Marina Oneshots

Love You From a Distance

Summary: When Carina takes over a shift at her brother's restaurant she never thought she would find the love of her life. (This is a terrible summary but I promise the story is better haha!)

A/N: This is for @grangerxstories  I would say I did around 80% of your request - Carina has a different job at the start, but Maya has a completely different job - but I hope you like it regardless!

I was wondering whether to slit this up into two but I just thought that if you want you can always come back to it - plus I think it reads better as a whole but this is a long one (16,000 words) so grab a drink and a snack, get comfy and enjoy!

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It was hot. The type of hot that made your skin crawl and your forehead bead with sweat. The type of hot that made you so uncomfortable that you were almost begging for some form of relief. The type of hot that made you feel somewhat delirious at points, where you mind felt fuzzy and your throat was dry and scratchy, the last drops of water drained from the bottle around an hour ago; which retrospectively was a poor choice, that is only realised when the blast of the AC begins to have zero effect on your attempt to cool the air from the blazing heat.

The road ahead was empty, the only sight being the long stretch of road framed by copper mountains and sand, the sun high in the sky which bounced off the grey tarmac strip. A small, shimmery, reflective haze laid ahead, and no matter how far you drove would never get any closer, an illusion of the mind twisted with the heat from above.

The tyres twisted to the left, the idea of getting a cold drink being the only form of motivation that pushed her to not just spin the car around completely. As she switched the car off, she opened the door and felt the suffocating feeling of calidity enter her lungs, so much so it was painful.

When she pushed the door forward, a small silver bell chimed above her ahead and she took in a large inhale. The air was chilled, the small hum from the air conditioning filled the empty space, compared to the sticky, torturous, humid air of the Californian desert.

"You made it!" A voice said from over the counter.

"You owe me one," was all she replied, walking into the back room.

"No, honestly Carina. Thank you - I know it's your day off but I appreciate you coming all the way down here," the curly brunette man said, resting against the doorframe, his back turned while his sister quickly changed into some new clothes.

"You're my little brother, I couldn't say no," she replied with a cheeky smile, ruffling his hair as she walked past.

"Here I have some lemonade," he said, handing her a glass, condensation dripping down the glass.

She downed nearly the entire thing, her throat finally relieving itself of its parched state. "Just like mama," Carina said, noting the familiar taste.

"Just like mama," he affirmed.

"So, who else is working," she asked, picking up a notepad as well as a thigh length apron around her waist, where she stowed away a few pens as well as the paper.

"Amelia and Maggie," he responded.

"I haven't seen them in a while, I'll go and say hello," she said.

"Thank you again Carina," he said, before walking back into the kitchen.

Carina DeLuca was sister to Andrew DeLuca, who owned a small roadside cafe in the middle of the desert. If you asked Carina to guess the daily number of customers she would have guessed it to be lower than what she could count on two hands, but as she began to help her brother out she slowly realised her assumption had been far from correct.