my discotheque juliet teenage dream || byron and ivy
While she was glad that it brought in business, Ivy still didn’t get why the lines outside her food truck were so manic when it was April. The sky had been overcast all day with the light drizzle proving to be almost constant, yet people had still queued up for a hot dog or burger and had even sat themselves down on the metal tables and chairs outside. The blonde couldn’t complain, even if it had been so hectic that she’d burnt herself.
In typical Ivy fashion, she’d simply tied a damp cloth around her arm after catching it on the deep fat fryer, despite one particular customer’s insistence that she probably needed medical help. The amateur chef knew that it was no third degree burn so she was happy to treat if the way she did with most burns. After all, she was no stranger to food induced injuries.
As the day went on though, the cloth began to dry up and rub against the burn, irritating it. When it began to sting, she sighed, throwing down the mop that she was using to wipe down the outside tables and huffing in annoyance. Peeling the rag away, she caught sight of the nasty looking mark and pushed herself up onto her tiptoes so she could call to her co-worker through the gap in the van that the customers used to order.
“Kayla, babe, can you hand me another rag for my arm? It hurts like hell,” she pouted, gratefully blowing a kiss to her friend when she was presented with another cloth, sodden with icy water.
Pressing it to her burn, she let out a sigh of relief as the water worked its magic and she immediately sat down on one of the nearby chairs, ready to finally relax whilst Kayla shut up everything inside the work.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the chairs, trying to ignore the rain clouds overhead that threatened to open up on her. All she wanted was five minutes to herself after a busy day of scooping sausages into buns and covering them with fried onions, only to tip them back into the fryer as customers consistently chopped and changed their orders.
Tipping her head back contentedly, the water soothed her burn and the stinging sensation had nearly faded away altogether when she suddenly heard someone pointedly clearing their throat. She blinked her eyes open and looked expectantly at the man standing next to the table.
The shallower side of her noted that, first things first, he was pretty hot. But unfortunately, she wasn’t in a flirting kind of mood today because she was so damn tired. Any other time, and she’d have immediately been glad that she’d chosen to wear her short shorts that morning. Instead, she simply gave him an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” she told him as politely as she could before working on tying the cloth around her wrist, expertly twisting it into a knot with one hand then tugging on it with her teeth to tighten it and hold it securely. When she looked back up, the guy was still there. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Closed as in no longer in business today,” she clarified.
Being his day off, Byron generally took advantage of the day being productive. He hated to sit around when he knew there were better things that could be on the agenda for the day. Between his own house, there were renovation that still needed to be done upon the day that he bought the house and his golden retriever as well. With his dog being involved in search and rescue, there was always training he could do to make sure he was active.
He hardly made his training feel like just that, though. He never wanted his dog, Sampson, to feel like he was working, except for in the instances that he had to be called out. The thing that separated him from work and play was the moment he would strap the vest on his dog. Once that vest was on, Sampson knew he had to get to work.
Even though the weather seemed to imply that he should stay home and work on the house, he opted to take his dog out on a run. Just one longing took from the dog sitting at the front door to him favorite firefighter owner, Byron could easily be won over... and he was pretty sure his dog mastered the puppy dog eyes before he was even born.
Given he should have dressed warmer due to the overcast skies, Byron changed into gym shorts that had a small fire fighter symbol near the hem and tennis shoes, grabbed Sampson’s leash and headed out the door.
Their route was never consistent, always wanting to keep this fresh for his dog yet this time he managed to wander through Central Park, letting Sampson get a fresh look at the over abundance of trees that slowly started to turn green rather than having concrete walls surround them.
It didn’t take long for a small grumble in his stomach to disrupt his run, and he figured if he was hungry Sampson must have been too. Between the two, he wasn’t entirely sure which one of them ate more. But to his unfortunately luck, not many places in the city allowed you to bring your dog into the building unless he was a guide dog for the disabled.
Glancing around, he managed to spot a food truck out of the corner of his eye. Softly whistling down to his dog who had is eyes focused on a nearby squirrel, Byron tugged at his leash, guiding him towards the truck.
As soon as he reached the window, he could tell it looked vacant until he cleared his throat, and the woman that appeared in front of him certainly was not what he was expecting. She was attractive, to say the very least and it didn’t take long before Byron’s thoughts began to start churning. Especially since the kind of worker he usually saw in thee kind of trucks were chubby dudes with bad skin.
He smiled at her as she walked closer, not taking long before he noticed the cloth ties around her arm. Curiosity rose but not enough for him to ask, especially not since he was a complete stranger to the blatantly obvious hot cook.
He could have easily just opted to go home but some part in him was urging him to stay. Instead of thinking of some fast, snarky thing, Byron glanced down at his dog, “Could I just get a little water or something cold to eat for my dog?” He wasn’t even taking the ‘look at me, i have a dog’ approach to try and charm but it if did have that effect on her, then that was a plus. If he wanted to try that, he would have opted to a much better line.
He glanced back up at her from his dog, walking a way a bit so she could see that there was in fact a dog in his presence. “I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass.”
