Cleave

Saturday morning at 11 am came around much quicker than I anticipated but I soon found myself sitting in the cabin of Drew’s old truck in the parking lot of McDonald’s, right before my trial shift was about to start. I was nervous. I really didn’t want to screw this up because I needed this job. I needed to give Drew a reason to let me stay at his place other than the fact that I’m his best friend and I needed to give Max a reason to be proud of me. A job at McDonald’s wasn’t going to cut it in the long run but it was enough to make him pleased that I can finally make my own money and earn my keep. I could tell that he didn’t think McDonald’s was a good job, but, like he said when I told him I got the job, “it’s better than nothing.” Sometimes I wished that he was more excited for me when good things happened, but he was right. It sounded like it would be a shit job, but it was better than nothing.

With that thought, I took a deep breath and let it out quickly, before tugging on the door handle and getting out of the truck. I was in black skinny jeans, a plain black t-shirt and some shiny black leather shoes that were apparently non-slip. I borrowed those from Braden, whose parents own a restaurant that he helps out at sometimes. He said that the non-slip soles are really handy in the kitchen.

I was about ten minutes early, so I slowly made my way into the restaurant. There were a few people sitting at the tables and a few more lining up at the counter and I briefly hoped that I wouldn’t have to deal too much with customers while I was still learning the ropes. I didn’t know whether to stand in line or not so instead I opted to stand near where customers could pick up their food and waited for a worker to notice me and ask me what I was waiting for.

I stood there for a couple of minutes, shifting from side to side as customers bustled by me to collect their meals before a small blonde girl about my age came over to the counter. She was wearing a different uniform to most of the other workers so I assumed she was a manager.

“Can I help you there?” she asked in a perky voice, and I nearly groaned. It was the same voice I heard on the phone.
“Um, yeah, I’m Angel Jerome. I’m meant to start today, or something?” I said, making it sound like a question.
“Oh! Of course, Angel, how are you? My name is Jody, we spoke on the phone. It’s lovely to meet you,” she said happily, reaching across the counter to shake my hand enthusiastically.
“Yeah, good, um, you too,” I mumbled.
“Well why don’t you come on back here and I’ll get you a shirt and show you around?”
I nodded, and she showed me where I could come through to the area behind the counter and then led me to a small room out of sight of the customers. There were a few boxes piled in the corner of the room with what looked like clothing spilling out of them. Jody and I walked over to them and she began to dig through the top box.

“What size are you?” she asked with her head still in the box.
“Um, medium, usually,” I replied. A few moments later, Jody pulled out a crumpled shirt from the box with a triumphant look on her face.
“Here ya go!” she said, throwing the shirt at me. I figured she would want me to change into it, so I quickly did. When my head popped out of the collar of the McDonald’s shirt, I noticed that Jody had her eyes fixed on my torso. I let a small smirk play across my face. It was pretty obvious what she was doing. I cleared my throat loudly, and Jody shook her head slightly as if she was dazed momentarily.
“Right! Um, come on, I’ll show you all the different areas,” she said way too quickly to be casual. I nodded and followed her out of the room.

The tour lasted about half an hour, I signed some papers and then Jody trained me to use the registers and how to interact with the customers. Then, once I was feeling pretty confident in what I would have to do, I was given a name badge with ‘Trainee’ written on it and then I was let off the leash, so to speak, and started to serve the customers. I had Jody watching me pretty much the entire time, but she let me work without interrupting me too much. There were a few times that I needed to ask her for help but I was pretty pleased with how quickly I picked everything up.

Before I knew it, Jody was telling me that I could go home for the day and asking if I would come back tomorrow for another shift at 3 pm. She placed a hand on my forearm while she asked which made me a bit uncomfortable, but I just agreed to the shift quickly and left the restaurant as fast as I could without it seeming like I couldn’t wait to get out.

I decided to go by Max’s place before I headed home so that I could tell him about my day. I knew he had a shift starting at the hospital in a little while so I couldn’t stay long but it would be enough time. He seemed pleased when I walked into his apartment wearing my new work uniform.

“Hey, baby, how was your first shift?” Max said, coming over to me and planting a kiss on my lips.
“It was good. I have another one tomorrow at 3,” I told him, leaning towards him to ask for another kiss, which he gave me. I was feeling really good about how my day had turned out and was in a good mood, so I deepened the kiss and let my hands wander to Max’s hips, where I pushed the shirt that was covering them up a little so I could feel his soft skin under my fingertips. Max was holding me tightly to him and the kiss became more and more feverish the longer it went on. It was only when my hands came to the front of Max’s pants in an attempt to pop open the button did he pull away. He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and held them slightly away from his body where I couldn't touch him anymore.

“Sorry, babe, I've got to go soon,” he said, kissing me one last time before he let go of me completely and left the room, presumably to collect the stuff he needed for work. I let out a huff of frustration. There I was getting all worked up and now he's gone and left me with a problem that needed sorting out.

Max came back out to the living room a minute or two later and gave me a hurried kiss before he went to leave the apartment. I sighed once the door slammed behind him. It felt like my mood had just deteriorated significantly in just that small amount of time I was around Max. In the back of my mind, I knew that wasn’t healthy in a relationship, but at the same time, he did just leave me wanting more so I was a bit mad at him and decided to just accept it as that and move on. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed again as my stomach growled hungrily at me. I considered raiding Max’s fridge for some food, but I eventually decided to just go home and eat something there. I left Max’s place soon after, replacing the spare key under the door mat and made my way home.

