Roommates & Soulmates

Ch140: Alec's Gossip

Alec slowly moved the slicer back and forth over the blade as little slices of headcheese fell on the parchment paper. It was the name 'head cheese' that made this particular deli meat so very unappealing to him. Cheese cooked into meat was one thing but head cheese? What really were they trying to say? This cheese was made from heads and we put meat in it?

"When was that opened?"

Alec turned to see his batty customer looking with her face all scrunched up with displeasure.

"Just now for you," Alec lied.

"Oh, alright then," the old lady smiled, though Alec couldn't see it as genuine. It felt like a fake 'I don't like you' smile to Alec. Well the feeling was mutual; he didn't like her either.

Wrapping up her 200g of head cheese, Alec turned to hand it over, and hopefully never see this lady again.

"Have a nice day," Alec said with likely a similar fake smile to hers as she placed the deli meat - if you could call it that with a name like head cheese - into her chart and moved on.

"You gotta learn not to take it so personal," This time Alec's smile was indeed from the heart, and he turned to see Maia smirking at him. "You get all worked up over other people's drama. If you want to work in customer service, you gotta stop that."

"I can't help it," Alec whined.

"I know," Maia sighed. "And even now, I can't quite decide if that's extreme empathy or nosiness."

"Speaking of being nosey," Alec began, but Maia broke him off.

"Those over there," she said sharply, pointing to a stack of pans and trays beside the sink. "They need cleaning."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get to them," Alec dismissed her passive aggressive instruction. "What's going on with you and Jordan?"

"For the last time, NOTHING is going on between me and Jordan," Maia sighed, clearly frustrated. "What needs to be going on is between you and those dishes."

"Urg," Alec groaned. "Now I know how my maid felt."

"Overworked and underappreciated," Maia chipped in as Alec made his way to the sink. Unfortunately he didn't get a chance to reply as Maia was called away by a customer just seconds later.

By the time Alec had watched Maia present the customer with a sample thickness of their sliced deli meat, and reject it for the third time he was glad he was doing dishes. Never in a million years would Alec have guessed that people cared this much about sliced meat thickness, had he not seen it with his own eyes.

"I suppose that will do," the unhappy sounding women said as Maia showed her the fourth one. "But only 125g then, please."

Alec couldn't actually see them, but he was listening intently while trying to scrape chicken guts off cooking pans.

"Have a nice day," Maia said as Alec heard the unmistakable sound of a deli meat bag changing hands.

"Urg," Maia complained.

Alec turned away from his task to address her as he spoke. "I'll take the next horrible customer if you tell me the Jordan gossip."

"There really isn't any," Maia sighed, looking like she'd kill for a chance to sit down. Alec couldn't blame her. His feet and legs still weren't used to this standing all day everyday employment thing, though it was getting better. The first few weeks he'd worked here, Alec had spent every night in a sering hot bath so he could sleep without his legs aching.

"Oh, come on," Alec urged. "That can't be true. I heard it was super awkward when you came home to find him on your couch."

"He's friends with Simon," Maia shrugged.