Kelly Burke was 21 years old and had 21 minutes before her shift started, and in her eyes that made her late. Not actually late, but, like, to her it was late. Like it was currently 2:39pm (stupid bus never showed up, then she ordered her drink too late online so had to wait an extra few minutes for it to be done instead of just walking in and grabbing it like usual) and she was still in the lift, and usually if she wasn't in the locker room by at least 2:30 pm she'd be fucking panicking.
To herself. Making as few facial expressions as possible so nobody else in the work lift could tell she was fucking panicking. Again. Once was enough, and she'd already done it many more times then once in the last 3 years she'd been working at Findlays stores.
Lift temporarily out of service.
HR kept that sign in here after it broke for the fourth time in the last six months, so now the sign just sat on the floor against the wall until it was needed.
Lift temporarily out of service.
Lift temporarily out of service.
Lift temporarily out of service.
Lift temporarily out of service.
Something about reading signs in her mind to herself over and over again usually would help her calm down. She could never really figure out why, it just kinda... soothed her, almost like a lullaby.
The lift finally reached the 5th floor, and as it opened she dashed towards the door, punching the security code into the keypad.
It obviously didn't work, so she put it in again.
As soon as the green light came up, she pushed the door open and went straight for the locker room. She opened her bag, took out her name badge from the side pocket.ย She never locked her locker, just left a keychain on it so HR would think there was a lock. She opened her locker and quickly threw her bag in, then closed her locker back up again. She didn't really have anything worthy of stealing in there anyway, since she kept her phone in her fleece pocket and never had any cash on her, and she couldn't tap her card on the card readers either.
She walked back out to the lift, putting on her gold, reflective name badge onto her fleece.
The black writing simply read:
Kelly B, because there were a couple other Kelly's, Kellies and even a Kelley-Rose who worked on the supermarket floor as well as the several other floors in the shop.
As she stepped into the lift, she opened her phone to check the time.
"Ten minutes, that's good." She said to nobody.
As she watched the numbers go down
5 - where the lockers, staff toilets, canteen and grocery stock room were
4 - where the drapery stock room and other lockers were
3 - the store restaurant and customer toilets
2 - childrens and homeware
-1 - the supermarket, aka the dungeon. No windows, basically no air conditioning, no life.
The floor numbering never really made any sense to her. Like, shouldn't -1 be 0 and 0 be 1?
As she started to make her way over to the clock in room, she glanced up at the travelators. One was for coming down into the supermarket, right into the fruit and veg section, while the other was for leaving the supermarket. She could see the approximately 15-20 customers using them to either leave or enter.
One in particular caught her eye. An older well dressed woman, maybe mid 40s at a push, was making her way over to Kelly, walking off of the travelator, which led right into the fruit and veg section. "Sorry love d'you work here?" She asked. No hi, no politeness, apparently no fucking eyes either, or else she would've seen the name badge. "Where's the fruit and veg section?".
Nah, I just dress like this cause I'm a big fan of the owner Bridget Findlay is what Kelly wanted to say.
"Yeah I do, it's just right over there" she said in the sweetest customer service voice she could force while pointing over at the section the woman just walked right past without even thanking her
She turned right, the clock-in room door was already open, and she could see a few of her co workers in there already, just talking to each other. They were always nice to her, she was just too nervous to talk to most people.
She hated walking into a room where people were talking, she didn't want anyone to think she was eavesdropping or being nosey (even if she sometimes was, just not intentionally). She just walked up, pressed her finger on the machine, waited for the screen to say
As soon as the green screen came up, she left the room.
Quite literally the second she did, she basically ran straight into a customer, a cute one at that. Auburn hair, tall, big muscles, freckles, a nice smile. And also his hand placed very awkwardly on his chest clearly holding something in his under armour hoodie.
Only reason she felt like guys ever smiled at her was 1. They were underage and trying to trick her into thinking their fake ids were real and 2. The creepy old men were staring at her breasts, which were both fortunately and unfortunately huge, a somehow both positive and negative side effect of her being very overweight (the big boobs/creepy old men thing, though the big boobs definitely did come in handy though on the dating apps).
