In Charlie's Arms

09 • Him Again

Seraphina wanted nothing more than to leave work and take a long, peaceful nap, but the only things that prevented that from happening were the five hours left on her shift and a tray of cookies she had just dropped on the ground.

"What was that noise?!" She heard her grandmother call out from the front of the café, questioning the loud clang of the metal tray hitting the ground.

Sera quickly threw on an oven mitt—the one she had forgotten to slip one when she went to grab the cookies out of the oven initially.

"Nothing!" Sera called back, hoping that she wouldn't come investigating.

It was the third time something like this had happened to her that day. Earlier she had accidentally overfilled a coffee mug, and not long after that she caught herself almost putting salt instead of sugar into the cookie dough.

The main culprit behind her distractedly careless actions were her own thoughts. They had been focused on anything and everything but whatever task she was performing, mainly centering on Miles and the possibility of him showing up at work with a bouquet of roses and another speech about how great of a boyfriend he would be to her.

And if they weren't focused on Miles, then Charlie was at the forefront. They often liked to replay the scene of him lifting up the car, detailing about how nearly impossible it should have been for him to do that.

She had researched about it the night prior, finding out that a car her size weighed roughly 3,000 lbs, and estimated that he had to have lifted about 1,500 lbs—all without a single sign of strain.

"Oh gosh, how'd you manage that?" Krista asked from the doorway of the kitchen, snapping Sera out of her thoughts.

Krista looked down at her friend, who was on the ground picking up hot cookies with her mitt-clad hand.

"I forgot to put on the oven mitt," Sera explained, lifting up her wounded hand. The tips of her fingers were burnt and tight, a crisp, red line running down her palm where the edge of the tray had seared the flesh.

"Go doctor your hand," Krista offered, grabbing an oven mitt from on top of the counter, "I'll clean this up."

Sera muttered a "thank you" and scurried towards the break room where the first aid kit was kept.

She was becoming increasingly frustrated with her wounded hand, realizing that working with a wound like this on her dominant hand would be very painful.

Minutes later, when she had her burns slathered in cream and wrapped in various bandaids and gauze, she emerged from the break room to see Krista picking up her slack.

"All good?" Krista asked, eyeing the wrapped hand.

"Yep, though it's going to be brutal trying to anything from now on," Sera complained. She leaned up against the counter as Krista slipped a fresh batch of cookies into the oven. "Please tell me Miles called in sick today . . ."

Krista turned her back to the oven, shooting her friend a sorry look before shaking her head.

Sera groaned aloud.

"He actually should be here any minute," Krista informed as she turned to observe the clock on the oven.

As if he had heard her words, Miles made his grand entrance into the kitchen, an unfamiliar black duffle bag slung over his shoulder.