chapter 5

I woke up the next morning with a pounding head, replaying the surprisingly clear memory of my fight with Noah. Letting out a particularly unladylike groan, I rolled over to check the time on my phone.

Shit.

A sinking feeling started in my already churning stomach as I realised I had ten minutes until my shift was supposed to start downstairs. Forgoing my usual morning shower, I quickly washed my face, applied a layer of makeup to hide my tired eyes, and dragged a brush through my tangled mane of hair. With one minute to spare before the start of my shift, I took one last look at my pitiful state in the mirror, and then raced downstairs.

"Morning Lois!" said Julie brightly as I entered the kitchen.

"Look at what the cat dragged in," muttered Noah, brushing past me.

Ignoring the rising anger in my stomach, I turned to Julie and gave her a bright smile. "Good morning Julie!"

It was the shift from hell. It seemed that Noah, too, had no trouble remembering our conversation the previous night, as every encounter with him resulted in a snide comment as he walked past.

On top of that, the warm weather meant that the pub was extremely busy- there were only a couple of vacant tables inside and every seat was taken in the sunny beer garden out the back. One table in particular containing a young couple with a toddler seemed especially intent on giving me a hard time. The child had already split his drink twice and his parents appeared to be as fed up as I was, constantly bickering and shooting glares at each other in between trying to control the young boy.

"Chocolate brownie for table four," said Lewis, sliding the dish along the counter towards me. Suppressing the urge to groan, I picked it up and made my way to the problem table.

"Hiya," I said, plastering a false smile on my face, "chocolate brownie?".

The woman barely looked at me, instead pointing a manicured finger in front of the toddler. "Here."

I placed the dish in front of the child. "There you go! Is there anything else you would like?".

No response. Great.

"Right, well, enjoy!" I said, starting to turn around.

"Wait," said the man. I spun back.

The man looked up from his phone, took a quick look at the brownie, and then looked at me.

"Are you trying to kill my son?"

I was taken aback. "No, sir-"

"This brownie has steam coming off from it! It's way too hot! It will burn his mouth!" the man cried, flailing his arms.

"I'm so sorry sir-"

"It's simply not good enough! No regard for health or safety!"

I quickly picked the plate back up. "Of course, sir. I'll have the kitchen.. Um.. cool it down right away-"

"Everything okay here?" Asked Noah from behind me.

Great. Just what I need.

I turned to face him, "It's all under control,".

"This woman just tried to kill my son," bellowed the man, "the brownie is far too hot!"

"I'm so sorry sir," said Noah, placing a hand on the back of the man's chair. "I'm sure it wasn't intentional. I'll make you another one, on the house."

Making eye contact with me, Noah stuck out his other hand for me to give him the plate containing the brownie. "I'll run it to the kitchen myself,", he said, sending me a dark look.

I sent him a false smile, "I think I can manage."

He smiled back, equally as falsely. "With all due respect, Louise,"- I gritted my teeth at the mispronunciation of my name- "You haven't shown the best judgement thus far. So I think you would understand my need to make sure this is done properly."

He made a move to grab the plate. A surge of anger rushed through my body and next thing I knew, the (now room temperature) brownie was no longer on the plate in my hand, but had landed squarely on Noah's white shirt.

The brief moment of satisfaction was quickly soured by the appalled look on the customers' faces. I quickly realised what I had just done, and my cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as I noticed that not only the adjacent tables, but the majority of the restaurant had fallen silent and had turned to watch the spectacle unfold.

Muttering apologies to the customers, and very carefully avoiding Noah's murderous eyes, I picked up the plate from the floor and walked very fast back to the kitchen.

"Lois!" I heard Julie shout from the back. "We need to talk!"

Oh god, oh god, oh god! I panicked. I'm about to get fired!

I walked to the kitchen and put the plate in the washing pile. Exchanging panicked looks with Lewis, who too had seen the whole drama and heard Julie's summon, I took a second to compose myself. By the time I found Julie, Noah was there too.

"Right," said Julie, sounding as stern as I have ever heard her, "I think it's time to have a little chat with the pair of you."

"She threw a brownie at me," complained Noah, pointing a finger at me, "in front of a customer!"

"I'm so sorry Julie," I said sincerely, "but he undermined me to the customer, when I had the situation completely under control!"

"Stop it, the pair of you!" said Julie, eyes wandering from mine, to Noah's, and back again. "Lois, I don't think you need me to tell you that throwing food at a colleague is unacceptable."

I hung my head in shame as Noah made a sound of agreement.

"Oh don't you start!" said Auntie Julie, pointing a finger at him, "don't think I haven't heard all those comments you've been making to her all day! Completely unprofessional, both of you."

"Now, I can't have you two working here if you can't get along. You two will be closing up. Alone. Prove to me I can trust you two to work together."

***

"I really can't lose this job," said Noah. I glanced up from the table I was wiping down to see Noah looking at me from across the pub. He turned around to continue dusting the bottles on the bar, "I've worked here for four years, there's no way I'm leaving just because some girl came in and threw a brownie at me.".

True to her word, Julie had left Noah and I on our own to clean the pub after it had shut for the night. We had avoided any further communication thus far by starting to tidy at completely different ends of the room.

"I didn't exactly throw it," I said defensively, "it slipped out of my hand."

"Right, okay," he said, voice dripping in sarcasm.

"Plus, you can't deny that you were being a Class A Dickhead up until that point," I said defensively, wanting to justify my actions.

