meraki.

Edge Of Seventeen

"What is the dessert that you never got right?" - Dom's voice echoed off the walls of the silent kitchen.

The coffee shop was mostly empty, let alone Dom's mother, Gloria, that was busy fixing the tables and deciding if it was indeed time to renovate the space a little bit or leave it like that because customers seemed to love that.

It was almost closing time, the day had been a little slow with not many customers coming in due to the weather alert that had been released on the previous night: code red, all schools closed, public transportation reduced to the least and people doing their best to not walk down the streets if they could help it.

For some reason, the sky had been angry all week, with rain falling down everyday in big pours that left the streets flooded and the general moods as black as the clouds that littered the skies. Thunders and lightnings tore the air from time to time, illuminating everything around them like an enraged flash from a broken camera.

For some reason, the lightnings had always seemed to fall and hit very close to the coffee shop, to the point that Gloria had peeked her head inside of the kitchen a couple of times to make sure that everything was fine and nothing was catching on fire while she wasn't looking. She wasn't known for going down into the coffee shop very often, but she was too scared to remain home and watch as the violent wind shook everything around her beloved building and hear the window panes shaking due to the force of the wrathful nature on the ouside. She just didn't want the two guys to know that she was scared.

So she had occupied herself with anything she could think of to remain inside of the main spaces of the coffee shop without arising any questions from her two employees.

"Mmmmmmmh." - Harry slowly nodded his head, his lips unintentionally puckering a bit as he pondered his answer. He was sitting on one of the spinning chairs they had moved from the staff's room into the kitchen when they had understood that no one would've go into the coffee shop that day. - "Alright! I got it!" - he clapped his hands once he finally found the answer, perking both of his listeners' interest.

He looked around the room, hands pressed on both of his thighs, letting the anticipation build before finally answering.

"A fruit's box with shortcrust pastry. The thing just never... It never sticks together, no matter what I try to use as glue. I gave up after the thirteenth attempt." - he confessed, raising one hand and biting his thumb.

"Oh my God, flop!" - Dom shook his head, mouth hanging open.

He was sitting on the other side of the room, backwards on a plastic chair, his forearms resting on the backrest, legs spread open, holding his phone with both hands.

"You said you wouldn't have judged any answer, what the fuck!" - Harry protested, one accusatory finger pointed at his best friend, as the other chuckled.

"I did." - Dom nodded his head seriously. - "You're still a flop, I don't make the rules." - he shrugged.

"You try and make a shortcrust pastry box and stick it together, meanie!"

"Ok, flop!"

"I can't believe this!" - Harry exclaimed just as another lightning lit up the room and tinted everything of a weird orange-ish shade. His gaze momentarily flicked to the kitchen's window, a flash of anger appearing and disappearing as quickly as the lightning had just a few seconds prior, before the thunder made everything around them tremble a bit with its power as it exploded outside. Then, his attention fell on the third person sitting in the room, knees hugged to her chest and chin resting on them. - "Defend me a bit!" - he pleaded.

Anna shrugged her shoulders, retreating into herself and hiding her hands inside of her sweater's sleeves as the storm outside went on. She had never been a fan of weather storms and flooding rain. It meant no freedom to go outside and walk barefoot in the woods, it meant no freedom to hunt and lay down on the grass and let the moon shine on her. More than anything, though, it usually meant that her father was angry.