My Only Exception (gxg)

Part 11

"I am fine, mom. Really. I'm stable," I said, trying to reassure her.

"Alright, you know I worry."

"And I worry about you, too," I said to my mom. I knew that comment might start something, but I didn't care.

"You have nothing to worry about, Delilah," my mom said firmly.

"Now who's being dismissive?"

My mom raised her eyebrows at me, but then shook her head and chuckled, "Sometimes I wonder how I raised such a headstrong girl. Now, let me watch my show."

"Okay," I stood up, "Enjoy your show."

The next day I had work, and I was only expecting to work with Liv and Charlie. It was Liv's last shift before going back to college for her last semester.

However, when I walked into work, it was Charlie and Poppy behind the counter.

"Good afternoon," I greeted them, "I thought Liv was working today, is she not coming in?"

"She called in sick," Poppy said to me, "I'm here in place of her."

"Got it," I nodded.

I thought that I would feel disappointed to not see Liv again, but I surprisingly wasn't upset to see Poppy there instead.

It wasn't a busy afternoon. In fact, it was so quiet that Charlie asked, "Do you two mind if I leave early? My wife isn't feeling great today, and I wanted to pick up some soup from her favorite place before it closes."

That's sweet.

"Aw, how nice of you," Poppy said to Charlie, "I don't mind at all."

"Go ahead," I agreed, "I hope Kat feels better."

Charlie smiled at us, "Thank you, both. I'll head out now."

There was only a half hour left of the shift, and only one person came in for a peppermint hot chocolate. We started to close 15 minutes before the shift was over, and once it reached 7 PM, Poppy flipped the sign by the door to say "Closed".

"I'm going to go to the storage closet and clean up a bit in there," I said to Poppy, "It was a mess last time I checked."

"I'm sure Layla would appreciate that," Poppy said back to me, "I'll finish up here."

"Thanks," I said back to Poppy, and headed toward the storage closet.

The closet is bigger than one would think, and there is quite a lot of inventory back there. There were a lot of unopened boxes of syrups and sauces for drinks, and cups were all over the place. I started to open the boxes of syrups and sauces and put them in alphabetical order by flavor name.

I was opening a box of toasted almond syrup when I heard footsteps coming toward the closet.

Poppy walked into the closet, and then up to me, "I'm finished up front. Do you need any help back here?"

"I'm all good," I said to Poppy, "This is the last box of syrup to open."

Poppy nodded and looked right at me.

"What?" I asked her, "Is everything alright?"

"You're much more like me than you'd like to think, Delilah," Poppy said to me, her tone smug.

"I'm nothing like you, Poppy," I said back to her.

"Really? Because it seems like you're just like me by judging how your conversation with Corrine went yesterday."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," I said to her, "I was honest with Corrine from the start that I didn't want a relationship."

"You obviously weren't that honest with her, if she had any kind of hope that you wanted a relationship," Poppy said back to me, her tone still smug. Once again, we were standing face to face, with not much space between us.