The two had finally reached the entrance of the restaurant and Aleyah, who had turned to Jude to see him off for what she presumed wouldn't be the last time, was intriguingly surprised when the boy walked into the restaurant. However, before the girl could question him, he strutted off towards the seating area without so much as a word, leaving her staring at his retreating figure with a gobsmacked expression.
It took a few seconds for Aleyah to rid herself of the confusion swarming her brain, but she eventually managed to shake off the thoughts and turn her focus towards her job.
The girl then headed to the break room in the back to fix up her uniform, which she had partially dismantled before her break. Aleyah did try, despite her best efforts not to, to spot the tall Birmingham boy on her way towards the room. Strangely, she wasn't able to trace his figure, although that was the direction he headed earlier.
Aleyah then shook her head as she tied up her apron, reminding herself not to pay attention to the footballer's antics. And just as she tied the second knot behind her back, her manager walked into the room.
"Aleyah, my office, now." He spoke briefly before evacuating the room.
Aleyah stiffened as her heart lowered toward her stomach. She immediately began racking her brain for any incidents that may have caused the summoning from her superior. And when her memory landed on the incident with August, her heart plummeted even lower.
The murmurs from her coworkers in the room gave her a temporary grip on reality, bringing her back from the tunnel of worry she was heading into. However, once she met their eyes of pity and smiles of sympathy, she was immediately sent back to the feeling of distress.
Hesitantly, Aleyah began her tread towards the office that was no more than a few feet from the break room. She took those few seconds of walking to submerge herself in self-deprecation. She was foolish for assuming that such a high-end restaurant wouldn't notice an unexcused absence. She had seen people get fired for much lighter offenses, and yet she was dumb enough to presume she would be safe from the same fate.
Once she reached the door, Aleyah took a moment to stabilize her hands and blink back tears before knocking on the tinted glass.
"Come in!" Stef voiced out.
Aleyah walked in and sat down at the other end of his desk following his gesture to do so. She didn't know whether to apologize or wait for him to reprimand her first.
"Aleyah, you've been an employee here for a good couple of months," the man began, saving her from her internal dilemma. The girl nodded in acknowledgment at his opening sentence. "And I'm sure you've seen some morally questionable, as some would put it, events that have taken place here."
Aleyah slowly nodded again, not being able to predict where the older man was heading. She, however, was able to understand what he meant as 'morally questionable'.
Aleyah, despite only working at The Royal Crest for a few months, had witnessed many celebrity outbursts, secret dates, cheating scandals, and much more that would have made her thousands if she had published them. The girl wouldn't dream of it, though. The number of NDAs and contracts she had signed upon getting the job was more than enough to detour her from even the thought of publishing them. Not to mention the unwanted publicity and backlash she would receive.
"You're obviously a very attractive young girl," Stef continued, his eyes wandering over her sitted figure. Aleyah automatically shifted in her seat, feeling uncomfortable with the attention being given by the older male. "Very beautiful indeed." He added as his eyes slightly glazed over.
It was no secret that Stef had an eye for the younger female population under his employment. According to him, he didn't act on it due to professionalism. However, his wandering eyes and lingering touches in inappropriate places begged to differ. Aleyah herself had never fallen victim to those touches of his, but she had witnessed them on a few of her other coworkers.
Although the girl wished she could do more to help, all she could do was offer small smiles in apology. She couldn't report it because she knew how it would translate to the higher-ups. Aleyah would be labeled as a liar and hard to work with, resulting in the loss of her job. A job she very much needed to support her brother.
"It's no wonder you're able to catch the eye of some of our customers." Stef gave her another once over and nodded as though he was assessing some kind of dish.
Aleyah swallowed hard, trying to keep herself relaxed. "I'm not sure I understand, sir."
The man looked at her for another unnecessary amount of time before elaborating, "There's a customer who's requested your presence specifically. " He gestured towards the door. "Now, normally we don't usually agree to such requests, but he's a very generous guy and so I couldn't refuse such a wonderful person."
"So, I'm just supposed to serve him?" Aleyah asked. Her body looked visibly less tense as she realized the visit wasn't heading in the direction she thought it was going.
