By backing out of course.

"Goodness Jace," encored the girl's exhausted sigh, "can't you believe me just this once?" She shifted in her seat, leaning across the center panel. "I'm NOT like that! For the last time!"

"Woman, you're a slut!" Sanley coughed, drinking down his bacon before it hacked away at his esophagus. "And you know it. Not just you -- I know it, he knows it," at this the big guy flung a big hand in the much-smaller-in-comparison Stanley's direction across from them, "and so did that fucker from last night!"

"I didn't -- I would never try to sleep around under your nose like that, Jace! Not with strictly platonic friends! And that's all he was! He's not even my type!" She paused, assuming a softer vocal register. "No offense, Harvey."

"Like I said," Jace growled, "if you truly loved me, then you wouldn't be doing things behind my back, Hailee."

"I did love you!" Hailee backtracked. "I mean, do. Believe me, Jace!" It wasn't visible, but Stanley assumed she had grabbed on to his hands. He looked to the back, expecting a trained quartet preparing their violins in the backseat to be blinking back at him. "I promise I'll show you if you just let me. And those are your two options right now babe. Either let me in, or let me out." With her hand on the car door and currently in mid-push, Stanley had to admit: the girl had balls, challenging those bloodlusted eyes. They even started to look like red M&M's in the middle.

"If you can't trust me," she finally said softly, "I can't help you."

A flag clanged in the distance. Some Jeep rolled in from behind. A tree fell. Probably. In a forest somewhere.

Eventually the silence was broken by engine on fuel.

The two turned, to the supposed median of reason that had interrupted them some seconds earlier.

Clearing his throat, Stanley attempted a smile as he peered out his gradually rolling window, car rumbling. "Well! Looks like you two got this back under control, soo..." They looked at him blankly as he tried to escape the trap of the awkward pause. "I'll just get goin' now. See ya and good luck with, oh, you know... all of... that!" Waving, he pulled out from beside the two staring bickerers and drove to the other side of the store.

One turn of the key later, as he dug into the now slightly colder but still very edible bacon cheesecake deluxes, he found himself shaking his head in an intrapersonal exchange. Man, he licked melted cheese off a finger, those two are gonna need some counselin'.

The face of the girl, apparently named Hailee, floated around in his mind. Then the comment her boyfriend had dropped. About not respecting her relationship, if he had been the one to meet up with a girl as pretty as herself, alone, in dubious terms, in the middle of the night.

He took another bite into his sandwich. What was that about? Because, no lie, that was impressively douchey. Probably a good 5 on the 'ol 10-scale. Reusable, with a buy 1 get 1 free deal for the summer season.

But, the other part of his brain countered, she has to admit -- staying over night after talking with a supposed 'old' friend...

Yeah, that just wasn't a good look. Murky waters. What did she expect it to look like, especially since it didn't seem like he knew about this in advance. He swallowed, then took another bite. Well. He did feel a little sorry for her. But in the same time, it probably wasn't any of his business to begin with, so onto the bacon cheesecake deluxe, which he got at a bargain deal might he add so shouldn't waste so frivolously.

The young man's chewing slowed as his thoughts drifted elsewhere, however, first to the bird pecking a Dorito chip in front of his car, to the Dorito chip, to the bag next to it, expiration date spelled out in plain sight on the front, to the response Jace had blared out shortly after Stanley's maybe fruitless attempt at 'intervention'. Staring at his sandwich, he spoke to it as if it came with a freely bundled answer to life's questions, too.

"Whud dih he meeh, 'iss 2018'? Ain't dah a liddlewit backwhir?" A few crumbs fell out of his mouth and he spilled a drop of sauce onto his pants. "Ah, cwap!"

A few minutes and one satisfied stomach afterward, Stanley climbed out of the car and closed the door, wiping his hands clean. Chugging his water bottle fluid-less, he tossed it into a trash can and entered the store, fitting his company-provided hat across his head.

"Staanley!"

Spinal slap attack!

"The morning man himself!"

Morning Man Himself nearly spurted out water all over the floor thanks to that bear of a hand. A chuckling gaze rested on the two figures approaching him. "Hey, Keith." He rubbed his back. Struck again. Suppressing the pain, he brought out his hand and the two performed the classic five and pound. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," chimed in Alice from the side, also the token girl of the trio, her brunette hair falling over an eye in the form of a single strand as its countless sisters were bunched into a ponytail at the threshold of her scalp. "Oh. You did miss one thing," she continued, holding back a laugh. "In storage, while I was unpacking the new coffee machine she asked for, our idiotic, dumb-as-a-blonde manager Nadia nearly got pancaked by a box that -- "

Whoa, easy there, Stanley thought, wide from eyelid to eyelid as he watched Alice go on. That was a little uncharacteristically hostile. He thought he'd left that behind with Hailee and Jace. Before he could throw it under the carpet, though, a snort came from beside him.

