Thanks!Oh and I know that the "romance" scenes are mega-awkward and probably hilariously badly written so ignore those.
And one last thing, there are a lot of words here that are really useless. Don't mind them.
~*~
It was a dark and stormy night, the wind blowing hard and fierce, the trees whistling angrily and Chloe Vasquez was sitting at the Staples checkout line, reading A Christmas Carol. It was the last shift at the open till midnight store and Chloe hadn’t spoken to a single person in over an hour. Her paranoid boss, Anthony had stopped his annoying every five minutes calls about an hour before. He claimed he was worried about her safety, all alone, at night, in a store with a cash register filled with money.
My safety? More like the safety of the cash register. If you’re so worried about my safety, why aren’t you here, instead of relaxing in bed at your warm and comfortable home?
She had played countless games of Solitaire, re-read Lindsey’s new rehab battle in US Weekly and Angelina and Brad’s new African baby they adopted about fifty times and did inventory twice. She walked outside for a little bit, but the fall humidity and cold winds forced her back inside. After a few minutes of rummaging in the back room, she found a few barely held together books, two Bibles, a World Encyclopedia from the 1920’s and A Christmas Carol. She had already read it in 6th grade when her class had done the play but there was nothing better to do now, so she sighed and headed back to the front, the book in her hands. The automatic doors stayed closed and Chloe felt herself wishing she had just told Arnold that she was sick and couldn’t take late shift.
“But you do need the extra money…” A little voice in her head viciously whispered. So, maybe she needed some extra cash, in case Elinor and Ben needed rent money again, but that doesn’t mean she should have to sit in an empty Staples till midnight doing nothing. Her eyes glazed over Tiny Tim’s cries of joy and she began to blink repeatedly before her eyes fluttered close-
“Miss! Excuse me!”
A tall bustling middle-aged woman with 2 baby carriages and what seemed like 12 kids came rushing into the store and approached Chloe. On closer look, Chloe noticed that there were actually only five kids, not twelve. Big difference. They ranged from all different ages and looks, a couple blonde, a brunette, a redhead and the two babies in the carriages, with heads of light blonde hair.
“Hi, there! I’m Ms. Welling but you can call me Bridget. It’s so late, I’ve been to three Office Max’ and Staples and they were all closed. Where are the school supplies? I’ve got 6 kids plus my aunt’s kids are living with me, I left most of them at home, thank God. They’ve all run out of their pencils and pens already. Used it all up in summer enrichment classes and I wouldn’t want them starting at a new school with no school supplies. It’s ridiculous, honestly, in a week or two, I’ll be finding pencils and erasers and markers all over the house. Kids these days, gosh, don’t appreciate a thing, I could
be-“
“Mom, you’re scaring her.” A tall redheaded girl said interrupting her mother’s fast, almost incoherent monologue. She looked about twelve and had the sweet yet somewhat sarcastic voice of a preteen. Two of the boys had begun to pelt each other with the five-cent erasers and little blonde girl, who Chloe assumed was a kindergartener, based on her “I’m a KINDERGARTENER at ST. LOUIS PREP” tee shirt, started singing some sort of pop song, by a Disney star.
Suddenly, Chloe began to regret taking on the night shift on her own even more. She put on her award winning customer-service smile and turned to the woman, repressing a yawn.
“The school supplies are in aisle 17, all the way in the back. I’m closing up in about twenty or so minutes though and the registers will be automatically locked, so you better hurry,” She said cheerfully, her voice sounding high and too upbeat to her ears. The woman took no notice though and went on towards the aisles; muttering what seemed to be a shopping list to herself, a busy look of her face. Strangely enough, the children didn’t follow her. All the women took were the baby carriages, leaving half a dozen children to roam free. Finally, she turned back and looked at her children.
“Now, kids, behave” She said in that nice, maternal voice, as if expecting them to actually listen. The woman’s brown curls disappeared as she turned a corner and it was quiet for about twenty seconds before the kids turned to each other and it was as if a light switch was flipped. They all ran in opposite directions, throwing stuff on the floor, grabbing markers, post-its, white-out and anything else they could get their hands on. If Chloe thought the children were acting up before, total anarchy reigned on them now.
The redheaded 12 year old seemed to be the oldest and only sane one as the children ran screaming through the aisles. The singing blonde girl started drawing with Sharpie on the wall and Chloe frantically ran to the girl and grabbed the permanent marker out of her hands. The redhead was up in tangles, chasing twin blonde boys who seemed 8 or 9. They were dripping white-out onto the black and white tiled floor and Chloe was in plain shock. For a moment, Chloe just froze. This must be some sort of joke, she must be getting Punk’d or something, Chloe calmed down for a moment before she remembered she wasn’t famous and a little boy with light brown hair began to open the employee fridge and taking her Mountain Dew. Chloe dropped the flailing (and still singing) blonde girl and rushed towards the boy.
“ENOUGH!” someone yelled, the voice, distinctively male somehow louder than the chaos. Time stopped for a moment as everyone stood still. The twin boys stood frozen, a look of shock on their lightly freckled face, the Mountain Dew falling from the other boy’s hands and spilling on the ugly dark brown carpet. The blonde girl lifted her Sharpie from the wall, her scribble scrabble masterpiece on hold for a moment, her eyes wide.
