And There Were Wolves

thirty six | all of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation

"How about weekends?"

"I don't have much plan on the weekends." No one was ever at the pack house during weekends. Ryker was off to god knows where and Dmitry was more of a mystery. "If you need me to work longer hours in weekend, I can do that too."

"That's wonderful!" The man looked extremely pleased. "We need someone who can cover more than two or three hours a day." Then, as if he'd just remembered something, he shook his head and put his hand out. "Silly me, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Lukas, by the way. My grandparents used to own this cafe, and it got passed down to my parents and then to me."

"That's really cool." I returned his smile. "My name is Xyrra. Nice to meet you."

"Xyrra. That's a unique name. I will remember that." He gave me a kind smile, which gave me an indication that he wasn't mocking my name or anything. "Okay. So the wage is four pounds per hour. Would you be okay with that? If you do well in the first month, I can increase your hourly pay by five pounds next month."

A five-hour workday would result in a daily earning of twenty pounds. A week's worth of work would be one hundred forty pounds. That was good enough for me. "Sounds good to me."

"Okay, brilliant." Lukas leaned down, looking like he was trying to get something from below the register. After straightening up, he gave me a form and pen. "Here. You will need to fill out this form and once you're done, you can start, let's say, tomorrow? How's that? Does that work?"

"Yes." I grabbed the form and the pen, then went to sit at the nearest table and began filling the form. Most of it was normal questions, asking about my name, my age, and if I had transportation to get to work, etc. In just ten minutes, I completed it and handed the form back to Lukas, having signed it at the bottom.

"Here." Lukas handed me a styrofoam cup. "I took a wild guess and made a mocha latte for you. You're going to work here, so at least you should have a taste of our coffee. That way you could say you've been here and done it." He grinned as if he'd thought that was the best pun ever.

Not wanting to ruin the mood, I accepted the cup and muttered my thanks. I tasted the delightful blend of coffee and chocolate. "This is really good," I told him with a note of wonder in my tone. The coffee is much better than I thought it would be. I'd even be prepared to lie if the coffee ended up tasting bad.

"See, make sure you tell that to your friends and our customers," said Lukas with a wink. Looking up, something caught his attention causing his eyes to narrow and his happy expression to fade into annoyance.

Out of curiosity, I followed his line of sight and saw a guy wearing a dark blue jumper walk into the cafe. His blonde hair seemed to be styled messily to look like he'd just gotten out of bed. The guy was still trying to get something out of his sling bag when Lukas said, "You're late."

"Oh, come on, man," he pulled out the apron and was in the middle of ironing the shriveled fabric with his hand while he was speaking, "you know fifteen minutes is not late unless—" The second he looked up and met my eyes, he stopped talking. His eyes widened and that boyish grin appeared on his face. "Xyrra."

Lukas blinked and looked at me, then at the guy, and then back at me. "Do you two know each other?"

"Considering the fact that she punched and broke my sister's nose, yeah, I'd say we know each other all too well."

"He's not serious." I forced myself to smile in the hope that Lukas wouldn't think that I was too violent to be a waitress. "Miles is joking."

"He always does," said Lukas with a sigh, seemingly to believe me, then turned to Miles, "I've already gotten Bryant to cover you for half an hour so go chill out for fifteen minutes before you come and clock in."