"Sorry!" She shouted without even thinking
He just smiled at her "no worries, I shouldn't be walking around with my phone anyway. But, while I have you..." he glanced at her name badge, actually looking at her name badge, not like when the creepy old men pretend to, "...Kelly... do you guys actually sell any J2O here or am I just blind?"
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Growing up, 22 year old Harry Williams always felt like the odd one out amongst his brothers. He had three of them, Simon and Oliver were 36 and 35 from his mum Annies first marriage and his brother Lewis, 30, was from his dad Davids first marriage. It wasn't that he didn't get along with them or anything, he just felt... like a baby. Plus, it would be kind of an asshole move for a 19, 18 and 13 year old to make fun of their 5 year old little brother.
It didn't help either when he and his parents moved from Croydon to Cork City 3 months ago after his mum and dad decided they wanted a change of scenery.
Yeah, Harry didn't see the difference in scenery either.
Simon and Ollie had chosen to obviously stay in Croydon while Lewis stayed in Edinburgh where he and David were from. They all had lives, partners, friends, actual careers, and Harry just... didn't.
When he was a teenager he started to workout thinking it would give him a sense of purpose, and don't get him wrong he liked having the muscles and the big chest (or tits as his friends in Croydon would say) and he did love working out, but it wasn't exactly his life's purpose.
When he moved to Cork City, he thought it'd be easy to find a job the same week he moved to the city.
He'd applied to everywhere: JD, Tesco, Primark (or Penneys, as it was called here for some reason), Scoozis, Cafe Nero, Brown Thomas, Old Oak, O'Briens, literally everywhere and the only reply was from Tesco which basically told him to go fuck himself but in a much more appropriate way.
And ya know what made it even worse? He had no friends here. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Back in Croydon his days were filled with him making steak bakes in Greggs and hanging out with his mates.
Buster was this 8 year old white Pomeranian his mum got him for his 14th birthday who Harry loved more than anything in the world. The fact that he was also very small came in handy for when Harry had to sneak him onto the bus, like he was right now.
"Buster shut up!" Harry whispered at the lump under his grey under armour hoodie. He could feel Busters paws hitting his chest in protest. "City centre please" he said to the bus driver while scanning his leap card. She barely even glanced at him through her black sunglasses.
She's probably seen way worse Harry thought to himself.
As soon as Harry climbed to the top of the double decker bus and sat in the very front, he carefully lifted Buster (who immediately attacked his face with little licks) out of his hoodie.
Harry couldn't help but smile.
"Aww, he's lovely! What's his name love?" He heard a voice behind him say. He turned around to see an 80 something year old woman smiling at Buster. He felt a bit awkward looking at her, or rather looking down on her, because he was 6ft 2 and she was, well, a tiny 80 something year old woman.
"Buster", though his accent made it sound more like Bustah.
"You're not Irish are you?" Harry was surprised by her blunt question.
"No", he replied. "I'm um, I'm actually from Croydon, you know in London? I moved over here a few months ago with my mum and dad. Do you know if any shops around here sell J2O? I haven't been able to buy any since I moved over"
The old woman pondered for a second. "Findlays is your best bet, they're on Patricks Street. They've got everything. Ya got a girlfriend yet? Handsome young fella like you probably have all the girls running after him."
Harry just shook his head. He turned to the window and could see Merchants Quay shopping centre, his stop.
"I've got to go now, but it was nice meeting you" he smiled at her sheepishly.
"You too love, I'm Sandra".
"Harry." He said, shoving Buster, who yipped at him, into his hoodie again as he carefully climbed down the stairs, silently praying the driver wouldn't take off with him and Buster on them especially since he had one hand under Buster and the other on the railing, and exited the bus, not before politely saying "thank you!" to the bus driver.
As soon as he stepped off bus, he started searching his pockets for Busters leash and collar, his hoodie pocket, his left pants pocket, his right pants pocket
He'd forgotten leash. He'd remembered to put his keys in his hoodie pocket, a small bag of dog biscuits in his left pants pocket and his wallet in his right pants pocket, and he forgot the dog collar and leash.
