Morning shift

The evening rolled into the morning rapidly, the sky going from a dark blue, to black, to a deep orange glow as the sun began to rise again. But long before the sun could ever reach beyond the mountain on the far end of the island, Charlie had already awoken. He busied himself with running back forth, preparing the morning buffet. Polishing silverware, folding napkins, making sure that all the food cooked by the resorts chefs was placed and labeled properly. Normally he'd do this sort of work together with Megan, but she had told him last night that today was her day off. He wished he had his day off today too, that way they could've spent all day together exploring the feelings that had been sparked between them yesterday...

"Could you wipe down the table in the back please? It seems that last nights crew weren't particularly concerned with cleanliness." From behind the buffet table, displaying most of the food, Amelia gestured towards the end of the dining hall with her head. Charlie nodded and put the silverware he had been polishing back into the basket, walking over to the tables with a wet rag. He liked working with Amelia, they only ever worked morning shifts together and he rarely felt the need to make unnecessary conversation with her. She wasn't much of a morning person either and was more than happy to just go through the motions and get the work done.

Charlie peered over at her adjusting table placements and arranging food displays. Amelia managed the catering side of things at the resort, her short blonde hair she kept tucked behind her ears, as she pulled up the black slacks and she stuffed the white polo back into them. Charlie guessed that she was somewhere in her forties and though the hard work and long hours at the resort certainly showed in her face, he still thought she was quite attractive. She was slightly chubbier, a soft tummy poking out through the fabric of her polo and her large hips swaying with every one of her steps. She was built like a woman, which Charlie liked a lot.

"Are you going to finish wiping down those tables or are you just going to stand there gawking at me?" Amelia stood with her hand in her sides, looking Charlie up and down, who was in fact, gawking at her.

"S-sorry Amelia, I'm guess I'm not as awake as I thought." Charlie pushed a hand through his dark shoulder length hair and quickly got back to cleaning the tables.

Amelia laughed, shaking her head at him. "That's ok sweetie, just make sure all those tables have at least two chairs and are all clean, then you can go back to bed." Amelia was always calling the younger staff some variation of sweetie, darling or honey, she was a kind of maternal figure for a lot of the youngsters living away from their families at the resort. Charlie too would go to her for advice every now and again, or maybe just for one of her famous hugs, which seemed to both calm and heal him like little else could.

For another half hour or so Charlie kept up his work, helping out Amelia until she sent him away, telling him his shift was over. Though he would've liked to crawl back into bed, Charlie knew that as the guests would start leaving their rooms and going down to eat their breakfast, he'd have to go up and clean their rooms, make their beds and collect their dirty laundry. It always remained tedious work and his least favorite part of his job at Hermatus, but it did pay the bills...