The Thieves: Stealing Bethany

Chapter 3

This one's kind of long! ^_^   Don't forget to star, comment, follow! Happy reading!

Tuesday, September 16th 4:43 p.m. PST, 25 days to deadline

“What are you doing?!” I screeched, leaping over a box of sunscreen and skirting around a pile of surfboards to reach Dom, who was sitting on the floor of the back room, surrounded by piles of merchandise and crumpled cardboard boxes.

He looked taken aback, eyes wide as he watched my frantic dash to his side. “I’m organizing the inventory. I thought you said part of the job was putting up the shipments?”

I sighed, rubbing my throbbing temples as I took in the utter havoc he’d wreaked. There were haphazard piles of swimwear, flip flops, tangled jewelry, and beach towels spread over the floor. The boxes it had all come in had been ripped open and bent in random configurations rather than neatly cut with box cutters and broken down flat.

“I was just taking some initiative. What’s the problem?” He looked so genuinely confused I couldn’t find the heart to yell at him, even though all I wanted to do was go off on him for being a complete idiot.

I’d barely gotten through a quick outline of their duties on the job before a large group of guys came in and I had to stop training to help the customers. Chance had followed me like a puppy, just watching silently as I pointed out our board selection. I’d been so wrapped up in the sale I hadn’t noticed Dom had disappeared.

I was going to go in depth in my instructions of how to deal with inventory, but Dom must have heard “we handle the merch shipments” and thought that was all the instruction he needed.

I marched over to the first row of shelves and grabbed the clipboard and box cutter. I held them both up like a flight attendant demonstrating the safety features on a plane. “This,” I waved the clipboard, “is the order manifest. Every time we get a shipment, the first thing we have to do is go through the order and match it to the boxes. If there’s something missing, or something we received that we didn’t order, you note it on the clipboard and put it on Brandon’s desk. This,” I slid up the blade on the box cutter, “is how we open the boxes. Notice that we don’t have any racks or hangers back here. That means that all the apparel stays in the boxes until we put it on the sales floor. Everything else goes in the designated spots on the shelves. Not,” I looked down my nose at the pile of sunscreen dumped on the floor, “the ground.”

“Ah,” he said, biting his lip. “So what you’re saying is I should leave this to the professionals and go help Chance with the customers. On it!” He jumped up, tossing me a saucy wink before slipping past me and rejoining Chance out front.

            An unexpected laugh bubbled up as I stared at the mess he’d left me to deal with. I should be seriously pissed, but there was just something about Dom that made it impossible to stay mad at him.

            Twenty minutes later I’d done the best I could putting the back room to rights, so I headed out to the front to see what mischief Dom had gotten into there. At first glance, everything appeared to be in order. He was at the register ringing up a truly hideous straw hat for a tourist (the fanny pack gave it away). Chance was standing by the swim suits with a pretty red head who looked to be our age. I started to approach the register to watch Dom and make sure he handled the receipts correctly, but an exclamation from the red head had me swerving mid stride.

            “Huh? I can’t hear you. What’d you say?” the red head practically screamed, cupping her hands around her ears.

            Chance’s face was beet red and tilted firmly down towards the floor. I couldn’t hear his response, but the girl rolled her eyes and turned to me as I sidled up to them, a smile plastered on my face.