I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Destiny

The restaurant I worked in was just two doors down from the town's most popular dry cleaners. Steven got his laundry done there all the time and my restaurant got our towels cleaned there from convenience. The owners of the two stores were pretty good friends too, so when we'd run low, and they were too busy to bring them over, it was my job to go get them. One day we were running particularly low and I was sent over.

"Here for the towels." I stated coming through the front. Do I wait here, or?

"Austin!" The owner yelled over the monotonous sound of the machines behind him. "He'll be here in just a second." He assured me, getting back to the shirt he was unbuttoning.

"What!?" Austin hollered back, obviously pissed about something.

"Towels."

"Again, with the fucking towels. I don't have the time to bring them over." With an exasperated sigh he came to the front shaking his head.

"She's here to get them." The owner didn't even look up and pointed at me with a nod of his head.

"Fine. I'll just take some time out of my day to do this. Come here." He instructed me, turning around and heading to the back.

"Back there?" I confirmed. Am I allowed back there?

"Yes, come on, let's go." He clapped a few times and I quickly jumped over the small step and under the bar they hung clothing on at check out. "Hold this." He handed me a thin clear bag

"What?" Is this even strong enough to hold them all? I questioned as he thrust the bag out to me.

"Hold this." He repeated mumbling incoherently to himself.

"Ok..." I grabbed it with one hand and before I had time to grab it with the other he threw some towels down towards the opening of the bag. They immediately dropped down to my feet, ripping the bag from my clutch.

"Wow. Ever held a bag before?" He chastised angrily. "Ya know what? I'll just do it." He grabbed it off the floor and shoved the towels in maliciously.

"Actually I haven't. That was my first time." I sassed back. Must be having a bad day or something. Sarcasm always cheers me up.

"Holding a bag?" He clarified, looking up to me as if asking if I was serious.

"Yep." I affirmed as he finished stretching the bag to its limit with towels.

He chuckled a little bit then tied and tossed the bag up to me. "Here."

Finally, someone with my same sense of humor. "Thanks." I smiled, beelining back to the front and over to my store again.

A little while later I started noticing Austin around the plaza more. He'd come over and get some pop or water from us, buy a sandwich, goof off with the other employees when we were slow. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I saw him as someone that I could make easy friends with. He just felt comfortable and, whilst he was almost never calm when I saw him at work, he had a sense of ease to him. Almost like nothing really mattered. When I started seeing him around the plaza more I started making excuses to go out to the front to see him. I'd volunteer to squat down on the floor to polish the stainless steel doors to the prep tables or clean out the debris under the register. He'd finish his order, unaware of my hidden cleaning, and go to pay where I would pop up to ring him up as if I had been there the whole time.

"Wait what the fuck? Where did you come from?" He'd ask with a laugh.

"Wouldn't you like to know." I'd bait coyley with a grin, reading off his total and adding a personal discount.