Almost Cinderella

Chapter 13

"Hey, Tine."

"Tine."

"Pst, Tine."

"TineTineTineTineTine -"

"What!" Tine exclaimed, annoyed by his friends' incessant calling of his name. He had been perfecting a latte art for a customer when his friends chose to annoy him with their endless blabber.

"Tiiiineee," Phuak whined.

"What is it, Phuak, and I swear to god, it better be good or else I'll pour this steaming cup of latte on your head."

"Tine, make your boyfriend stop glaring at us!" Ohm whispered. "He's been doing that for two hours now!"

Tine's brow furrowed at that. As far as he knew, he'd been single for god knows how long now.

"You guys and I all know that I don't have a boyfriend." Tine said flatly.

"Then why is HE glaring at us whenever we get close to you?" Fong exclaimed with a quick, subtle jab of his thumb to the right.

The 'he' that Fong was referring to, apparently, was Thyme Chivaaree, who was seated at one of the tables overlooking the counter. Before Tine could say anything, though, Ohm dragged his head back down. "Don't look!" Ohm whispered. "Be subtle!"

"I don't know what's wrong with you guys." Tine said with a roll of his eyes. "He's our boss so he's probably glaring at you because you guys are slacking."

"We are not slacking!" Phuak responded in a miffed tone. "And we've already proven that it's because of you."

Tine raised a brow. "And how?"

"Well, first we tried passing behind you a bit too close for comfort to test our hypothesis. Five out of five times, we received 'the glare'." Phuak began.

"And then we tried slapping your ass. That got 'the glare' all the time, too!" Ohm declared.

"What the hell? So that's the reason you slapped my ass all those times?"

"Shh, Tine, my sweet summer child, listen. Anyway, ten minutes ago, Fong tried to whisper something in your ear, right?"

"Yeah? He said 'Zimzalabim zim-zimzalabim'. And then he giggled. And he told me to giggle. Which I didn't do, by the way."

"That was part of the test, too!" Phuak exclaimed. "And now, poor Fong sadly looks like your boyfriend wants to skin him alive with the way he's glaring at him!"

Tine sighed. It seems, to his utmost sadness, that his friends are stupid. He told them so.

Fong huffed. "I can't believe we came here for protection and we receive verbal abuse, instead."

"There is nothing to protect you from. Thyme just looks like that by default. Like, you know, he's solving the world's hardest calculus problem. Don't take it too seriously. Here, I'll show it to you."

And before his friends could stop him, Tine had raised one hand up and called: "Thyme!"

To the complete bewilderment of Tine's friends, Thyme's face visibly lit up at Tine's call. His expression, which earlier fluctuated between dispassionate and scowling, shifted to a wide smile as he trotted to the counter like an overgrown puppy.

"Tine! Hey! Your shift is up? Just, um, happened to pass by the cafe and thought I'd say hi."

He had been sitting there for three hours. That seemed an awful lot of time for someone 'passing by'. These were the thoughts of Tine's friends, but wisely, they did not voice this out.