No Romeo Story

Chapter Five// So Cute

Emily's Point of View

Mom specifically told me not to get fired on my first day.

When I get home, after handing in my ice cream apron twenty five minutes ago, which had been simultaneous to the first time I actually met my boss- who is no longer my boss anymore due to the ice cream battle incident- I just want to curl up into a ball and go to sleep.

My dad is still out at work and my mom, well thankfully, she is out food shopping. But she won't be out of the house forever.

With my legs crossed on the couch, petting Bobby as he nestles his fury forehead against my elbow, I flick through Netflix as aimless as I had been before I got a job. Now unemployed, eight hours later since starting my summer job, I have already hit the bottom of my Ben and Jerrys tub.

"Emily, I'm home."

Shit, I never heard her come in.

Usually the clicking sound of her key turning in the lock alerts me in a split second, or at least the rumble of her car engine coming to a stop on the drive. It's too bad I decided to shut the curtains.

"Come help me with these bags."

I ease Bobby down to the floor then run into the hall where a row of shopping bags line up against the wall. Her heels graze across the kitchen floor as I approach, the heavy load in my arms.

I thought she was going to ask me about my day, meaning I would have to bite down on my lip as hard as I could to supress the semi-disaster today has been. Seeing Blake made it feel like heaven, when my boss (ex boss) ripped up my first pay check (only pay check) my heart sank as low as hell.

But she didn't ask. Instead, she wouldn't shut up about her own day.

"God the office was busy today. Twenty five phone calls I had to put on hold, I only had the time to answer five. There is a major increase in business economics today and there are not enough people qualified to do a good enough job of it."

I let her babble on. Her back is turned, stacking tins of beans. When she spins on her heels to collect the bags of pasta I outsrtretch in her direction, she takes them with a brisk force. I hear a lot of her work speaches, and today must have been tough regarding the way she rants on for longer than almost ten minutes than she usually does.

"So, you had a good day honey?"

I blanked out minutes ago, I don't even care what she is saying anymore. My eyes stare transfixed at the microwave.

"Yeah."

"So work was good?"

"Great."

I haven't heard a word she's said.

"You get the rabbit run for Bobby?"

"What?"

Her voice fades around the corner. I follow her footsteps with my own, my mom now in the centre of the living room. By the way her hands rest on her hips in a stance I have come to know rather well, she isn't impressed.

"Looks like you didn't."

Bobby is nibbling one of the television leads around the side of the TV, right in mom's eye sight. I stare at her then back to my rabbit, the bunny I had completely forgotten about after everything that has happened.

The piercing stare she lasers into my eyes is one I can tolerate; it could be worse. I can lie about this, saying I went to look for a rabbit run but they were sold out at the pet shop. That is what I expect she is mad about, after all, I wasn't listening.