When I got home, Drew was in the kitchen stirring something in a large pot on the stove. He was holding his phone in the other hand and scrolling using his thumb, but he looked up with a smile when I came in.

“Hey, man? How was it?” he asked.
“It was good. I picked things up pretty quickly. They asked me to come in again tomorrow. How long until that’s ready to eat? I’m starving,” I replied, pointing at the pot he was still stirring.
“About ten minutes or so,” he told me. “That’s awesome about work though, man. Do you like it there?”
“I mean, it’s not the best job I could think of doing, but it’s okay. Least it’ll help pay the bills though, right?”
Drew nodded. “Yeah, for sure,” he replied as he picked up the wooden spoon and brought it to his lips to try whatever was in the pot. “Nearly done,” he mumbled to himself.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“It’s a Spanish soup with potato and chorizo sausage.”
“Yum,” I said, my stomach growling again. “I’m gonna go change.”
“Yeah. It’ll be ready by the time you’re done,” Drew said, moving towards the cupboard with the soup bowls stored inside.

I went into my bedroom and unearthed a pair of sweatpants, a ratty t-shirt and a hoodie from a large pile of clothes sitting in the corner of my room. I then changed quickly and carefully placed my work clothes over the chair at my desk so they wouldn’t get crushed and walked back out to the kitchen, where Drew was just putting two bowls of soup on the breakfast bar. It smelled delicious and tasted even better, once I started to eat it.

After dinner, Drew and I decided to play some games on the Xbox, which ended up going on until about 1 o’clock in the morning, when we simultaneously decided to call it quits for the night and went to bed.

I woke up at around 9:30 the next morning to my phone ringing obnoxiously. I nearly decided to ignore it but at the last minute, reached blindly for it and answered it, mumbling a ‘hello’ into the speaker.

“Angel? Hi, it’s Jody from McDonald’s. How are you?” the perky voice on the other end replied.
“Um, I’m… I’m okay,” I stuttered, sitting up a little in bed to try and wake up a little more.
“I was wondering if you’d be able to come in a little earlier for your shift today. We had someone call in sick so we needed someone to cover for him and we figured it’d be a good opportunity to have you in for longer and try you in a few different areas of the store?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s okay. What time do you want me to come in?” I asked.
“Is 11 o’clock okay with you?” Jody asked. I nodded, but then I realised she couldn’t see me.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll see you then?”
“No, you won’t see me, but you’ll meet one of the other managers, Darrell,” she said. “Have a good day, Angel.”
“Okay, thanks. Bye,” I said before I hung up and dragged myself out of my bed. I decided to take a shower before having anything to eat for breakfast, so I headed into the bathroom and turned on the shower. While I waited for it to heat up, I pulled off my pyjama pants and boxers and turned to the mirror to examine my appearance, a small blemish on my chin catching my attention. I ran my fingers over the small bump and decided that it would need some pimple clearing cream on it when I got out of the shower to stop it from getting worse.

Once I tested the water to discover it was warm enough, I stepped under the water and let it run over my body. I avoided getting my hair wet because I couldn’t be bothered drying and straightening it. I cleaned myself with my citrus scented body wash and then just allowed myself the luxury of standing in the shower with the hot water running over me for a few minutes until I heard Drew knocking loudly and shouting about needing to piss.
“Be out in a sec,” I told him and turned off the water before stepping out of the shower and grabbing my towel. I quickly dried myself then wrapped it around my waist so Drew could come in while I left to go to my bedroom and get dressed.

Once I was done getting ready for the day, I headed out of my bedroom and into the kitchen, where I made some toast for me and Drew, who joined me once he finished in the bathroom. We ate slowly, just chatting about random things, and once we were finished, moved to the living room, where I lounged around until it was time to leave for my second shift.

I arrived at McDonald’s a couple of minutes before my shift was due to start, but according to the manager on duty, Darrell, a tall, gangly looking guy who looked about 25, a couple of minutes early was late. He gave me a lecture on why being “late” was a terrible thing and I really had to bite my tongue to stop myself from talking back. I had to remember that I could get fired if I pissed off anyone too much. I decided I liked Jody way better than Darrell. He was kind of a dick.

After Darrell’s lecture, he got a guy called Sam to take me through the processes in the kitchen. That lasted for the first couple of hours and then Darrell put me on the registers. I was much more comfortable on register than I was in the kitchen so I settled into a rhythm quickly and everything went well for the next hour or so.

It was only after I had finished serving a woman with six kids that everything changed. When I saw the door to the restaurant open out of the corner of my eye, I turned towards it to look at who entered. I have no idea why I did – it wasn't exactly a rare occurrence for the door to open. But for whatever reason, I did look.

Three people entered the restaurant. A man, a woman and a teenage boy. My eyes swept quickly over the parents before resting on the teenager. This was the person I could pick instantly out of a crowd. I saw the silky black hair I, until a little over a year ago, regularly pulled on. The soft, pouty lips I kissed a million times. The body, dressed in tight skinny jeans and a red and black flannel shirt; that I held close to mine as we made love. This was the boy I so quickly fell in love with and had ached for for such a long, arduous time. This was the boy I never thought I'd see again, but hoped to every day. This was Micah. He was back.