Fur

13 | Drifters

My muscles jerk at the loud, obnoxious summons. The first time, at the instinctual jerk, Zakai holds tight to my hand. At the second intentional one he releases it. I immediately jump up and out of the booth, and although I half believe it to have been in my head, I think I hear the subtlest of growls as I do.

"I'll get it, Leila!" Lattie calls, hopping down from her stool with a springy energy that I can't fathom having at this time of the day.

"No!" I exclaim, my heart skipping as I rush to cut her off. "I mean no, don't worry about it. I've got it."

I beeline for the table, getting there before Lattie can reach the end of the counter. The booze I'd smelled on our customers is now weakened by the aroma of warmed sugar and baked dough, though it is, without a doubt, still present. From the pocket of my apron I pull out my server's tablet and rip off the page containing their bill, which I'd already written out shortly after their arrival.

It might be considered rushing them, but our lovely inebriated customers have stayed long enough. From the moment they stepped foot inside the café—having appeared seemingly out of nowhere—a primal instinct deep within me has been buzzing.

I lay the bill in the center of the table, making no assumptions as to whose paying: one of Nanni's many hospitality lessons. I then turn to leave, to give them time to discuss that matter in private, but one of the men speak up to stop me.

"Wait," the only sober man in the group calls out, "I have it here."

He presents a stack of euros in his hand. He extends the money out to me, reaching over the grinning man sitting on the outermost seat of the booth. When I go to take it, he jerks it away.

He wants to play a game.

"What if I were to pay with card?" He asks, but the shit-eating smirk half hidden amid the wiry hairs of his untrimmed mustache and beard tells me he knows exactly what he's doing.

I'm unable to put on the friendly customer service smile Nanni worked so hard to condition me to. She spent countless hours training me to work for her, to be gregarious and polite to every customer no matter their own rudeness for the sole fact that money from the pockets of assholes is as good as the money from those of angels. But the muscles of my face can't be bothered to contract, and so I just stare at this man, my face blank and my eyes dead.

I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint Nanni this time.

"Then I would take your card and come back with a receipt," I answer calmly, never bothering to look away. I want his seat to feel hot; I want him to feel put on the spot, scrutinized, because he seems the type to enjoy doing it to others. I'm in no mood to play his game, whatever his reason for playing it is, because I would rather return to the booth containing Zakai and the conversation which one of these men so gratingly interrupted.

I might have been more humoring of them, even, if they had only been kinder in their summons. But they hadn't, and it seems I've misplaced my patience in a location to be found at a later date.

"You just swipe it, right?" He asks me, and I notice his dull, predatory eyes teasing at something past my shoulder... in the exact direction where Lattie is sitting behind the register, happily awaiting any work to be done. Suddenly this game's purpose is clear. "Do you think maybe I could go do it?"

My fist clenches where it rests draped in the pocket of my apron. I don't like losing games, but more than that I don't like letting others win. At least not these players.

"I don't see why you would. If it's a security issue you're worried about I assure you your card is completely safe. There's nothing I could do with it that my boss won't see on the cameras."