The Crown | myg

twenty-six

Sweat drips down my face and falls into a puddle on the floor beneath me, my sweaty skin sticking to the cool tile as I lay face down, my shirt slightly lifted to allow any slightly cold air to graze across my skin in an attempt to cool me down. But, there is no cold air left, only hot.

"How much longer are you gonna make us stay here?" Chanyeol asks, his body sprawled across the tile floor in the same manner as mine. "It's like a sauna in here and-"

"This isn't a sauna, it's a bakery. I know, Chan," I say as I sit up and turn to look at him. "But we can't afford to close today, it's one of the busiest days of the week. I'll call the AC guy as soon as we close."

Chanyeol groans and stands up, his body dripping with sweat as he walks to the back of the kitchen and opens the door to the walk-in fridge. He turns to look at me before he salutes and closes the door behind him.

I growl before reaching my hand up to the counter and grabbing the phone. I guess I can call the repairman now and he should be here by the time we're ready to close, maybe even before then. Though I have enough money - from owning my own business and being in the mob - I still hope that this repair doesn't cost much.

The repairman said he would only be twenty minutes and then he would be over to do his repair. He also said that he's sure it would only cost a couple of hundred dollars, but I shouldn't get my hopes up because I'm a bakery and I need a different type of air conditioning unit than people would need in a house or apartment.

"Chan," I say as I walk into the walk-in with him, the cold air chilling my warm body to the core. "The repairman said he would be here in twenty minutes."

"And why are you telling me this?" His body is sprawled over a bunch of boxes, every limb as far away from the others as possible so his skin doesn't touch together and stick.

"You need to make it seem like we're productive people," I say as I sit on the floor beside him. "Plus, I don't pay you to sit in this walk-in, and I know you've been thinking about quitting your normal job so you can have more time off because you work here only a few days a week and make more money than that job has ever given you."

Chanyeol and I stare at each other for a few moments, the small room painfully and uncomfortably silent. The silence of this room is more chilling than the temperature, and it is, after all, a huge fridge.

Chanyeol clicks his lips together as he stands up. "I guess you're right," he sighs as he wipes his pants off and walks out of the walk-in. "I wouldn't want to upset the woman paying my bills. The strong, independent woman pay-"

"Stop trying to kiss my ass and get back to work," I say as I follow him out of the chilly room and back into the sauna I call my workplace. "Just pretend the heat hasn't been getting to you... even though we're both covered in sweat."

"Totally possible," he breathes. "Sure."

The doorbell above the front door rings and I walk out of the kitchen to see a man dressed in all black wearing a bandana over the lower half of his face standing at the register. I feel an ache in the pit of my stomach as I begin to walk toward him, my heart racing more and more with each step.

"Hello, sir," I say as I try to hold my composure. A bead of sweat drips down my forehead and nestles itself in my eyebrow. Thank god the air conditioning is broken and this man can't actually see how nervous I am. "How can I help you?"