The Barista who didn't like Coffee

Babysitting (?)

raconteur: noun

/rakɒnˈtəː/'

a person who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way.

eg:"You consider yourself a roconteur whereas I find you to be as articulate as a circus sea lion."

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"You did what?"

I held my phone to my ear with one hand and placed another one on my hip. Brenda pleaded on the other end, "Please please please I really need to get some LA worthy outfits please, I can't put this off any longer."

I scoffed. "Why cant you take Cindy shopping with you?" I said. Cindy was Brenda's roommate's daughter, whom Brenda had conveniently forgotten she had to babysit.

"Come on babe," Brenda said, "you've seen me in a bikini, do you really think a fifteen year old can handle my smokin' hot bod'? Besides I need more of those."

I groaned tiredly. "But Brenda you can't just tell Abby I'm coming over to babysit without asking me! And what mi supposed to do with Paulo?"

"But Brenda," she said, mocking me, "Oh, suck it up its not like you had any plans anyway. And Cindy loves Paulo stop making excuses."

"Actually as a matter of fact-"

"Hold that thought," she said, and I heard a muffled 'see you later Abby, my friend's going to be here any minute' and she was back on the line. "Look Abby's gone and I can't leave until you get here so you better get your skinny ass on the next subway to my place or I will kill you."

"But-but-" I complained uselessly as the line went dead. "You're a butt, Brenda!" I yelled into the receiver and slammed the phone down.

I'd spent all day working on how I was going to go about my 'project'. The whole time I was at work I was researching different coffee drinks and shops near and around my town. I'd prepared an itinerary of sorts, and I was going to discuss with Aiden that afternoon when he got off at three. He was working Brenda's shifts which I'd come to become very familiar with.

But apparently my afternoon wasn't as free as I'd originally thought. I hauled myself off my bed, which I had been lazing on scrolling through my Tumblr feed, and started changing out of my sweat pants. "Paulo, we're going out. You wanna see Cindy?" I called.

Paulo came bounding round the corner, his tail wagging madly. Paulo loved Cindy, mostly because, unlike me, she snuck him food off the table whenever we went to Brenda's place for dinner. However, unlike me, she didn't have to deal with explosive doggy diarrhoea.

I was ready to leave when something struck me. I rushed into my bedroom, grabbed my laptop and ran outside. Three firm raps on Aiden's door and he opened it, looking more surprised than annoyed.

"You're coming with me," I ordered, and grabbed him by the wrist. He stumbled after me with the most bewildered of looks. "Where-what?" He managed, as he hopped down the stairs after me and a hyperactive corgi.

"I'll explain on the way."

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Brenda lived on the twentieth floor of this ginormous glass monster of a building. Her apartment was so high up the first time I visited her I swore the air was thinner up there. She lived a short distance away from my place, but it was a journey of about fifteen minutes on the sub. This left me with hardly enough time to explain my plan of action to Aiden, who kept spacing out.