"angry seggs" — requested by leyla & izzy.
CAUGHT IN THE STORM;
MATURE, ENEMIES TO NOT-QUITE-LOVERS AU.
el hopper let out a short grunt as she lifted the bucket of freshly de-thorned red and pink roses and shuffled through the shop to one of the coolers.
she'd been working at miss pete's little flower shop on the corner since the summer of her junior year, so just over a year now. the owner herself was currently away visiting her daughter's family for the weekend, leaving el to run the store alone.
running the shop by herself normally wouldn't be a problem for her, but there were reports of storms this afternoon and miss pete had one strict rule when it came to closing early.
you don't.
in fear of what wrath the kind but sometimes scary older woman may possess, el was always sure she never closed the shop before the clock struck five.
but it was only one o'clock on this particularly slow saturday afternoon, and the weather reports were already advising people in the area of hawkins to take shelter for the oncoming thunderstorm.
her dad had already texted her, telling her that if it got too bad to lock up the shop and move to the centermost part of the store, this being the small supply closet where they kept extra flower buckets and vases. he wasn't happy about her working today, but he also didn't think her being home would make much of a difference since he was also working. the station was already gearing up for a blackout, and he had to help stage officers at the red lights that would surely be out within a few hours.
the brunette set the flowers in the cooler and walked back around the counter where the to-do list miss pete left for her was sitting.
scanning the list, she lightly hummed the taylor swift song she had lightly playing throughout the shop to drown out the incessant rain. that was her favorite thing about miss pete leaving her alone. she could play music she liked rather than having to endure her boss's obsession with the doobie brothers.
el struggled to read the old woman's tiny cursive writing, but she was able to make out that someone would be coming to pick up a wrap of a dozen pale pink roses. she squinted at the name, but it was objectively just a squiggly line. she swore the woman did it on purpose.
the girl grabbed a dozen roses and some leafy greenery from the cooler and set them on the counter with her back to the door.
"i like shiny things, but i'd marry you with paper rings. uh-huh, that's right," she sang softly, placing the roses strategically on the brown parchment paper. her hips swayed absentmindedly to the beat, and her pink, flowery sundress moved with it.
the detail that the obnoxious door chime had broken last week must've slipped her mind because she jumped out of her skin when a throat suddenly cleared behind her.
"shit," she cursed beneath her breath when a pesky thorn pierced her finger from her sudden flinch. she grimaced down at it, but pulled on her customer-service smile as she turned around to greet the customer.
that smile fell when her eyes met coffee-colored brown ones full of amusement.
"see, i'd compliment your singing, but it was actually terrible and i'd hate to lie," he said, his version of a greeting apparently.
she rolled her eyes and turned back around to her task. "what do you want, mike?"
ah, yes. mike wheeler, el's unofficial-but-official sworn enemy.
well, that's a tad dramatic. they weren't enemies in a sense where they pulled pranks or tried to get one another in trouble. more like fate was determined to push them into each other's path in the worse ways imaginable to the point where they saw each other as bad omens.
