Under The Mistletoe

1: Meeting Justin

*  *  *

I oversleep the next day, ending up with barely enough time to get to work. I arrive at Tori’s Boutique literally five minutes before the mall opens. When Tori sees me, she frowns, obviously disappointed.

“Where were you?!” She snaps, crossing her arms. “I had to re-fix all the racks and put of holiday sale signs all alone!”

“Oh gosh, Tori, I’m so sorry!” I apologize, running a hand through my brown hair. “I overslept. My alarm didn’t ring and-and I really am sorry. I promise I’ll do extra work if you want. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to oversleep.”

Tori sighs and shakes her head, placing a shirt onto one of the racks. “Oh, what the heck. At least you made it before the mall opened. I’m sorry to fuss. Did you sleep well?”

I flash her a small smile and head over to help her with the clothes. “Yeah, you?”

“Great.” She tells me, leaving me alone with the clothes to go over and fix the jewelry case. “You can take your lunch break at eleven today.” Tori tells me from behind the case. “I’ll take mine at twelve.”

“Ok.” I reply, heading onto the next rack of clothes. “Thanks, Tori.”

* * *

By the time it’s eleven, I’m completely done fixing the clothing racks and helping the mob of costumers that had come in. I leave Tori alone at the register and make my way out of the boutique. The mall is flooded with people, most of them heading to the food court for lunch.

Since I had a one hour lunch and tended to eat pretty quickly, I slipped into the first store I saw. It was pretty empty compared to the rest. Maybe because it was a jewelry store, and, by looking at a few prices it was pretty expensive.

My eyes scanned over the cases filled with jewelry. They were all so beautiful, especially the ones dealing with Christmas. There was one piece of jewelry though, that caught my eye.

It was a locket. It was golden and shaped like a heart, a keyhole in the middle. It might just be the most beautiful necklace I’d ever seen.

“Need help?” A deep voice asks, some Asian man who is standing behind the counter asks.

I nod and point at the locket. “How much is this?”

He raises an eyebrow. “How much do you have?”

I shift slightly, knowing that I didn’t have much money on me. “Forty dollars.” I admit.

He sighs and looks away, placing a different piece of jewelry into one of the cases. “It’s $350.” He tells me without glancing up to meet my eyes.

The price didn’t surprise me. Everything else was just as expensive.