Chloe turned to the front of the store, where the voice had originated. There stood a tall, calm looking teenager, with light brown hair with sun-bleached strands, his eyebrow raised as he took in the sight.
“Again, guys?” He said with a sigh, a small smile playing its way across his face. The little blonde girl stood up and ran to the guy, wrapping her small arms around his legs.
“Aaron! You came!” She squealed, looking up at him. He playfully patted her head and detached her from his leg before really looking at what the kids had done in only eight minutes. He turned to Chloe with an apologetic yet bemused expression on his face.
“These kids, they sure are something else, eh? I’ll be paying any and all compensation. I’m truly sorry we wrecked your evening” He said, his tone sincere with the slightest, almost undetectable bit of sarcasm, especially at the end.
She had the urge to snap at him but just mumbled an okay and looked at him, thinking he was going to pick up the children, get his mother (who had been awfully quiet in the back) and leave. Instead he bent down and began to pick up the broken pencils, written on computer paper, Sharpies and empty white-out bottles. The children watched him for a minute before picking up their messes too. The little blonde girl began to sing the Clean up song, her soft and sweet voice trilling on the notes.
“Do you have napkins or paper towels or something? Maybe some Windex?” The guy, Aaron asked, not looking up at Chloe but instead trying to peel off the dry white out from the floor.
Chloe blinked in surprise then pulled her dark brown hair up into a bun and started towards him.
“You don’t have to do this; you’re going to pay for the damages so we’ll just hire a cleaning service or something.” Chloe said anxiously. It was around 12:30 and she wanted to get home and watch old Glee reruns, not deal with six random kids who screwed with the store merchandise. Anthony or Tom, the guy who normally had this shift could deal with that tomorrow.
“It’s really alright, the kids messed this place up, the kids will clean this place up. The spill in the carpet will stain, so paper towels?” His voice held a tone of finality and Chloe felt herself internally rolling her eyes.
Chloe sighed in defeat and was turning to go towards the back when suddenly, something came to mind. Maybe this was all a ruse, a trick; maybe the “mother” was actually a thief who hired homeless children to distract tired clerks so she could run off with all the office supplies. Maybe once Chloe turned away to the backroom to get the paper towels and nearly empty bottle of Windex, they would strike her on the head, she would fall unconscious and they would run off with dozens of Sharpies and Bic pens. And maybe Chloe needed to lay off the Red Bull and get some rest.
“Uh, sure. I’ll be right back” She said, with a fake as hell smile. She walked towards the back, stepping over the spilled soda and typed in the super difficult code (1234) to open the employee lounge.
She flipped the light switch and stepped into the room. The coach seemed extremely appealing right now and Chloe wished she could just lock the doors, switch off the bright flouresant lights and take a long, sweet nap. She walked to the sink and turned the faucet on, taking the cool water and washing her face. Her light green eyes looked worn and tired in the dirty, unflattering mirror and her skin looked taunt and washed. She yawned and turned to the cabinets, sifting through the employee manuals and empty coffee cups, looking for the paper towels. The roll was almost finished with a red stain blotting the side that was either blood or tomato sauce. Chloe walked over to the coach and knelt behind it, where she remembered seeing the blue bottled cleaning liquid. She found the Windex half covered, under a box of Dell ink cartridges and a couple of “That was Easy” buttons. The light beige walls needed a repainting and the room vaguely smelled of peanut butter.
Chloe stood and went to the door, flicking the light off and going back to the front of the store where the room was almost completely cleaned. Her jaw dropped as she took in the sight of the formally deranged kids rearranging the locker kits. Aaron was leaning against the wall, drinking from a bottle of Coke. He kicked off it and walked towards her, a smirk on his face.
“Close your mouth, the flies will come in,” Aaron said, before taking the Windex and Bounty towels from her outstretched hands. The white out was completely gone, the floor even shining with a new vigor; the permanent marker stains, (emphasis on permanent) were faint blurs on the walls, the little girl princess, monster blob and knight faded away forever. The twin boys were sitting down on the floor playing what seemed to be either finger war or Miss Mary Mat. Aaron bent over the printers where the blonde girl had drawn little hearts and flowers, scrubbing fiercely against the pink and black ink. He suddenly stopped and pulled up the arms of his grey sweatshirt, folding back the fabric to reveal lean, tan skin. A light blush peppered Chloe’s face as her eyes traveled towards his face, which she realized now was quite frankly, really hot, in a clean-cut, jock kind of way. His brown eyes were scrunched up as he finally finished erasing the evidence of who Chloe assumed was his sister’s, imagination.
He pulled his sweatshirt down and looked over to Chloe, who was staring, a weirded out look on his face that turned into a knowing smirk.
“Oh my God, he caught me staring. “ She thought, her eyes slightly widening and her blush significantly deepening.
“Do you know where my mom is? I was supposed to meet her in the car a while ago, because she had to pick up some stuff for the kids,” He said calmly, with a bit of humor in his tone. Chloe internally told herself to calm the hell down and answer.