He looked down into his hoodie, Buster immediately licking his face again. "Sorry buddy, looks like you'll have to stay in here til we get home."
As he walked through Merchants Quay shopping centre he could feel all eyes on him, security, dunnes staff, M&S staff, even the customers. He could literally see the security radioing each other, probably because it looked liked he'd shoved a shit load of alcohol down his hoodie.
He debated going into M&S first to see if they'd have J2O in there, surely an English company would have an English drink... but security was literally 2 feet away from him, and if Buster barked once he'd be fucked completely. So, he made a mental note to come back another day.
As he left the supermarket and walked past the buskers and the leprechauns that seem to blare music between Brown Thomas and Centra at all hours, he could see several men and women staring at him, and listen a lot of them were good looking but others were just giving him the heebie jeebies.
"Buster shh!" He probably looked insane talking to the moving, wriggling lump in his chest.
Harry reached into his pocked for the bag of dog biscuits as he heard someone whisper "fucking weirdo" behind him. He managed to grab one of the biscuits and drop it into Busters mouth as he waited for then green man at the traffic light. The button for it was broken.
That doesn't seem very safe? Harry thought.
"Fuckin hell that's bright" Harry said to himself as soon as he walked into Findlays Stores, seemingly the shop with the brightest fucking lights in the world.
He looked around in a circle for a bit, before seeing a group of three elderly women taking their shopping trolleys to the escalator.
"Excuse me, do you know where the supermarket is?" He asked them. "It's just down here!" The shortest of them shouted a bit too loudly, causing every customer (not the staff) to look over.
Harry just nodded his head awkwardly as he stood behind them on the travelator.
Standing there felt like standing for fifty years, just listening to the old ladies chatting about life and their weekend drinking plans.
They all turned jarringly at the bark, just staring at Harry. "Was that you?" The tallest one asked. Harry just shook his head no in embarrassment and hugged Buster closer to his chest.
As he got off the travelator, a thought popped into his head.
Maybe I should get a picture up to show one of the staff members?
Without even thinking, he started walking around with his phone in one hand, and the other hand holding Buster. He was away in his own world until-
"Sorry!" He heard a female voice shout.
He didn't even blink, he just smiled at her "no worries, I shouldn't be walking around with my phone anyway. But, while I have you..." he glanced at her name badge, definitely not anywhere near her chest, "...Kelly... do you guys actually sell any J2O here or am I just blind?"
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Kelly looked around her "ummmm..."
Harry practically shoved his phone in her face, hoping the the photo of J2O orange and mango would help her remember, "this is what the bottle looks like if that helps?". While she was trying to look at the photo, Harry finally took a proper look at her face, her blue eyes, her blonde hair in a messy half bun, her naturally rosy cheeks.
She stared at it as she tried to remember if they sold anything like it. "I don't think we sell that in Ireland, closest is maybe club orange, or orangina or maybe...cidona possibly?"
Harry honestly felt a bit disappointed by that. For weeks, all he'd been wanting was a bottle or two of it. Hell, he even debated asking Simon or Ollie to send him a case and he'd give them the money.
"Alright, well, thanks any-"
BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK!
Before Harry could even fully process what was going on, Buster shoved his head through the top of Harrys hoodie.
Kelly just stared before she started to giggle.
"Shit I am so so sorry, I completely forgot his leash and collar this morning-" bark! "oh my god this is so embarrassing." Harry had started to blush in embarrassment, and maybe something else, without even realising.
Kelly didn't realise she was blushing either. The two just stared at each other, faces red as two tomatoes
Harry finally cut the tension. "I'm Harry", he put out his hand.
"Kelly.... Which you already knew" she laughed quietly again.
They stood there for just a few more seconds.
Harry glanced behind her and groaned as he noticed security approaching him.
"I guess I better take Buster home, thank you again for your help... so sorry if I embarrassed you." He said as he left for the travelator.
"You're grand, don't worry!" She replied. Then she glanced at her phone. 3:07pm.
"Shit!" She shrieked, as she ran as fast as she could to the customer service checkout, wishing she was still talking to the cute Harry guy.
