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Chapter One

•BRIANNA•

I was at my workplace, a restaurant, where I was working an afternoon shift. I was in the kitchen, watching my colleague and my best friend, Cherry, run around while trying to put something together for the customers to eat.

“Are you sure you don’t need my help, Cherry?” I asked her for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, Bri, I’m sure. I don’t want the manager to yell at you if she sees you assisting me.” She replied and returned to cooking while I sat, quietly watching her do her thing.

“Brianna! Why are you sitting around instead of taking customers’ orders?!” I heard the manager’s loud voice, and I shivered in fear. I was in trouble.

“Oh shit! This will not be good.” I thought as I braced myself for what she would say. The manager hates it when we, the employees, sit around when there are no customers in the restaurant. She prefers it if we keep ourselves busy by doing some productive things.

But we need rest too, don’t we? She gets to sit in her air-conditioned office while we run around serving rude customers. It’s not fair.

“The restaurant is almost empty, and I have attended to the people here, so I thought I would rest for some minutes,” I replied, nervously answering her question.

“We don’t rest while working here! How many times will I tell you that?” She snapped like a rabid dog.

“Sorry, ma’am.” I apologised even though I didn’t mean it one bit.

“Some important customers just came in; attend to them and take their orders. Be on your best behaviour.” She said it in an authoritative tone, and I nodded politely.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

I took my notepad and pen, then walked out of the kitchen and over to the new customers occupying one of the tables.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Brianna, and I’ll be your server for today.

“What will you be having this afternoon?” I asked the two breathtakingly gorgeous men with a professional smile. If I were one of those girls who swoon over handsome men, I would drool like a high school girl.

“I would like to have a plate of pasta carbonara with a bottle of your best red wine.” The first guy said, and I bobbed my head. I jotted it down and faced the second guy, waiting for him to tell me what he wanted to order, but he kept mute.

“What would you like to have, sir?” I asked the other guy as I began to feel impatient, but he kept quiet and acted like I wasn’t talking to him. I was about to say something when the first guy told me to get the quiet man the same thing he ordered, but they would share the bottle of wine.

I bobbed my head and returned to the kitchen to get their order. I told the cook what they ordered, and he prepared it. After a few minutes, their order was ready, so I arranged everything on a tray and went to serve them.

As I walked back to their table and got closer, I tripped over my leg, and all the contents of the tray flew in the air. Some of the creamy pasta fell on the quiet guy as he sat just a few feet from where I fell. I gasped in shock as he stood up angrily, and I knew I was in deep shit. His face looked comical, and if I weren’t in trouble, I would have laughed.

•ADRIAN•

I furiously got up from my seat when the hot pasta burned my skin. I looked at my white shirt and saw that the pasta cream had stained it. I was already in a bad mood because my best friend, Manuel, forced me here to grab a bite while sorting out some crucial files. This clumsy server just had to ruin my mood. I walked over to where she was and dragged her up from the floor while holding her arm tightly, leaving red handprints on her surprisingly flawless skin.

“Let me go!” The server yelled.

“Where is the manager?!!” I shouted angrily, ignoring her attempts to get out of my tight grip on her.

She wiggled and complained, but I tightened my hold on her. She was going nowhere.

Almost immediately, the manager came running out of a corner with a flustered look.

“Is this how the employees treat customers in this restaurant? With horrible customer service? I didn’t employ you in my restaurant to turn it into this.” I demanded from the manager angrily.

“No Sir, we don’t treat customers like this… I’m sure it was a mistake; she must have tripped.” The manager replied nervously.

“I don’t want to hear shit. I want this lady out of this place right now.” I said coldly.

“And I don’t want to see her here the next time I come. If I do, consider your job gone.” I said, and the server started shouting and protesting.

“You can’t fire me because of a minor mistake! Don’t you make mistakes, too? I’ll apologise if you want me to!” She shouted.

“Keep your filthy apology to yourself,” I smirked at her. “And I don’t make mistakes.”

“You can’t fire me. You’re not the boss of me.” She said with a smirk of her own, and mine grew wider.

“I own this restaurant, pumpkin. I can hire and fire any fucking body as I please.” I flashed a wicked grin at her, and her face turned pale.

I dropped her hand, and the manager dragged her from where I was. The manager said some things to her, and whatever the manager said made her look sadder.

She went to a room at the back and came back outside in a different outfit with a bag some minutes later. She looked angry, and I got confused when she walked toward me instead of outside the restaurant. My confusion didn’t last long as she stood before me and kicked me in the groin when I least expected it. I doubled over and cupped the place where she kicked me. A pained groan left my mouth.

“I have nothing to lose since I got fired already. Good riddance, motherfucker.” She hissed and ran out of the restaurant without looking back. I stood there like someone in a trance and watched her run out of the restaurant, still surprised she could kick me in the most delicate part of my body.

“I’m very sorry about that, Sir… She can be crazy sometimes…” The manager was apologising when I straightened my spine and walked out on her.

I stomped out of the restaurant, almost limping as I still felt pain in my groin. She had surprisingly strong legs.

“You know, you shouldn’t have fired her… It must have been a mistake.” Manuel stated when we got to the car. I glared at him, and he snapped his mouth shut immediately, but I heard him snicker. He knew better than to exchange words with me when I was angry.

“It’s all your fault. If you didn’t force me to come here, I would have been in my office and not have gotten kicked at in my dick.” I accused him out of annoyance, but he just cackled.

•BRIANNA•

I ran out of the restaurant, close to tears. That handsome idiot had to get me fired because of a simple mistake. But I gave him a piece of my craziness, which made up for me getting fired. I ran for minutes without stopping to rest and only stopped when I got to my house.

Immediately I got home, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my dress before plastering a fake smile onto my face. My little sister, Mariana, can be very inquisitive, and it would be worse if my mom were there with her to ask, and I didn’t want them to find out what happened. I wasn’t too sad because I still had another part-time job: a bartending job at a club at night.

I walked into our poor-looking house. It looked normal, but everywhere was quiet, so I guessed my sister was not back from school. She was one of the reasons I wanted to work harder; I didn’t want her to end up like me, a high school dropout without a college degree. The other reason I was working was to get the money to treat my mom, an anaemia patient, and I didn’t want my sister and me to lose the only family we had left.

I walked up the stairs to my mom’s room to find her asleep on her old, rusty bed. I wished she had never been diagnosed with anaemia. Everything would have been better than it is now. I sighed deeply and got into bed with her. Whenever I felt down and sad, getting close to my mom calmed me down every time.