“Oh, um, yeah. She should be in aisle 7 or so, but it’s too late for her to buy anything because the registers automatically close down at 12 and it’s already way passed that but I told your mom that before and she didn’t really answer, she was sort of mumbling to herself and left the kids in the front and they went kind of crazy and then you came and cleaned and stuff. So, um, she should be around “
Chloe mentally banged her head on a brick wall over and over. If Aaron was freaked out before, there was no telling what he thought of her now. He nodded and walked back slowly.
“So, this way?” Aaron pointed to the left. Chloe shook her head, a few curls escaping from her loose bun. She headed towards Aaron and pointed to the right.
“Now go up two aisles and make a left,”
“That way? Right.” He said, his infuriating smirk growing larger. He started towards the aisles then stopped short and turned back. Was she imagining it or was he kind of flirting?
Don’t be ridiculous, he doesn’t even know your name. A reasonable voice murmured in her brain. So? She was a pretty seventeen-year-old girl with no disfigurements, why shouldn’t he? Because you don’t know him and he doesn’t know you.
All this mental arguing and Chloe didn’t even notice that Aaron had stopped and turned back to her.
“Actually, I’m not sure I can find it. Think you can help, Ms…Chloe?” He asked, squinting at the bright colors of her plastic employee name tag. Chloe raised an eyebrow but sighed and walked in front of him, her hand awkwardly outstretched in a wave.
“Sure, just follow me,” Chloe said, as his hand accidently brushed against hers. Her heart beat sped up, her breath catching in her throat. What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t even know this guy! He could be a psychopath for all she knew and here she was hormonally reacting to a guy she just met at one in the morning at Staples.
“What kind of guy takes his mother and like fourteen kids to Staples at midnight to begin with? He must be insane or something. Plus I’ll never see him again so it doesn’t even matter. School will start in a couple of weeks and I’ll see Sam again and begin my pathetic crush cycle, once more”, Chloe mused in her head, unsure of whether she was trying to reassure herself or not.
Finally, they turned the corner and reached aisle seven where Aaron’s and the rest of the children’s mother was scrutinizing a pack of pencils. She had apparently picked up shopping carts as she went and at the moment, had four filled to the top with pencils, pens, markers, crayons, notebooks, smocks and other school supplies, including, of course, at least ten packages of Sharpie markers.
“Mom. You’ve been back here for an hour.” Aaron called, stepping over the mess on the floor, packages of pencil led splayed on the floor. His mother jumped at the sound of his voice, good humored confusion spread across her face.
“No, it hasn’t. It’s only been…oh, one hour.” She said after checking her watch. She smiled and dropped the pencils into the basket and turned to Chloe.
“So, honey, you ready to ring me up?” She said brightly. Chloe bit her lip, wondering whether she should call Anthony for the master code to unlock the registers to ring up what seemed to be thousands of dollars of merchandise. At last, she smiled and nodded.
“Sure,”
~*~
Twenty minutes and one phone call in which a groggy, half dead Anthony called her Tom twice later, Chloe had rung up nine hundred eighty six dollars of school supplies and slid Ms. Wellings American Express card across the register pad. Ms. Welling had left a phone number and address for Anthony, to see how to pay for the unrepairable damages like the keyboards of the net books that the Mountain Dew boy, whom Chloe later learned was named Rick, spilled Fanta across.
“Thanks so much, honey! This stuff will last them maybe a month or so. Your name is Chloe, right? What a pretty name for such a pretty girl. Well, get home safe! Maybe Aaron will see you in school; do you go to Prishton High?” Bridget said, extraordinarily fast with no breath takes at all. Chloe was walking out with the family, the two baby carriages and four shopping carts all being pushed by the children and them.
Chloe wrapped her navy blue coat around her tightly as the winds tore through the air, her hair down and flying all over. The children had run to the car and the redheaded girl used the keys to open the doors and let them in.
“Oh, um, yeah, I do. Junior, this year,” Chloe replied, her black boots clicking slightly on the concrete sidewalk. They were in the parking lot now, completely empty other than Chloe’s red Corolla and a large white minivan on opposite sides of the lot. They stopped and looked to each other, Chloe itching to go.
“That’s wonderful! Aaron’s a senior It’s been hard for him, the move and everything, but he’ll adjust especially with a new friend in the school”, Ms. Welling trilled, her voice raising several octaves. Chloe glanced over at Aaron, a look of complete boredom on his face. For some reason, she felt offended. What had she ever done to him? But hey, it’s not like he wanted to chill in a parking lot at 1:45 AM.
“Yeah, that’ll be great,” Even to herself, Chloe heard how stupid and fake she sounded. There was a split-second of silence before Aaron clasped his hands.
“See you in school, Chloe,” Aaron said, a half smile lighting up his previously bored looking features.
“Yeah, see you,” Chloe said, before waving to Ms. Welling and turning to go. She reached her car, opened the front seat and laid back into the warm leather interior. After gunning the engine and turning the radio on to the late night station, she glanced back at the white minivan, driving away in a bustling manner all on its own.
~*~
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