Across The Street

[17] fragile hearts

"You say that you're no good for me cause I'm always tugging at your sleeve..."
Ghost - Halsey

°°°

[17] fragile hearts

Claire did work on Tuesdays. And so did I. But it wasn't like I had anything better to do considering it was summer. I could easily ask my parents for more days off, but I knew that they needed all the help they could get around here and I was willing to do that.

It was kind of slow at eleven. David was sitting on the counter, my mom was upstairs taking a nap, and my dad left to go get some food we were running low on. Claire was sitting at a booth in the corner, pouring salt on the table and drawing shapes with her fingers.

I walked over to her and sat down, "It'd be best if you don't let my dad catch you doing that," I grinned. "He'd yell at you for wasting precious salt."

"Good thing he isn't here then, isn't it?" She said, looking over at me.

"You put your hair up," I pointed out. It was in a simple pony tail, but I could see the shape of her face more clearly now without all the hair covering it up. I debated whether or not I liked it up or down better. Then I wondering why I was even thinking such ridiculous things.

"Oh, yeah," she said, a finger playing at the end of her pony tail. "I figured I'd try something a little different."

"It looks nice." I said, smiling kindly at her.

"Um, thanks." Claire stood up. "I'm just gonna go use the bathroom."

"Okay," I said and watched her walk away.

David wasn't cooking currently considering to our slow pace, so he walked over to me and grinned. "Nolan, since it's slow right now, do you want something to eat?"

"Oh, I don't want to trouble you though," I said. "Plus, I can always make myself something to eat in the kitchen without you doing it."

"Yeah, but you cook all the time. You should have a break, David."

David just patted my shoulder and let a smile stretch onto his face. "It's perfectly fine, okay? If it wasn't, I wouldn't be asking you." David turned on his heel and made his way back to the kitchen, "I'll cook some burgers for us. Tell Claire I'm making her one, too." Before entering the kitchen fully, he turned and winked at me.

°°°

"Thanks for the burger, David," said Claire, wiping her mouth and standing up to go throw her trash away.

"It's no problem," he smiled. Claire sat back down and I chewed the rest of my burger. It was pretty quiet at the diner except the soft music we always had playing. No one was even here at the moment, so we didn't have much to do except just sit around. But David had went back to the kitchen so he could clean some of the dishes. Claire and I began to clean off of the table we had eaten at. Just as we had cleared the table completely, my dad walked through the door holding two bags full of groceries.

"We're running slow today, I see," he said, setting the bags on the bar.

"Yep," said Claire, walking over to him and helping him put up the groceries. "It hasn't been too busy, but I think it will later."