewhere. My head was pounding from all the conversations and the ongoing blender noise that seemed to never end.

The older man was one of the last people in the long line, singling and end to the afternoon rush. I sighed in relief when there were no more customers, collapsing against the counter as I took a swig from my water. We had the air on full blast, but some customers had complained about it being too stuffy so we propped the door open and therefore making the inside only slightly cooler than outside.

Ara joined me by the counter, holding her hair up and fanning her neck.

“I’m so glad that’s over with,” she grumbled, her face covered in a thin layer of sweat. I’m sure I looked pretty similar. My braid had started coming undone, leaving pieces hanging all over my face. I pushed some of the unruly strands behind my ear and out of my face.

My gaze naturally wandered to Rosen, sitting in the booth all alone. Ara followed my look and nudged me slightly.

“What’s he working on? He seems pretty into it,” She noted, as we watched him type away on his computer and then jot something down in a notebook.

“He said he had some research to do for the summer, and he wanted to get a head start on it,” I replied, not taking my eyes off of him. He looked a bit frustrated, and I was hoping he wasn’t stressing too much. He still had a full summer to do a dumb assignment.

“I thought he wasn’t in college yet,”

“He takes a few online classes to keep up so he isn’t behind when he does start college.” I turned around, cutting myself off from staring at him any longer. I wiped down the countertops, trying to keep myself distracted so the time would pass quicker.

“Go over there,” Ara suddenly interrupted. she elbowed me, and gave me a gentle push towards the opening behind the counter. I sighed when a baby started crying, rubbing my temples as I made my way over to Rosen’s booth. I slid in across from him and smiled.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, nodding to his notebook, which he closed and set off to the side. He looked up from his laptop and smiled at me.

“pretty boring,” he rolled his eyes, shutting his laptop and setting it in his bag. “How much longer are you guys here for?” I glanced over to the clock mounted above the door.

“thirty minutes and then we’re out.” I relaxed back against the booth, cracking my back in the process. Rosen watched me, amused. My body was aching from standing around for so long. I really needed to convince Kayla to put some chairs or something back there for when things were slow. “Today was a lot busier than  usual,” I said, glancing around the still full shop. The baby had thankfully stopped crying, and was now giggling over his mom trying to feed him a spoonful of the milkshake. “So what’s your research about?” I asked curiously, my gaze returning back to his. Rosen cleared his throat, shifting slightly.

“It’s about secret groups and religions,” he said.

“You mean like the Illuminati?” I tilted my head out of curiosity and he nodded.

“yeah, exactly like that. I kind  of have a fascination for them, which I know is weird…” he trailed off, unsure how to continue.

“No, I think it’s really cool,” I said, being completely honest. “I always found that kind of stuff interesting.” Rosen smiled, clearly relieved  to find I didn’t think he was strange.

“El, where is the backup blade for the blender?” Ara suddenly called from the counter, causing a few customers to look in my direction. By now, a few people had left and the place was starting to calm down more. I sighed, standing up and giving Rosen and apologetic look.

“I better go help her,” I muttered, waving slightly as I turned and walked back behind the counter. I dug around until I found the blade and helped Ara put it on the blender, throwing the other one in the dishwasher.

After our shifts, the three of us walked outside. We agreed to leave Rosen’s car there and come back later, since my Jeep could drive on the sand a lot better.

“Okay, we’re going to rock paper scissors for riding shotgun!” Ara exclaimed to Rosen. I laughed, twirling my keys as I leaned against the side of the Jeep and watched them. Rosen prepared himself, taking this completely seriously.

“Wait, are we going on shoot? Or going on scissors?”

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