Reading between the lines

A date or not a date, that is the question

Before you read this, I PROMISE I love Daniel :)


***


"Okay guys, today is Saturday and coincidentally it is also the first of October. Are we all aware of what that means?" Seb asked his employees, which were all rounded up in the ground floor of the chequered book for their morning briefing.

They only had these briefings on Saturdays or extraordinary days, like holidays. But unlike normally, Sebs demeanor was serious and a little worried. Everyone, except for Lando, who'd worked in the shop for the least amount of time, shared the sentiment.

Lewis looked like he was about ready to just grab his stuff and leave before the store even opened and the frown on Max's face suggested that he'd be following. Even Danny, who was always the last to stop smiling, was behind the bar, preparing the coffee machine and drying off some mugs with a straight face.

"Yeah, it's going to be like the apocalypse has broken out." Lewis muttered as he crossed his arms, face turning more sour with every word leaving his lips. Even the small nudge to the side by Seb wasn't able to coax a smile out of him (not that anyone really would have expected it to).

"Worse..." Max shuddered, searching for something that would be comparable to an apocalypse. He couldn't. "They'll all go nuts."

Lando, who had just looked from one person to the other, confused as to what was going on, finally dared to ask, "Uhm... What are you guys going on about?"

"The start of the Halloween season." Seb hummed quietly, as if 'Halloween' had suddenly turned into some horrible curse word.

Lewis nodded in agreement. "October starts and all people think about is spooky shit and horror nonsense."

"And funnily enough our nice and polite customers suddenly turn into people that could be straight out of a horror novel." Max added as he let a hand run through his dirty-blonde hair.

Clearly all three of them were in some sort of distress about today. Lando still really couldn't understand it. This was his third October here and he couldn't remember any of the other two to have been particularly bad.

"Why don't I remember that? I've been here for a while now and-"

"You were sick last first October." Seb said in a low voice. He remembered because being down one man had made that day all the more difficult - not that he'd tell Lando that, he'd just feel bad about it. "And the one before that you were new... swept away in the bliss of the beginning stages of this job to notice the occasional horrors of it..."

Seb was getting dramatic. You could always tell he was when Lewis would just roll his eyes and stare at the man from the side, silently begging him to shut up. Usually Max found it funny, but on a day like this, he could comprehend Lewis' impatience.

He cleared his throat, drawing his boss' attention towards him. Arching one brow was enough for Seb to understand that he should get back on topic. Get this meeting over with, so everyone could have a couple minutes to themselves to mentally prepare for the day they had ahead of them.

"Okay, so, down here we are filled up on crime books. From boring detective stories to thrillers to horror - we have got it all!" Seb said, slickly ignoring Lewis' murderous glare for calling detective stories 'boring'. This wasn't the time for arguing about this again. "Upstairs we have some vaguely autumn and Halloween themed YA novels for Lando and Max, you... you know."

"Yes, yes!" Max rolled his eyes over his boss not even knowing what he himself had ordered. Sure, Seb was an absolutely helpless case when it came to classics, but Max still felt the need to once again try and correct that. "Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Carmilla and H.P. Lovecraft in every edition that has ever been published."