Gonna Steal Your Heart Away

A couple of days later, the Flyers were off for the night, game free, after have an after having an afternoon practice. Brayden had texted Olivia asking if she wanted to hang out at Claude and his apartment with a handful of other guys from the team. She reluctantly had to turn down the offer. Rachel’s parents had to leave town last minute to because Rachel’s aunt went in to labor two weeks early while her husband was overseas for business. Long story short, Olivia and Rachel had to work at the diner the entire day when they finished classes.

“I’m so damn bored!” Rachel exaggeratedly sighed and threw the cloth that she was cleaning tables with down on the counter that Olivia was standing behind. She slumped down onto one of the stools and covered her eyes with her hands. “It’s a Thursday. People have places to be and interesting things to do. Honestly, we have a customer once every half hour. Standing here doing nothings is just exhausting.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Olivia returned sounding just as unenthused the girl sitting in front of her. At that moment, a man approaching the diner’s front door caught her eye and an amused smirk took the place of her bored expression. “But I think our problem may be solved.”

“What are you doing here, Matty?” Rachel questioned as the Flyers forward made his way to the girls, giving them a half-assed smile.

“And why are you so unhappy?” Olivia added, sounding concerned. Matt let go of the force grin and huffed all while taking the seat next to Rachel at the counter. He mentally curse himself for never being able to cover up his feelings when he was upset.

“Fighting with the girlfriend…again,” he grumbled, put his elbow on the counter top and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. “It just gets to be too much sometimes. You guys wanna do something? Go to the movies or something? I need to clear my head.” Just then, the bell of the front door opening dinged and a family of five entered. Rachel rolled her eyes before getting up from her seat and putting on her best waitress smile to greet the customers.

“As tempting as that offer sounds, we can’t. Have to work here until close in four hours. But I know Bray and Claude are having people over their place tonight; you could go there,” Olivia offered and glanced dejectedly at Rachel who was taking down the groups order. “Here take this,” she instructed, removed the hat from her head, and placed it on Matt’s. He threw her a questioning look while she put her hair brunette hair up into a ponytail and tucked it all into a hair net. “Don’t look at me like that. Rach’s dad, who happens to be our cook, had to leave to go help his sister-in-law through giving birth. So I have to fill in.”

“That’s not what I was confused about,” Matt stated and Rachel had rejoined the group, throwing the pad of paper that she wrote the orders down on to Olivia. “What kind of uniform is this?” he asked while adjusting the hat on his head; but it was obviously never going to sit on his head the way that it should.

“Nothing really,” Rachel answered while Olivia was behind the counter filling up cups of the drinks that the family had wanted. “No sweatpants, sweatshirts, t-shirts, and don’t look like trash.” Both Rachel and Olivia looked down at their clothes, back up at each other and simply shrugged.

Once Olivia finished with the drinks, she put them all on a tray and handed them to Rachel. While Rachel went to give the family there drinks, Olivia went back into the cooking area to start working on the food orders.

“Are you gonna go to Claude’s or just sit there wallowing to yourself?” Olivia poked her head through the opening in the wall between the kitchen and behind the counter area to ask Matt.

“The last thing I need right now is to hear G and Max tell me that having sex with her will make all our problems go away,” he explained and let his head fall so his forehead was resting on the countertop.

Olivia pushed through the kitchen door and walked behind the counter over to where Matt was sitting. “Would talking about it help, sweetheart?” she questioned and placed her hand on top of one of his to comfort him.

Turning his head to the side so his temple was resting on the top of the counter instead of his forehead, Matt mumbled, “You have to work, I’ll be fine.” Olivia placed her head on the counter to put herself in his line of vision. When their eyes connected, she then raised her eyebrows as if to ask if he was really going to be okay. A small chuckle escaped his lips before he responded. “I’m fine, Liv. Honest. I’m just gonna stay here until you close if that’s cool. There’s no place else for me to go right now.”