"God," interrupted Keith through a teeth-grating fit of laughter as what he said next nearly caused Stanley to shit his pants and spit out his water (whatever he had left anyway) in surprise. "You should just let me fuck you in the mouth. That would shut you up good, Alice, and would feel real good, too. Plus, you're hot and I think you'd look even hotter giving head, don't you agree?"

Swallow.

Hu-hooolly craptastic Vlad on a stick, that... that couldn't have been right. Could it? Was this an alleyway that just looked like a plain old-fashioned Buck Tree chain outlet? Were his ears not waxed out properly, did he maybe leave a swab head stuck in the center canal again? Did Keith have a twin brother no one, not even Keith, knew about?

"Uh..." Clearing his throat, Stanley reached for the man's shoulder, his eyes still somewhere between reality and whatever alternate dimension he just wandered into. "Keith."

Only for Stanley to see, before his very own pupils, the man he'd never known to be so brazen and jobless-ready as he definitely was today, thrust his fingers against their co-worker's underboob. The motion was rough but fast, causing it to swing up with a nice middle finger to gravity, showcasing the delectable fullness of the breast before Alice anchored it back down with her forearm and turned away.

Stanley gaped in disbelief.

"KEITH, WHAT THE HELL! WAS THAT... EVEN... for?"

"Yeah, Keith. Sheesh." Alice's echo shut Stanley up, not just because of anything she said -- but rather, the inhumanly nonplussed tone and look in her eyes that accompanied it. Alice was covering up her chest with both arms, tilted away from Keith as she looked at him plainly. But in place of a reddened face and understandable anger, was just... impatience? Ambivalence? Indifference? Utter obliviousness as to the implications of what, exactly, just happened!? "Couldn't be any more subtle about that could you? And no, I don't agree."

"Please," Keith nudged Stanley's side. His brows turned into waves before his attention returned to Alice. "A hot bitch like you always agrees."

Alice folded her arms, smirking. "Yeah, yeah." Was... was that a dismissive hand wave just then?! A gesture belonging to a category of gestures the kind of which was reserved for tolerable, expendable offenses that 'oh, shucks, wouldn't want to see again but ain't gonna hope for' usually aptly described? Like, jokes, plastic candy wrappers, or bad word puns?? Did Alice just veritably imply that groping her was equivalent to a joke, plastic candy wrapper, or bad word pun?

Once again shattering his train of thought was the woman herself. Her two hands clapped together in boring 'let's-do-it' rhythm.

"Anyways, to our stations, guys, chop chop. It's already opening hours." And just like that, she turned and walked off. No screaming bloody ****. No brick to the head. Just... nothing.

As the taut bodied young woman left, Keith watched her departure with sly interest before wolf whistling and breaking into a reflexive stretch. "Damn right that ass belongs to these eyes. Haha!" When he looked over to his side, he frowned. The man brought his arms down. "You okay, Stanley?"

The fellow in question was staring ahead too, and boy was he as rigid as a frozen popsicle in their freezer section. Keith followed his line of sight back to Alice's beige trousers-clad ass, while the young man tried to collect his thoughts.

No I'm not okay. Hell no. How was that okay? How was any of that okay?!

Was what the 20-year-old kid wanted to say.

Instead, he coughed into a hand and pivoted his chin up assertively. "Uh, huh. Yeah. Yeah I'm good. Just..." Before Keith took off, Stanley latter looked the guy over. He looked just the same as always. Somewhat on the heavyset side. Buzzed head. Squinty, lively eyes. Sure, they talked about girls like Alice in private, and there was plenty of locker room exchanges to go around. But he wasn't the type to directly harass them in front of eyewitness and cameras and everything. He wouldn't put his check on the line just for something dumb like that!

...or would he?

"Hey man, don't sweat it." Winking, Keith grabbed a mop and dragged the bucket to the opposite side of the store. "We could tap that ass together if you wanted later. Haha! Just messing. Hasta la vista Stan."

His wave dropped back to his side and the young man headed to the lounge room to clock himself in. Yeah, Stanley thought, shaking his head as he imagined Alice talking with Nadia this very moment. If you don't get fired first, my man...

He got settled behind cash register 2, the other events of that morning already forgotten as the day moved forward, your ordinary batch of humdrum, over-talkative, anarchic, and senile customers alike stepped through the doors, and the rest of his co-workers took to the grind. As he worked, the light from the ceiling lamps and computer screen would glimmer off his gold ring, sometimes very visibly. But Stanley never felt the need to take it off. Not quite yet.

He didn't mind passing as a king every once in a while.