"Yes, but he wants you by his side throughout his entire stay. So you are to wait at his hand and foot until he leaves. If you succeed to do such a simple task, your recent indisciplines shall be forgotten." Stef gave a pointed look, hinting at her abandonment from work the week prior.
"Yes, sir. Is that all?" Aleyah nodded for what felt like the millionth time.
Stef hummed in agreement. "Table 12. Don't keep him waiting." The man then waved her off.
Aleyah wasted no time to evacuate the uncomfortable atmosphere that was his office. And as she stepped out, she could've sworn the air in the restaurant was much less stuffy than in the room, despite the well-functioning air conditioning unit in it.
Once the girl was completely out of the room, her gaze landed on the 12th table located by the glass wall of the aquarium. And to her expectation, there sat Jude Bellingham, staring right at her, awaiting her presence with a shit-eating grin adorning his face.
Immediately, Stef mentioned his task for her. The girl knew that it would be him sitting at the table. Only he would be idiotic enough to throw thousands at her boss for a few hours of her time.
With an exasperated sigh and a murmur of self-encouragement, Aleyah headed towards Jude. Letting her face form a facade of irritation while she was inwardly trying to smother the feelings of endearment that kept growing at every interaction with the boy.
"Hello, and welcome to The Royal Crest. How may I assist you today?" Aleyah asked with an overly polite smile on her face. On the tread towards the table, she decided to make it challenging for Jude to achieve whatever he wanted. He could pay for her presence in the physical sense, but that didn't mean she had to be there mentally as well.
"Well, you can start by taking a seat." He gestured towards the pulled-out chair opposite him.
"Unfortunately, sir, I'm unable to do so. Would you like to hear today's specials instead?" She barely blinked in the direction of the seat.
"No, but I would love it if you sat down."
"The main course features a steak tartare served with a delicious caviar sauce drizzled with-"
"Aleyah, please just take a seat," Jude interrupted.
"And for dessert, we have a coconut panna cotta paired-what are you doing?" Aleyah's forced polite smile melted into a horrified expression as the boy pushed out of his chair, stood up, and stepped out to face her.
"Since you're not gonna sit with me, I'm gonna stand with you." Jude shrugged nonchalantly. And under different circumstances, Aleyah might have laughed at his antics, in fact, she was close to chuckling, but the growing gazes of the other people, customers, and employees both, in the room stopped her from doing so.
Aleyah pictured what this situation looked like in their eyes, a tall and very recognizable Jude Bellingham, towering over a shorter and unimpressionable her, and that image was enough for her to grab onto the boy's shoulders and shove him down into his seat before rushing over to the chair he had pulled out previously.
Aleyah huffed in annoyance as she regarded the boy, her face feeling hot from the embarrassment of all the people looking in their direction. "Now, was that so hard?" Jude asked, his eyes crinkling as he tried to avoid smiling at her expression.
"Shut up." She grumbled out. At this, Jude burst out laughing, and despite her vexation, Aleyah found herself biting back a smile as well.
Once he finally stopped laughing, he regarded her for a second. "You need to take off the apron." He pointed at her attire.
"I can't. It's uniform." She shook her head.
"But you can't wear an apron to our first date. It kills the magic."
Aleyah playfully rolled her eyes. "It's mandatory, Jude."
"I guess I'm going to have to remove it for you." He shrugged easily.
The girl's eyes widened, and judging from his previous actions, she knew he wasn't bluffing. So with a sigh, she untied it. "Happy?"
"Very." He nodded as she rolled her eyes again.
"Now, what are you going to get?" Jude asked casually, lifting his menu to scan the items. Aleyah studied his form quietly. She was trying to understand what the male saw in her that was enough for him to go to such lengths for a mediocre lunch date. The girl understood that she was pretty, but that couldn't be the reason for his persistence. There were thousands of pretty girls everywhere. And with an appearance and status like his, it would be easy for Jude to acquire any of those girls.
This then led her to wonder if the reason Jude was after her was because he liked the act of chasing her and not her as a person. It was the only logical explanation for the boy's stubbornness. He was used to getting his way, especially in the field of dating, so her resistance to him was probably like a fun new challenge. With this in mind, Aleyah decided to be weary of him until she was aware of what exactly the male wanted with her.
