Snap back to reality.
Rue has to answer Josh, and he looks pretty pissed.
Not good.
"Uh... well, to be honest sir, I wrote a note at my home, but I forgot to write one here letting you guys know I was hired! Ha... ha... funny story, right?"
A cold sweat runs down her face as her black eyes stare directly at his.She can easily see the stages of his fury rise—more and more.
Josh, just like anyone else, learns about sticky notes through the tattoos on his body and notes around his house.
But being the amazingly stupid and talented man that he is, he actively discourages sticky notes in his kitchen.
He repeatedly announces, whenever he finds these "pathetic excuses" of memory in the kitchen, that:
"If I forget something, then it wasn't even important."
(At least, that's what a fellow colleague told Rue as a rundown. She has no notion of this even being remotely true.)
Finally, Josh reaches a breaking point.
He swings his right arm out of the vice grip the two cows-for-arms had on each other, creating a gust in front of Rue.It makes a sound that one could only describe as the wind getting slapped.
His eyes burn into her as his eyelids pull back tight.
"GET. OUT. OUT OF MY ESTABLISHMENT!"
Spit flings at her, and all she can do is take it in stride—wiping off the disgusting slobber from a creature more beast than man.
She slumps and begins walking out of the kitchen.
"Well, shit."She thinks to herself, almost to the entrance of the building.
Until—
A darker hand clasps onto the Head Chef's outstretched arm.
A face appears next to it. Rue recognizes them.
It's the very same colleague who taught her the ropes yesterday.
"She was hired here yesterday. Here. Look."
She rolls up the sleeve on her other arm, revealing a raw, healing tattoo displaying Rue's name and the day she was hired.
Rue, ecstatic, dashes back into the kitchen.
"Oh my god, THANK YOU! My hero!"
She gets a closer look at the colleague, whose name was...
What was it again?Rue thinks.
"Sheld? Selina? Selene—that was her name."
Rue flashes a quick smirk and gets a better look at Selene.
Dyed purple hair tied into a neat bun.A smooth darker complexion, not looking a day past twenty-five.Deep red eyes, like rubies in a cave. Alluring. Strong.
Then Rue glances at her arms.
Covered in tattoos she can barely make out from this 15-foot distance, she sees something that looks like her name and DOB.There's also a couple of other things, like where she lives and her allergies.
Above all, near the bottom of her right wrist, she can barely see:
"DON'T FREAK OUT"
…and then a mess of symbols and letters descending from there.
Something Rue had to get used to over the years was seeing tons of tattoos.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except… she'd never needed to do something like that.
Josh looks at the tattoo.
He immediately calms down.
"Well then... I apologize. Seriously, I feel bad. Ms... Rue?" Josh asks, checking Selene's tattoo again.
"No no, it's ok! It's fine, I promise. Yes, my name is Rue."Rue responds, just glad she didn't lose her job the day after she got it.
"Well then, welcome aboard the team, Ms. Rue. What's your favorite food?"
"It's... burgers. Definitely burgers. Drop the 'Ms.' already, would ya? It's so awkward. Also, are you interviewing me again?"
Josh immediately puts up his hands in surrender.
"No, no! Not at all! Just... trying to get to know my workers."
"Oh, ok then. Well, I'm gonna like... do my work now?"
She awkwardly scoots over to the fryers and fridge, wanting to crawl into a hole and die from that whole interaction.
Josh walks off to his office.
No one knew it, but Josh's office was covered in sticky notes.
Tiny scraps recording the quirks and lovable moments of his staff—things he didn't want to forget.
He also had a tattoo on his wrist, very small, listing essentials about himself and his job.No one had ever seen it, though.
At the tail end of the ink, it simply says:
"COVER THIS."
So he always wears gloves.
Rue, dumping chicken strips into the fryer, idly counts to herself.
"Ten... eleven... and twelve."
She groans.
"Who orders twelve strips and one burger?"
"How's it going, rookie?"
Selene's cherry perfume wafts from behind her.
Rue sighs.
"Well, it's going. This sicko seriously ordered twelve strips and ONE. SINGULAR. BURGER. What kind of deranged person do you have to be? Now I have to pull out all the ingre—"
Selene chuckles, loud enough to hear.
"Oh, trust me, I get it. I get orders like that allllll the time. Sometimes? I debate walking over there to the window and just yelling:
'IF YOU DON'T ORDER AT LEAST TWO BURGERS, I. AM. NOT. COOKING.'
But of course, I'm a responsible, reasonable adult with responsible, reasonable rationale.Man, I am amazing."
Rue snorts, then busts out laughing.
Selene joins in.
Rue wipes a baby tear from the corner of her eye, glances at the fryer—
"SHITTTTTT!"
She panics. The chicken is getting overcooked.
Rue pulls it out in a rush, aiming for any surface not the counter.
With miracle-tier luck, the chicken lands right in the order's bag.
The strips slide in like they belonged.
Rue whispers to herself:
"Yes."
She hurriedly slaps together the burger, sliding the patty straight from the pan onto the bun.
No flashy box. Just a dull cardboard one.Rue realizes this place probably doesn't bother with names—because no one would remember them anyway.
She tosses the box into the bag, crumples the edges shut, and hands it off to Selene.
Selene, with ease, works the soda machine.
Smooth. Practiced.
Like she's done it a thousand times.
Rue watches.
Even after a reset... the body remembers.
"Strange."
Selene hands the drink and bag off to the customer in seconds.
"Wow... uh. Good job, Selene."
Selene turns to her with a raised brow.
"Yeah, I know. I'm pretty good."
Rue snorts again.
That sets them both off into laughter.Big, belly-aching, laughter. Threatening to knock them onto the floor, laughter.
And just like that—
Eight hours fly by.
Chatting.Laughing.Working together.
They even exchange numbers.
Selene, almost casually, mentions she's going to get Rue's number tattooed.
Not something new friends usually do, but apparently something Selene does.
As Rue walks out of the building at closing, she sighs and looks up at the sky.
A man sits nearby on a bench, dressed in all black.Odd for the summer.
She tries to give him his privacy...
But accidentally tunes in.
"Hey Uncle Tom! This is Ben, your nephew? I see the money coming in, but it still says pending. I'll keep checking on it over the next couple of days, don't worry."
With eavesdropping as the final event of her day, Rue walks back home.
She sets her purse on the table.Then collapses onto the bed, in full uniform.
"UGHHHHHH."
She groans, gets back up, undresses, and tosses the uniform back into the closet.
She puts on simple, navy blue pajamas.
Crashing back onto the bed, she remembers:
Set the alarm.
Two hours early.