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I hear the snickers behind me and nearly explode right then and there. “No,” I say with a tight smile. “Not quite.”
I hand her card back and package her shoes into our classy plastic bag. “Thank you so much for coming in,” I say sweetly.
As soon as Maggie leaves the building, I spin around. Sally and Kevin’s snickers halt and they stare at me terrified as if I’ve suddenly turned into a fire-breathing dragon about to barbecue them alive.
“What are you two doing back here?” I ask as calmly as possible. “We just got in a shipment of clothes and all of them need to be unpacked, steamed, and put out. Instead, I find the two of you flirting while I’m waiting on a customer.”
“I’m sorry, Seth,” Sally murmurs.
Kevin nods. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
I watch them scatter to the stockroom. Unfortunately, if they’re both back there, I’m more likely to find them fucking than actually doing any work, but at least I don’t have to hear or see them.
I groan and lean against the counter. Morgan takes her place back at the computer. The only reason why I’m not yelling at her is because she’s in charge of the store’s website, so she can pretend to work all she wants. At least she does it quietly.
“You okay there?” Morgan asks. “You didn’t have to go all batshit-crazy on Sally and Kevin.”
“They annoy the fuck out of me.”
“They annoy me too, but it can be funny watching them fuck shit up.”
I scowl at her, but she’s too busy typing to notice. “I’m the one who has to clean their fuckups.”
Morgan chuckles. “Yeah. That’s fun to watch too.”
“I should have you fired,” I say while straightening myself.
“But you won’t, because I’m the only one here you can rely on to get shit done.”
She does have a point. I lean against the wall, watching her type the newsletter we plan on sending out this week listing the new shoes coming in and the new running belts. They now come in bright pink and blue. We also have a weekend fun run, which will hopefully get us some more customers to sign up for our marathon training program. Each newsletter after will feature a different runner, telling their story about how they got into the sport and what keeps them going. Blah, blah, blah—it’s all boring shit. And I have to pretend all this crap means something to me.
“I can’t believe this is going to be the rest of my life,” I wail, instantly regretting it when Morgan turns around.
I can’t believe I opened my mouth. That was supposed to stay locked inside my head for all eternity.
“What are you talking about?” Morgan asks, looking at me as if I’ve completely lost it.
Maybe I have.
I sigh and hake my had. “Sally and Kevin—talking about their futures and all they plan on doing. I feel like I’m going to be stuck in this store forever. I’m just going to be a manager, listening to old people stories and hanging out with college students who will brag on and on about their nicely planned out futures. And I will never have my own career.”
Morgan spins around on her stool and stares at me. “Is this about you not getting into the Olympics?”
I grimace. “Yeah.”
What’s the use in lying about it? It really hurt when the Olympics rejected me. I always thought I would run the rest of my life. That would be my career. A runner. That’s it. Now that my running career has died before even getting off the ground, I have no clue what to do with my life. This store is all I know.
“You do realize those idiots have no clue either, right?”
I give her a look that obviously says I did not realize, which earns me an exasperated sigh.
“Sally is going to East Lansing, but she doesn’t know if she can afford all the bills. Her parents aren’t paying for grad school. And Kevin hasn’t even found a school to go to after his undergrad ends. Nobody ever knows how the future is going to work out for them, which is why they talk about it. It’s both exciting and terrifying, really.”
“Well, I have nothing to talk about,” I grumble.
Morgan rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you will. You’re still going through your mourning stage.”