"Today's special." She answered, not even bothering to look at the menu in front of her.
"Alright, then I think I'll have that too." Jude closed up the paper and met her eyes, which were already trained on him. The girl nodded and out of habit began to rise out of her chair. Jude frowned. "What are you doing?" His eyebrows furrowed, causing small wrinkles to form on his forehead.
"I'm just going to submit the orders, don't worry, I'm not going to run away," Aleyah spoke lightly.
"Don't be silly. We're on a date, you don't need to do that, I'll call someone over." And just as the girl was about to object, Jude had already signaled over one of her coworkers. "Can we get two portions of today's special, please?" The boy ordered as soon as the waiter arrived at the table.
"Of course. Any beverages I should include?" The male asked, slightly eyeing Aleyah in question.
"I'll have a strawberry daiquiri. Aleyah?" Jude extended the question to the girl opposite him.
"Water, please." She said curtly, avoiding the quizzical stare her coworker was sending her.
"She'll have the same drink, actually." Jude corrected.
"Why are you always against me having water?"
"Because no one actually drinks water with their food."
"What if I was genuinely thirsty?"
"Then the daiquiri would refreshen you."
"What if I don't like the daiquiris? You didn't ask."
"Do you? Dislike daiquiris, I mean."
"No." The girl grumbled.
"Exactly."
"Erm-Is that all I can assist with?" The waiter was quick to interrupt when he chanced a moment of silence between the two. If Aleyah thought she couldn't be more embarrassed, she was wrong. One glance at the uncomfortable figure of Lance, her coworker, was more than enough to get her to bite back her response to Jude and shrink back into her seat.
"Uh-yeah, that'll be all for now," Jude glanced at the server's nametag. "Thanks, Lance." The male then nodded and stalked off to deliver the order, no doubt going to inform the rest of the staff about Aleyah's predicament.
Jude then turned back to face the girl before him. He took in her awkward frame for a beat longer than what would be considered normal before letting out a sigh of seeming defeat. "Listen, I don't want you to feel like you have to be here. If you're uncomfortable, you can say so and I promise I'll leave." He began, his usual tone of playfulness absent as he spoke. "I just can't stop thinking about you. I know that sounds weird but it's true." The boy shrugged, unphased by his confession.
"You intrigue me beyond measure and I want to get to know you. I just don't think I realized how overbearing I was being until now. So if this is too much, I can take it down a notch. I wanna do this right if that's fine by you." He finished, allowing her to speak.
The girl was momentarily stunned into silence, feeling all her resolve fade away. If Aleyah hadn't already had butterflies before his speech, she did now. She couldn't even begin to fight off the smile making its way onto her face. "Okay." Aleyah wasn't able to fathom an appropriate response to the boy's words, so she settled for a nod.
"Okay?" He questioned, not entirely sure what she meant.
"You're okay. This is okay." Aleyah reassured and Jude visibly relaxed, sending a smile in her direction which she was quick to reciprocate. Silence then befell onto their table as they took in each other's appearance as though it was their first time meeting and though no words were shared, it was clear that they could both feel the shift in their complex relationship.
"Okay," Jude repeated with a nod.
A/N
Here's the update! Sorry it took so long for it to arrive but I made it longer to compensate. I don't know how but I lost all of my plans and future chapters for this story and it was so discouraging that I even considered discontinuing the book. But I didn't and I'm now! Though since I have a terrible memory and no plotline, I'll probably be making up the story as I go but I do remember the major events so hopefully it won't stray too far from the original storyline.
I do have a question for you guys: would you want me to include intimate scenes or should I keep the book lighthearted and cute? Before you answer, keep in mind that I have like zero experience in writing those moments so it may just feel awkward if I do. But I'm writing for y'all's enjoyment so I'll do whatever you decide.
Another thing! I'm gonna be releasing a Jamal Musiala story soon (it's actually so sad that they're barely any stories about him cause he's such a cutie) so keep an eye out for that if you're interested.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
NB: This chapter is unedited.
See you in the future!
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