januarie robinson
- march 26, 2018 -

PEAKING AROUND THE SIDE OF Lucas, I glanced at the paper in his hands. Splattered across the front page was a title something along the lines of, 'RIVERFRONT FLOOD WARNING FROM INCREASING WATER LEVELS'. Underneath was a picture of a tail bridge half submerged in a creek.

"You're always reading the paper." I looked up at him. He didn't turn to me, but he fought his lips from twitching up.

"Any chance I get," he said, "especially here. With all the towns being so small a lot of people travel to watch their movies here. I like to keep up with the events happening around us. This way I can talk to regulars about it or even people visiting for the very first time."

He glanced over, but turned back instantly. His shoulders tensed up and he stood up a little straighter, "It helps—"

Letting out a slow breath, Lucas shook his head, "It helps people connect with the place and the people who work here, plus they usually have a better experience overall."

Stepping back, I moved in front of the soda tower to stand next to him instead of looking around him. He nodded and handed the paper to me, "Here. It's a great habit to get into if you're working in customer service."

"Well," I smiled, flipping through its pages, "there's only really one thing I look for in the paper."

The pages felt rough against my fingertips as I ran them along the columns. Finding the horoscopes next to Dear Abby, I stopped and looked up at him, "When's your birthday?"

He went to speak, then cleared his throat, "I'm a Scorpio."

I laughed. It was one of those easy laughs. The kind that happened without even thinking about it. I hadn't been that comfortable for a long time. I still noticed how he didn't answer the question, "You don't know this yet, but I have some of the best detective skills of anyone I know."

"No. It's not you." He spoke quickly, "It's just... It's not something I normally tell people."

"Only animals then?"

There were few things I hated more than my birthday. I hadn't celebrated that day since I was young. Mainly because something horrible always happened. Among other things. In conclusion, it was the worst day of the entire year.

I turned to look at him and I could see it clear as day; it was in every fiber of his being. There was something about birthdays that rubbed him the wrong way. The twisting in the pit of my stomach told me it wasn't good.

Was that how I looked when someone mentioned my birthday to me?

"Birthday regret." I nodded, "I understand all too well. Probably more than most."

"Well," he chuckled, trying to clear the tension from the air, "once you hit twenty-five you pretty much just regret everything you've done in life up to that point."

I busted up laughing, my head tipping back, "So, according to your calculations, I'm practically twenty-five."

I smiled up at him, but something was wrong. His eyes seemed that of a teenage boy, not the ones I'd come to know so well in the last month. The light behind them dulled making them look much more brown than they ever did green.

He stared down at the counter, "Some people's looks can deceive you. If you took that away, I'd say you act closer to thirty than you ever do twenty."

Clearing his throat, he blinked and turned back to me, "Sorry, what does it say?"

I wanted to say something, but stopped. There were so many words at the tip of my tongue. They wanted to drip from my lips, but I couldn't force them out and went back to the paper, "Blowing off a bit of your daily routine won't do anyone any harm, but it will probably do you a lot of good. Play hooky and invite a friend or your sweetie around – they could use a little break too. And try not to let thoughts of the future cloud this sunny day."

He seemed to think over my words for a moment, "And yours?"

"The politics of a big group are much too complicated to enable anything to get done – two heads can come up with better ideas faster than twenty can. So, pair off with someone whose thinking you admire today, and the two of you will make life a little bit sweeter."

We shared a laugh.

There was something about the way his eyes crinkled and how there was always that split second where you could see him decide whether or not he was going to smile. His smile was like the sun winking through the clouds on a rainy day; not always there, but comforting when it was.

He had this effortless charm that was so uniquely him and it pulled you in. It was refreshing to be around.

Lucas looked out the window and my eyes automatically followed to a rusted, teal truck pulling into the lot. He stepped away from the register and gestured to it. This would be our first customer in the past twenty minutes. If he didn't want to help them then I was more than happy too.

"This guy has to have a pass to stay in our parking lot." Lucas spoke over my shoulder, "Be sure to ask to see it before you sell him anything."

My face scrunched. Something in the way he spoke didn't sit right with me, but with his breath on my neck it was more than a little hard to focus. Surely, I had to be missing something. I dared to glance over my shoulder and that's when I saw it. His lips twitched up the tiniest bit when we locked eyes.

"He needs a what?"

"It's like a lottery ticket, but it has our logo and simply states parking pass on it."

My eyes narrowed. Something wasn't adding up. I shook my head. I had a hard enough time telling people they couldn't bring in their backpacks and now he wanted me to ask for some kind of pass?

He had to be pulling my leg... He had to be.

"I can't do that... Why would he need a pass for our parking lot?"

"It's just a little policy we put in years ago after we had a few problems."

I watched an older gentleman, a mountain of a man really, walk towards the doors. My heartbeat started to race, so much that I felt it pounding in my neck, "I can't do that..."

"You've got to, this is how you learn. I'm your boss, training you."

"No," I shook my head trying not to smile and I even had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop it from forming, "I can't. If you want it, you ask for it."

"Januarie—"

"Hi!" I smiled at the man in front of me, ignoring Lucas' presence behind me entirely, "How are you today?"

