Gunpowder and Hyacinths

chapter nine

Ophelia's pov

Thank god it's Friday. Ughh, I'm so exhausted. This whole week I've been working the register. Don't get me wrong it's nice being out front but it gets boring if you do it too often. Its currently 20:50pm (almost 9pm). In about an hour we will close. We keep the bakery open an extra 2 hours on Friday's. The reason? Well it's simple.

Just imagine... Your coming from work drained and miserable yet happy that you have the next 2 days off. Your driving down the street. Most shop windows appearing full with only the distant street lights to highlight the 'closed' sign. Then, a bright light appears at the corner.

'Is my time already?' you ask yourself. No. The light is not that bright. You slow down and soon come to a stop. You park your car off and peer into "Le Dauphin d'argent". You slightly squint as you admire all the tasty pastries softly calling your name. You decide to be a man or woman and do the only logical thing.

You enter the shop. You are greeted by a middle aged, friendly man. You obviously won't see me cause my shift would have ended at 8 ;). Upon further inspection you see all the delicious desserts. The presentation is also amazing. The purple macaroons on the beautiful glass stand. Even Cinderella's fairy godmother couldn't do that.

You browse through all the desserts. You end up buying more than you'd thought and leave a nice hefty tip in the tip bottle, which was just a washed vodka bottle. As you settle down in your car you gently place the pastries on the passenger side seat. You open the first box and slide a macaroon out. You take a bite. The flavour dances on your tongue and down your throat. Before you know it you've already eaten 2.

'Best thing that's happened all day' you think to yourself.

And that's why we are open an extra 2 hours. To help the tired and miserable souls. I glance down at my phone. It's already 9 pm. The door bell rings as the door is roughly pushed open. Henri walks in leaving the door to close itself in a not so quiet manner.

"You. Me. Club. Now!" That's the first things that he says.

"Hey Ophelia, how was your day? Not too bad and yours? Ehh the usual. You know order in this court order in that court. People's dogs stepping on bees."

He raises one eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest. "When your done we really should get going."

"Seriously. Well since it's Friday I'm going to let that one slide. But I can't. I told my dad I'd cover the night shift."

"Please liaaa~" he whines. "Just tell him you will cover the next one."

Now it's my turn to raise my eyebrow and cross my arms. " I don't know if he will say yes."

"Come on your a grown ass woman. Grow a pair and ask him."

"Wow. First off he's also my employer not just my dad. And second off I have a pair and their bigger than yours."

Just as he was going to respond my dad walked in.

"Hey Henri how-"

"Hey Mr Duval is it okay with you if I took Ophelia for a couple of drinks tonight. I know that she was in the middle of a shift but she said she will make it up to you by covering an extra shift."

"Hey I never agreed to-"

"And don't worry I'll take care of her and I promise she will be back by 1."

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

"Uhmm, sure. She needs to get out more anyway. Maybe she will meet a nice guy so he can take her away from us. Hahaha." My father responded.

Did he just-

Did my own father just insult me? And hope I find a man so I won't live here anymore? Unbelievable. Their lucky all the knives are in the kitchen.

"Well don't just stand there let's go. We gotta make you look presentable to find you a man." Rafael says with a mocking smile on his face. Oh how I wish I could just smack him with a chair right now.