The first day turned into the first week turned into the first semester, and I met with Cordelia again to sign on for a second.
“I’ll be honest, El, I didn’t expect you to stick with this,” she told me. Shocking news, that. She totally was giving I-believe-in-you vibes before. “But I’m proud of you,” she continued. “I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished here, and impressed with your dedication, hard work, and commitment.”
Not gonna lie, I did tear up a little. It’s not often that someone tells me they’re proud of me—not often that I earn any sort of pride. Definitely not often that I prove someone wrong about me.
She talked about management potential in the future. How she’d be honored to have me working for her long-term. How she’d like to make that happen, if I can keep up with my courses and my work and continue proving to her that I’m not a lump of pretty girl useful only behind the counter smiling at customers and upselling them on muffins.
Despite the fact she clearly didn’t believe in me before—not that I blame her, most people don’t—I wasthrilledat a more secure future with Sweet & Salty.
I love my job. I love the people and the bustle of a rush hour.I love watching customers try Roman’s food and seeing their faces as they immediately decide they’ll be back. I like watching couples playfully fight over who’s going to pay, and I especially love when the ovens get fired up in the morning, filling the shop with the smell of cinnamon and sugar. I love Sweet & Salty, period—the atmosphere, the work environment, the ebb and flow of chaos.
Thesingulardownside to working there is Roman, and even that isn’t so bad. He’s cordial and professional at Sweet & Salty, and I’m cordial and professional back.
It works in a big way for me that Cordelia would want me as a potential manager in the future. Especially if that means, while nottechnicallyRoman’s boss, I’d be on the same hierarchy tier as him. Because, sure, he doesn’t boss me now, but we both know he could if he wanted to. If I were a manager, hecouldn’teven if he wanted to, and that nuance means everything to me.
So the reasons to continue my courses pile higher and higher, and my motivation grows in tandem with them.
It helps that I like my classes, too. Not the workload, but the learning. The feeling of accomplishment when a lesson clicks and I can apply what I’ve learned to a real-world scenario. I never feel smarter than when Iget it. It’s a total rush. Better than that time I went skydiving, even, and I didn’t think anything would top that.
Turns out, education is adrenaline-inducing. Who knew?
I reach my classroom, step through the door into the slightly better-lit area, and head for my regular seat. In middle school, I always liked to bounce around the classroom, never choosing the same seat twice until I’d cycled through all of them. My peers, I found, were not the biggest fan of that behavior. People like order. Sameness. Routines.
Barf.
Still, I adjusted, picking a seat and making it my own in everyclass there on out. Something I did when I got here, too, to avoid the wrath of my youthful cohorts.
To avoid the boredom of sitting in the same place every time, I make further adjustments, like making sure I always have something new, cute, and fun to put on my desk. Just a little something—a figurine from a box of tea, a bobblehead my brother gave me, a fortune from the Chinese restaurant Ruby and I like to go to sometimes. It brings a spot of cheer to my gloomy little area so that I can make it through. Then, later, I’ll pick a table at random for my lunch break at Sweet & Salty to satisfy my chaos needs.
It’s all about balance, really.
As I slide into my desk, a classmate slides into his self-designated desk next to mine and smiles at me. I smile back, ignoring the pang of discomfort that bites through me at the sight of him.
“Elodie! My girl!” he declares, blue eyes sparkling above freckled cheeks.
I clear my throat, setting a pilfered mini bottle of soy sauce on the corner of my desk. “Hello, Soren.”
Hello, past mistakes come to haunt me.
Chapter Three
You know who’s not boring, though?
Elodie
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with Soren. If anything, the man’s practically perfect. Over six foot. Strong. Red hair with just the right amount of beard to go with it—not too long, not too short. It won’t irritate your skin if he kisses you, but it has the opportunity to add a much enjoyable level of sensory input to the occasion.
He’s my age—another tick in the pro column—and decided to go back to school when his grandpa passed, leaving their family-owned store to Soren’s grandma, who had no clue how to run it. Enter Soren, who not only stepped up to help with the family business but also moved halfway across the country to live with his grandma and help with the home, finances, and fourteen acres of land they own.
Soren is a busy guy. He’s also a happy guy, despite his grief over his grandpa. He’s come into class every day smiling, and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t resent the fact that he had to upend his entire life to build a new one here.
I learned most of these fun facts during after-class chats and passing comments, but I discovered that he’s nice, intelligent, andboring as all get outwhen we went on a date last month.
How a man can be so hot, so kind, have so much going on, and still have the personality of a walnut, I do not know.
He’s agreeable enough and was up for pretty much anything I wanted to do, but he had no opinions to speak of. No thoughtsbehind his pretty blue eyes. And the one time hedidexpress an opinion? It was to tell me that fro-yo is better than full-fledged ice cream. Fro-yo. Better than ice cream.
I should have ended the date right then and there. Did I, though?
