Gwen comes back

"Marie?" A loud voice boomed from the back. Marie's eyes fell on Gwen staring at her through the entrance to the back of the shop. She wore a stained, black apron over a white shirt and jeans. Her long black hair was tied neatly in a pony-tail, which poked through the back of a hat with the company logo on it. Marie instantly remembered her situation. She was standing in the middle of a cafe, with no reasonable excuse to have no clothes on. To anyone looking at her (including Gwen) she was out of place, and bringing worry to the customers.

"I...err...umm...." Marie began, but the embarrassment finally began to wear through her focused facade.

"I ran down main street naked. I ran past a hundred, possibly more people, with not a stitch to my name except my wallet. I..." Marie began to freeze up, ignoring repeated calls from Gwen for several seconds while she became frozen in shame. It took Gwen coming out from behind the counter, and physically shaking Marie to snap her out of it.

"Marie? Are you ok?" Gwen asked calmly, worry on her face.

Marie seemed to snap back to reality, a red blush spread wide across her face. "I... Err... I locked myself out." Marie blurted out suddenly.

Gwen took a moment to process the explanation, and quickly gathered nothing from what Marie told her. "...What? How did you lock yourself out? Why are you naked? Why are you here?" Marie began to freeze up again, causing Gwen to roll her eyes and grab her hand. "Come on, let's go to the back so we aren't flashing the customers."

Marie was led behind the counter, much to the amusement of the two girls who began giggling wildly to themselves as soon as Gwen and Marie rounded the corner. The shell-shocked barista couldn't help sneaking to the back to catch a glimpse of Marie's butt, only to lock eyes with a glaring Gwen. "Keep watching the front. Don't come back here unless its an emergency" She angrily commanded. The young man knew Gwen had ways of making his life hell if he didn't follow her orders, so he quickly made his way back to the front, and adjusted his pants.

After dealing with the Barista, Gwen turned to face her friend. Marie looked around at all the machinery cluelessly, seemingly lost.

"Alright. What happened?" Gwen calmly asked, as she leaned back against the wall.

Marie began from the beginning, detailing how she had went through her morning like normal, only to forget she was naked, and lock herself outside the house. She summed up her embarrassing walk to the corner, and blushed madly as she recalled her streak to the cafe. Gwen listened patiently, her worry gradually transforming into amusement, and relief her friend hadn't been hurt. By the time Marie finished, she was sitting down on top of a machine, with a small towel draped over the top to keep her bare ass from touching the metallic surface.

"...And that's where we are now. I need a key to get back inside my house, so I don't miss my Skype call at 1."

After a long sip from her drink, Gwen raised a finger to indicate she had questions. "Ok, first of all. Why were you naked in the first place? I know you well enough to know you would forget you were naked, but what led to you being naked? You're pretty meticulous about routine when you wake up."

Marie blushed, as she looked down at the tile floor. "I had taken a shower, and felt so tired that coffee just kind of... surpassed the need to put clothes on."

Gwen raised an eyebrow, and smiled slightly. "So you've been keeping this a secret from me? You're secretly a nudist!" She exclaimed, laughing to herself.

Marie immediately went on the defensive. "Wait! You've got it all wrong! I just-"

Gwen quickly moved to the next question, dismissing her proclamation as fact. "Secondly, why not meet all the owners in person? You literally live in the same town. Hell, you could probably walk to all of them from here."

The blush on Marie's cheeks began to lighten from a strawberry red to a peach-like pink, as her mind swapped from thinking about her state of dress, to thinking about her business affairs. "I know, I just hate to do things in person. Plus, we can do it all over the internet, and have computers right next to us to check information, or write notes!"

Eyes rolled backwards, as Gwen couldn't believe her friend was too shy to meet business prospects in person, but brazen enough to streak naked down main street. She noted to herself that she would have to help Marie transfer confidence and drive into her everyday life.

"Alright, last question. Why didn't you go to my house? My roommates could have let you in. I even told them to give you an envelope if you showed up looking for the key."

Marie blanked out at the last statement. In her gamble that Gwen would absolutely have the key on her, she hadn't considered the unthinkable possibility that Gwen didn't have the key, which meant she was in a coffee shop in the middle of town stark naked for no good reason.

Marie simply cupped her head in her hands, and hoarsely breathed out an "Oh my god..."

Sympathy rose to Gwen's heart, as she stared down at her friend and understood the daunting walk she had. All Gwen had to offer was her apron, or the clothes she was wearing. But given her casual view on dress for work, she often wore no more than a black thong, or nothing at all as underwear. Her apron prevented her nipples from protruding through the thin, white dress shirt, so normally this wouldn't be an issue. But with all of her options to offer Marie leaving Gwen some degree of exposed, she sighed in contempt, just as lost as Marie about any options to spare her an even longer, more embarrassing streak without jeopardizing her outfit.