The Waitress ↯ C. Randall

Chapter 27 | A Date With Danger

"I. HATE. LIFE." QUINN RASPED out as she awoke from her second nap of the day.

"You know taking three naps a day instead of sleeping normally is really unhealthy, right?" Riley noticed as Quinn peaked her head out of her arms to give him a sleepy one-eyed glare.

Quinn lightly scoffed into her arms, "As if my life doesn't already scream unhealthy," she muttered, setting her head on her arms so she could actually see Riley's half worried, half-completely-done-with-her-bs face, "And besides every college student is unhealthy. You're young enough to not have to worry about that yet!"

Riley let out a small laugh, smiling, "I'm only a year younger than you, remember?"

"Year and a half,"

Riley snorted, "Yeah, yeah. That's not that much younger."

"It's young enough to make you the baby of the group, the "baby raptor," as Chase says."

Riley quirked an eyebrow, his broom coming to a small stop, "And yet, I'm always taking care of you guys,"

Quinn simply smiled at him, pointing a lazy finger at him. "Hey, the young have to care of us old folk, it's your responsibility," Quinn stated, a small laugh coming from her afterward.

Riley returned the sentence with a warm grin, shaking his head at her actions, but with a hint of loving fondness to it.

Quinn rose from her seat, getting up to continue her shift for the Cafe. "Look, at least my more extreme bouts of laziness are restricted to my breaks from work. There's at least a somewhat order to my laziness," she joked.

Riley chuckled lightly, the same fondly questioning look from him only deepened. "Keep telling yourself that," Riley quipped back.

"Hey! At least I'm always on time for work, unlike our favorite, truly amazing New Zealander himself," Quinn mentioned, her typical air of sarcasm and joking interlaced into her tone.  "Speaking of him, where is he?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion about the New Zealander's whereabouts.

Riley pointed his head towards a dining booth that was closest to the entrance of the cafe, just to the right of it. In the booth was Chase, as expected, and a blonde, fair-skinned girl wearing a jean jacket and a white tee, adorning Adidas checkered-pattern sneakers. A brown satchel was seated to her left. Quinn found the girl strangely familiar, from what she could not remember. Unlike most of the dates that Quinn had witnessed Chase go on, the two of them seemed to be genuinely really connecting. Instead of a few cocky, flirty one-liners coming from Chase and the girls seeming to be only interested in Chase's looks, it felt like the two had already known each other for a while. The two were beaming at each other, trading jokes and filling each other in on their lives.

Quinn hummed to herself, somewhat squinting her eyes at the pair. "Who's she?" she pondered inquisitively.

Riley looked at the pair, scanning his brain for anything he could remember. "I... don't know. He seemed pretty excited earlier though. Wouldn't really say for what." Riley mentioned offhandedly.

Huh, Quinn thought. She was glad he seemed happy around the girl but didn't really know how to feel about it though. She didn't really know much about her but she seemed nice enough. And yet, something sat differently in her than when she had witnessed Chase's other dates. It puzzled her why, but she just pushed it off to the side, for now, deciding to just continue her work.

However, her work was quickly interrupted by the familiar beep of her and Riley's Dino Coms. Quinn signed in resignation as she was forced to put aside the plate she had just begun cleaning. "Great, another monster-of-the-week to deal with," Quinn muttered, bitterness laced in her voice. "Let's go, guys!" she yelled, taking off her apron and setting it on the counter in front of her. The others slowly joined her and began leaving the cafe as well.