Morning Shift

Subway

        Priya told Jonah she was going to take him out for a nice lunch after their shift one day to celebrate their survival of the infamous morning shift, as school was starting back in a few days, which meant they'd only be working early shifts on weekends. Still not great, but an improvement. Plus, Jonah knew on weekends Nicky couldn't get away from his siblings a lot, so the morning shift would work better for him to, which made it worth the horrible hours and shit pay.

       "Can Nicky come?" Jonah asked.

        Priya laughed until she realized Jonah was serious. "Why do you want him there? It's our celebratory lunch."

        "He comes in every day and stays with us for our whole shift. Doesn't that deserve a congratulations as well?"

        He congratulated himself for that on-the-spot excuse. Really, he just liked spending time with Nicky. Sure he came to Happy's pretty much everyday and Jonah pops over to his house a lot to listen to music and hang out, but he wanted more. When he wasn't with Nicky, he found himself thinking about him, and then he wanted to be talking to him. It was kind of nice.

        Lucky for him, Priya shrugged. "I don't see why not, but I'm not paying for his food."

        That's how Jonah found himself sitting at subway with Nicky, waiting for Priya to pull up in her car.

        "This is her idea of a nice lunch?" Nicky remarked, looking around the sandwich shop with a frown.

        Jonah shrugged. "It's not so bad. At least she's paying."

        Nicky held up the half eaten sandwich Jonah bought him a few minutes before. "Is she?"

        "She does this all the time," Jonah explained, lying a little bit. He liked that Nicky and Priya were finally warming up to each other, so he decided it was okay to tell a little white lie here and there to save one of their asses. "She'll pay me back when she gets here. You'll see."

        "That's her car right now," Nicky said, nodding over his shoulder to the big glass window.

        Jonah peered over his shoulder and, when he saw the Toyota he was referring to, his heart fell to the bottom of his stomach. He closed his eyes and turned back to Nicky, telling him, "don't look at the car."

        "Why?" He asked, "isn't it Priya's?"

         Jonah shook his head. "That guy drops her off at Happy's sometimes. It's her boyfriend."

        "Oh lovely, the famous Drew Max," Nicky joked, suppressing a smile by rolling the straw of his drink between his teeth. Both boys had heard a lot about Drew from Priya, but that was the only side Nicky got. Jonah had known Drew since elementary school, so he saw a whole different side he never had the heart (or the balls) to tell Priya about. He kept quiet when she gushed about how much of a gentleman he was or how hot his body was or whatever she went on about when he wasn't really listening.

        "Keep your head down," Jonah warned, ducking his own head and stiffening his shoulders in the hopes it would hide him from Drew and the other guys in the car.

       "Why?" Nicky asked as he did the exact opposite of what Jonah told him to and craned his neck so he could see them. "Who's he with?"

        Jonah didn't have to see their faces to know. He could hear their rough, booming voices as they entered the Subway making some dumb jokes, probably at someone else's expense. "Logan Hammond and Erik Zhang. They're on my team."

        Nicky's curious-turned-hateful stares told Jonah he knew enough about the hockey guys to get what he was insinuating. "Priya's boyfriend hangs out with those type of people?"