Narrowing his eyes through a pair of thick glasses, the man simply stared at me. I couldn't convince myself to say anything else. The words were stuck in the back of my throat and every time I thought of speaking the sentences got jumbled around in my skull. His eyes slid from my face and over my shoulder.

"What are you watching today, Julius?" Lucas stepped from behind me. He leaned against the counter and a well-practiced smile formed on his lips. Resting his hands on the counter, Lucas tossed a glance in my direction.

A check-mate if you will. He knew what he was doing and he could have this scenario go any way he chose.

The older man stared at me before turning his attention back to Lucas; however, his expression stood stoic, "The Tomb."

His voice was gruff, as if he'd smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day. A dusty cap rested just above his brow, grey hair poking out of the bottom and a flannel jacket hung loose around his broad shoulders.

I turned my attention back to the task at hand. Since starting here, it's been a world of distractions. Everything seemed to pull my attention away from the things that I was meant to be doing.

Searching through the movie titles, I came across the film in question: Tomb Raider.

Giving the man a quick once over, I plugged in a senior ticket for him. You were supposed to be sixty-two or older and this guy definitely looked older, "Anything else for you, Sir?"

Lucas moved close and our arms brushed past each other as he leaned across the counter. Goosebumps littered my arm in seconds, "She has something she wants to ask you."

"No." I snapped, my brows twitching, "No, I don't."

The man's eyes watched my lips closely. He scrunched his nose, lifting his hand to his ear and gesturing for me to continue. I spared a glare at Lucas before taking a breath. I leaned in close and raised my voice, "Anything else for you, Sir?"

Instead of replying in the gruff voice he used earlier, he shook his head, but then pointed to his ears before covering them again. Lucas leaned in and whispered, "He needs his headphones. We keep a special pair for him in the back on the railing."

He nodded towards the door heading to the back, "I'll cash him out if you run back and grab them. They have a little J on the tag."

I gave the man one last glance before disappearing into the back room. My hands couldn't even graze over the headphones hanging against the wall. The rail rested high, next to the office door and I had to get on my toes just to read the tags.

A place like this wasn't made for someone of my size.

Finding the one with a little J on the tag, I stood on my tiptoes. I stretched up and tapped the device with the end of my finger, trying to get it to fall. Jumping, I smacked the headset as hard as I could. It twisted and turned, but refused to fall.

I glared up at it with my hands resting on my hips. Plans swirled around in my head on how to get the device down. I hadn't seen a step stool around, but that didn't mean there wasn't one to be found.

Turning, my eyes landed on a crate peeking around the corner. The was good enough for me. I knew something would come to me eventually. I'd learned long before this to be resourceful with my surroundings. I grabbed the crate and set it under the headsets.

Climbing on top of the wood, I reached up and I still need just a little more height in order to grab them fully. I reached out on my tiptoes again, but this time, I let one leg stretch out behind me.

Don't ask me why that worked, but it always did.

The door creaked as it opened. I didn't bother turning around. I tried my hardest to focus on my balance. I could feel the crate wobble beneath me, but stretched out further. I was too close now. I grabbed the head set and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Januarie," Lucas' voice rang through the back room, "let me." Twisting around, the crate tipped and I jumped. Lucas rushed forward, but by the time he reached me, I had both my feet firmly planted on solid ground once again.

I shot him a goofy grin, "Who needs step ladders, am I right?"

Both hands rested on my shoulders. His eyes raced around my face before he pulled his hands away as if he'd touched a burning stove. He took a giant step and scanned the rest of my body in one swift motion, "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah," I laughed, dusting off my pants, "I'm completely fine. I've been through much scarier falls than that and lived to tell the tale."

Shaking his head, he reached out. I wasn't quite sure of what he wanted and instead handed him the headset, "You have to be more careful. You could have seriously injured yourself in a fall like that."

Rolling my eyes, I laughed more. I grabbed the crate and returned it to its original spot, "A nasty bruise maybe, but nothing too bad."

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, his shoulders stiffening, "Bruise or not, it's reckless and not to mention dangerous. What if you hadn't caught yourself? You could have hurt your wrist or an ankle. Or worse, what if you hit your head?"

Something within me twisted. The sight of his stiff shoulders and his hand in a fist by his side. I reached out to grab his arm, but stopped. With my hand still stretched out, I glanced up at the camera. I pulled in back and held it to my chest, my face burning, "I really am fine. It won't happen again... At least not after you show me where the step stool is kept."

He looked up and released his fist. He shook his head, a chuckle emanating from him, "Maybe if you ate your greens like you were supposed to then you wouldn't need a step stool."

I stepped up next to him and smiled, "Did you know most women stop growing between their junior and senior year of high school while most men keep growing well into their college careers?"

My hand dropped down and grabbed the headset. The sides of our hands grazed against each other and he instantly dropped the headset into my palm. I stepped forward and spun around, "Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm done growing at this point. But that won't stop me from getting anything I want out of life."

I flipped the headphones around in my hand and lifted them above my head like a trophy I'd proudly won. Lucas rolled his eyes, but still laughed.

Growing up with the parents I had there was nothing I couldn't do with some imagination and just a little bit of elbow grease. I tried to take that with me everywhere I went and so far, it's never let me down.

He followed me to the door and grabbed the handle before I could, "Next time just get me, okay? I'll always help you. We're a team here."