“Alright, kiddo. But if this place starts to get busy, I’m putting you to work,” Olivia joked, gave Matt a wink and retreated to the kitchen. Not even a minute later, the bell of the front door chimed signaling a new entering customer and groans could be heard from not only Olivia and Rachel, but from Matt as well.

*~*~*~*~*

“I’m so sorry about that,” Olivia stated as she walked into the diner through the door that led to the staff room. “I’m a college student, so I was trying to get some work done back there.” She gestured to the backroom with a nod of her head while she tied an apron around her waist. “What can I get you this morning?”

Rachel’s parents were still out of town so Olivia had to work the early morning shift at the diner; by herself nonetheless because Rachel had a class that morning. It was the morning after Matt had come to the diner. There hadn’t been too many people that night, so Olivia didn’t force Matt to work like she said she was going to. But he had bussed a few tables, on his own accord, to keep from being dead weight at the counter.

“You trying to make it seem like you are being productive back here?” Claude questioned jokingly when Olivia reentered the staff room after finishing up with the customer. Brayden and Claude had come down to the diner that morning to visit Olivia after not seeing her the previous night. After about five minutes of them getting bored just sitting at the counter while she worked, she let them into the backroom to watch a movie on the small TV that was back there.

Olivia simply waved off his accusation, collapsed onto the couch next to Brayden, and picked up one of the donuts sitting on the table that she had provided for the boys. “I just feel bad for him, ya know?” she stated, continuing their conversation from before she had to leave to work. Both boys began to shake their heads and tell Olivia that she shouldn’t worry about it. “Listen, you didn’t see him last night. You didn’t see how torn up her was.”

“But we’ve seen it before,” Brayden responded. “They do this a lot. She goes through phases of being upset with him for no real reason and Matt has no choice but to just sit through it because it’s something he can’t fix and she with just get over it eventually.”

“He’s a big boy, Liv, he can handle this on his own,” Claude added and the two hockey players turned their attention back to the movie playing on the TV screen. With a huff of dissatisfaction, Olivia pulled he cell phone out of her of her pocket to send Matt a text message asking if he wanted to grab some lunch later and talk. “That’s not a good idea,” Claude stated when he saw Olivia texting out of the corner of his eye. A muttered ‘whatever’ could be heard out of the girl’s mouth and she didn’t remove her attention from her phone.

Text Message to Matty Read:
Hey! :) Do you wanna get a bite to eat after your practice today? We can go someplace while I’m on my lunch break and talk since we didn’t get a chance to last night.

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” Brayden told her when she hit the lock button on her iPhone and placed it in her lap. She swatted at his shoulder and glared at the movie, trying to distract herself until Matt decided to text her back. A couple of moments later, her phone began to ring. Looking down at it, Matt’s name appeared along with a picture she had taken the night before of Matt cleaning around the diner after closing time.

“Hey, Matty!” Olivia greeted once she hit the accept button and held the phone to her ear. Brayden slipped the phone out of her grasp and put it on speaker phone so Claude and he could listen to the conversation as well.

“So you’re Olivia?” the voice on the other line, far too feminine to be Matt’s, spoke. Olivia’s eyes widened and her eyebrows became scrunched.

“That would be me,” Olivia answered, trying her best to sound chipper despite how confused and caught off guard she was. “Are you Matt’s girlfriend?” Olivia could hear Matt in the background telling this girl to not be a drama queen and pleading her to give him his phone.

“Yeah. I just wanted to personally thank you for making me more insignificant in Matt’s life than I already am.”

“Excuse me?”

“If he can just run to your little diner when we fight, why should he bother to stay home and actually try to solve our problems?” Olivia’s jaw dropped and looked at Brayden and Claude with a shocked expression completely consuming her face. She could hear Matt telling his girlfriend ‘enough is enough’ and then the called ended. Brayden, who still had the phone in his hand, hit the lock button and then let it fall into Olivia’s lap.

“Do you really want us to tell you that we told you so?” Claude asked sounding serious with a hint of sympathy. Olivia just gave the two boys a glare and rose to her feet to return to the diner and get to work.