BLACK CAT.✔

Chapter Twelve

"Hey, Rob. Nice to meet you."

"You too, Mr. Shannon." Rob shook the manager's hand. He had rung earlier in the week to come in for a chat but, he'd been told that Mr. Shannon would meet him on Sunday morning just before he started on his first shift.

"So you've transferred from Brisbane." Mitchell Shannon indicated Rob should sit and lifted Rob's employment contract. "Looks like you'll be working the paint counter." He shuffled some more papers around and found the roster book. "We're happy to try and work around your school schedule so have you got preferences?"

"I'm really only after three shifts a week. Two week nights starting at five-thirty would be great. I play hockey for Kalara High and am helping train the juniors so Monday to Thursday afternoons I'm tied up until five." Rob turned up the side of his mouth. "It's my senior year and I've got a fair bit on. Fridays are out because I play hockey that night. The juniors play on Saturday afternoons." He cocked his head. "Sorry to be a pain but my preferences are Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Saturday mornings or any time on Sundays."

Mitchell glanced at the roster. "We've got you started today ten till two." He looked up at Rob. "Should we lock that in for your Sunday shift and hit you up if we ever need you for the whole day?" He grinned. "Ten o'clock start gives you time to sleep in if you have a late Saturday night." Mitchell Shannon added a chuckle to his smile. "I remember being a young guy. Saturday night was party night."

"Sounds good, Mr. Shannon." Rob wasn't going to argue with that.

"We don't get many who are happy to stay in paint so I want to keep you on side." Mitchell smiled some more and wrote in the register again. "Your references from Brisbane are good so I'm happy to try and fit in with what suits you." He leaned back in his chair. "I've put you in from five-thirty till nine-thirty Monday and Wednesdays but you're cool if we have to throw another shift at you every now and then, yeah?" Mitchell cocked his head in question.

Rob nodded. "I'll do my best to help you out but Friday nights will be impossible until the end of the hockey season." He held out his hand. "I really appreciate you working around me."

"Alright." Mitchell shook his hand and stood. "Let's go and introduce you to some of the staff."

Rob followed him through the store. It was set out almost exactly as the Brisbane Bunnings he had worked at.

"Rob. This is Travis Mills. He's in charge of paint so any problems you see him first."

Travis stepped forward and shook Rob's hand. Mitchell yanked his head to indicate Rob should follow as he said, "I'll get him back to you in a minute, Travis. I'm just going to introduce him to Judy."

"Yep, no worries. I'm not going anywhere." Travis smirked. "You know me, Mitch. One hundred percent committed to my job."

Mitchell Shannon laughed as he moved off. They walked up the paint aisle to the service desk. "Judy. This is Rob Jarvis. He's starting in paint today." Mitchell held his hand out in Robs direction. "Rob this is Judy Denyer. Judy looks after the checkouts. If you're not busy she might get you to collect some trolleys every now and then."

"Sure. No worries. I'm happy to do that." Rob stepped in and shook her hand.

"Great," Mitchell said and then added, "Let's get you back to Travis."

The paint counter was the paint counter no matter what Bunnings store you worked at. Rob had done it for two years so Travis had very little to show him. Every now and then a staff member would walk past and say hello or give him a smile. Half way through his shift Travis sent him for his ten-minute break. As Rob headed through the door of the staff room, another worker slammed into his chest. She stumbled backwards. He lunged and grabbed her arm to stop her from falling.

"Sorry." They both said in unison, and then stared at each other.

"What the hell?" Becky glared at him. "Are you stalking me now?"

"Yeah... I want to fuck you. Remember..." Rob sneered and stepped around her. Man, he didn't need this shit. Not after Friday's episode. He threw himself down in a chair and pressed the balls of his palms into his eyes without looking back at her.

What was the universe trying to tell him? He grinned at the table and thought about that question some more. Rob sucked in a breath. He really had to stop talking to her the way he was but she pissed him off so much with her smart arse comments all the time. Rob wondered if she'd ever had a normal conversation with anyone in her whole life.

It'd only been a week and all he'd ever heard come out of her mouth were catty snide remarks. Time to ignore the bitch.

Becky stormed to her register. Could this week have gotten any worse? Heaps of kids from Kalara worked at Bunnings but why him? Really?

"Hey, Becky." Janice from the next register beamed at her. "Did you see the new guy? On paint. He's... so... hot..." Jan fanned herself with the specials catalogue and pretended to faint as a stern faced woman stepped up to the register. She quickly righted herself and dropped the catalogue. The pages fluttered everywhere. As she tried to grab them, she caught her shoe on the rubber mat, stumbled and seized the counter to stop from falling face first into the customer's trolley.

Becky burst into laughter. The woman jerked her trolley backwards and glared at them.

Jan dusted herself off and said very primly, "Good afternoon, madam. I hope you're having a great day."

"Well not as great as yours obviously." She slammed her bag of fertilizer onto the counter.

Becky struggled to stop laughing so knelt on the floor and collected the loose catalogue pages. She popped her head up and caught sight of Rob Jarvis walking down the aisle towards the paint desk.

Jan elbowed her. "That's him."

Becky gave Jan a smile as she rolled her eyes.

Rob thought about Becky Bridgestone. He had to call a truce somehow. Now that he was training her brother and in most of the same classes he had to work out how to stop the bullshit. She didn't seem to be the sort of person you could sit down and have a one on one chat with.

Other people appeared to like her so surely if he just spoke to her and maybe apologized for calling her a cat, the hate might stop.

He headed to the front door at the end of his shift. She was on the register with her back to him talking to the girl at the register next to her. Maybe now was a good time.

"Ah...come on, Becky. What do you mean he's not your type?"

"I go to school with him, Jan. He's a complete cock." She thumped down a box of Bunnings magazines harder than necessary. "He thinks he's God's gift and looks down at me like I'm scum." Becky ripped the box opened with some force and lifted her head to stare at Jan. "So yeah, he's not my type. The arse hole struts around like he's King Kong with a stick up his butt."

Jan's face froze. She gaped over Becky's shoulder. Becky frowned, twisted around, and stared into the chest of Rob Jarvis. She lifted her head slowly and turned up the corner of her mouth. "Well...if it isn't King Kong himself."

Jan giggled.

"God's gift actually." Rob strode off. Fuck, he hated the bitch. She didn't know one thing about him and now she was bad mouthing him to people he'd never even met.

He climbed in behind the wheel of his car and slammed the door. Did he look at her as scum? Maybe he did but it was because she always did or said something disgusting.

Just stay away, Rob.

Forget apologizing and ignore the bitch. 

Copyright © 2017 by Donna Fieldhouse. All rights reserved.

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