"You having an unrequited crush on me doesn't make me a dickhead."

I almost choked on my own saliva. Crush? "You wish, Thompson." I said, regaining my composure.

"Oh, so I've been demoted to a last name basis now?" Noah said, raising an eyebrow. "That's cold, even coming from you, Wilson."

"Cry me a river," I said, rolling my eyes.

We both got back to our jobs in silence for a bit; I continued to scrub a particularly stubborn piece of food from the table and he moved on to dusting the bar top.

"I think we should call a truce," he said after a couple of minutes of silence.

"A truce?"

"Yeah," he said, "to make working together easier."

"Okay," I said, thinking about it, "I won't throw any more brownies at you if you stop eating from customers' plates."

He looked at me for a second, deliberating. "Fine."

"And you aren't allowed in my bedroom without my permission ever again." I added, moving to clean the next table. I was getting quite into this deal making.

He chuckled, "are you sure? Just have a long, hard think about all of the opportunities that you would miss out on."

I sent him a sweet smile, "absolutely positive."

He raised an eyebrow, shrugging his shoulders, "your loss, sweetheart."

"And no more little annoying flirty comments," I added, wondering how far I could stretch it.

He shook his head, smiling "no way," he said, "you love them really.".

"Could you at least stop calling me sweetheart? It sounds like something my grandad would say," I whined.

"Hmm, I suppose it is a bit generic,". He thought for a second, "I'll call you dimples instead.".

I rolled my eyes but kept my mouth shut. Dimples wasn't great, but it was a whole world better than Sweetheart. Small victories, I guess.

He finished at the bar and moved across the room to help me finish scrubbing the last table.

"So, you stop throwing puddings at me if I start calling you dimples and stop eating customers chips and coming into your room without your permission." he said, looking up at me from across the table. "Do we have a deal?"

I thought about it for a second, before sticking out my hand. "Deal,"

He took my hand from across the table. His hands were large and rough, and slightly wet from the damp dishtowels we had been using to wipe the tables. He shook it.

"If we need to pretend that we're civil co-workers, we should probably know a bit about each other," I said.

"You're right," he said, moving to stack up the chairs of the table next to me, "what's your favorite movie?"

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban '' I said instantly. He shot me a judgemental expression. "Love Actually comes second," I added.

"Mine is Friends With Benefits," he said. I turned sharply.

"The rom com?" I asked.

"Get the tone of judgement out of your voice!" he said, grinning, "It's a great film. Plus, Mila Kunis is stunning.".

I rolled my eyes, "No Strings Attached is better".

He lets out a loud gasp, "I'm calling off the truce!"

"Are you sure you want to do that?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at him, "because there are several desserts in the kitchen that have your name on them if you do..."

"Fine, fine!" he said, hands up in surrender, "we'll agree to disagree.".

"That's what I thought," I said, laughing. "Who knew that big bad Noah would be so scared of a little chocolate cake!"

He rolled his eyes, "I can't afford to lose any more white t-shirts; the stain won't come out!"

I put my head in my hands, embarrassed "I'm actually really sorry about that,".

He laughed, stacking the last chair on top of the table. "Honestly, it's fine." He observed me for a second, "but you can help me take the bins out to make up for it.".

The night air was cool and quiet; it had gone one in the morning. Each carrying a large bin bag full of rubbish, we followed the sparingly illuminated path from the back door of the pub to the skip.

"Hey, dimples," Noah asked, "are you trash?"

"What-"

"Because I want to take you out."

I groaned.

"Come on," Noah said, chucking the rubbish bag into the skip and then turning to face me as I did the same. "That was funny!"

I crossed my arms and shook my head, "no way".

"Laugh!" He commanded.

"No!"

"Goddamn it!" He said, and then lunged for me. Instantly, Noah's hands were unleashed, darting towards my sides and tickling me frantically. A cry escaped my lips and I squirmed, trying to get out of his iron grip. "Say it!" he growled, merciless fingers still frantically tickling, "say you think I'm funny!".

"Never!" I yelled between cries of laughter. I tried fruitlessly to attack a tickle offensive of my own, but his hold on me was too strong. Helpless against his attacks, I fell into his chest.

"Give in!" he said, continuing on with the attack. By this point, my jaw hurt from laughing and my abs felt like they had done a hundred crunches. I groaned.

"FINE!" I conceded. "You're a comedian. Practically Micheal McIntyre."

I felt the movement of his hands slow, and then cease. Now that the tickling war had stopped, I could fully appreciate the position I was in, head against his strong chest, breathing in the woody cologne that he was wearing. His arms were wrapped around me, hands skimming my waist. I could register my heart pounding, but whether it was from the high intensity tickling or my proximity to Noah I could not tell. We stayed in this position for a split second too long, and when we broke apart, I saw a strange expression in his eyes.

A smile quickly broke through his unreadable expression. "That will be the last time you ever diss my jokes," he said menacingly.

"Yeah, yeah" I said dismissively, hoping the night was dark enough to hide my flushed cheeks..

"Right," he said, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I'm going home now, don't miss me too much."

"I will have absolutely no problem with that," I said, grinning.

He rolled his eyes, then turned his back. "Night dimples," he said as he walked away.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Chapter 5 feels like a bit of a milestone, so to thank you for reading this far I decided to include some gifs of Noah (Harvey Newton-Haydon)!

Enjoy ;)