Chapter 3

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"You haven't run off yet?" Jean asked teasingly.

"Not yet." I replied with a smile. She had been gone for vacation for two weeks now, but during my first month here she had been an immense help. All the other employees were friendly and helpful, but Jean was the only one of us able to deal with scary people when they got angry, and she wasn't afraid to step in when it was one of us that had to deal with those. The two weeks without her here to deal with those people had been tough.

"How was Hawaii?" I asked.

"It was great. Mehwish loved it." Jean said ginning. As tough as Jean was, she was a little lovesick puppy when it came to her girlfriend Mehwish. Mehwish was stunningly beautiful, thick glossy hair, a long straight nose, unblemished tan skin and curves that could rival a racecourse.

"I'm sure she did, and I'm sure you took advantage of finally having her all alone." I teased. Mehwish had six younger siblings, and her parent was a single father so most of their dates were in the home or with Mehwish's siblings tagging along. I got a wolfish grin in response as she passed by me something about it making her look like an actual apex predator.

Sometimes Jean seemed so much like a werewolf I forgot she was human, I'd had near slips twice where I'd mentioned werewolves and then had to play it off as making a comparison with the animals. Jean probably thought I was obsessed with wolves.

"My shift is over I'm heading out." I called to Jean to which I only got a muffled response.

I walked over to the aisles to find Chen to let him know I was leaving. He was one of the three supervisors at the library and by far my favourite. He was the most relaxed of the three, only interfering when necessary otherwise quietly doing his own work. Josephine was always whispering weird things to me because I was one of the only two other wolves there, and the only one she didn't think was going to commit a heinous crime in the next decade. She also enjoyed forcing random books on people clearly uninterested in those titles. Our last manager Margret was suspicious of everyone and everything. Apparently she'd been very wronged as a child and still was quite unable to trust everyone, except for Chen who she clearly had a crush on.

"I'm heading out, it's five thirty, do you need anything else?" I asked.

"No thank you, you did very well today, I know it was your first time on the counter alone, but Aspen called in sick and Jean couldn't come in early." He said apologetically.

"It's fine, really, weekday afternoons are never busy." I said and he nodded.

"Bye Chen." I called out quietly, and he bid me a goodnight as I walked back to the counter.

"Someone will be right with you." I said to the young woman standing there, bouncing a chubby cheeked toddler on her hip who was clutching two books and trying to chew both of them while his mother tried desperately to keep them away from his mouth. Her efforts only rewarded with loud giggles. I smiled at the little munchkin as I walked by, getting a saliva coated fist waved violently in my direction which I assumed was meant to be a wave and not a threat.

I ducked into the breakroom quickly pulling on my coat and scarf, swinging my purse onto my shoulder.

"Bye Jean." I said as I walked out and she called out bye to me around the gigantic bite of apple turnover in her mouth. The other reason I liked Chen was he often brought in food for us.

Chen was at the counter helping the lady when I got back out and I smiled at him as I walked by. My phone vibrated in my purse but I shrugged it off as another useless email from all the random stores I had been forced to subscribe to by aggressively chipper employees.

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