Someone finds her

“Um…Ashley?”

Not realizing how long she’d been sitting there trying to think of something, Ashley jumped at the sudden sound of someone talking, especially since the voice seemed familiar. She slowly looked up, having removed the sheet from her head to find someone peering over the counter, staring at her, his expression one of concern.

“A-Ah! Sal!” Ashley cried as she stood up so suddenly that the sheet fell off of her, and his eyes went wide. Sal was the store manager, and he and Ashley had grown somewhat close since she started working here. He was far different from Marcus in that he genuinely cared about his job and the well being of his employees, which led to a lot of respect from pretty much everyone. As he stared in Ashley in pure shock, his eyes flicking around and his face red, it took her a moment to figure out why he looked like that. She froze up as she slowly looked down to see that her nude body, from her chest to her groin, was now completely visible.

She let out a quiet shriek as she ducked back down, collapsing her body into a ball as much as she could as Sal quickly made his way around to enter the island, and close and lock the small door as he ducked down in front of her. “Hey, why the hell are you…you…?”

“Naked?” she finished for him, and that only seemed to make him more flustered. For Ashley, this was most definitely the most embarrassing moment of her entire life, curled up in a ball naked in front of the manager, in the middle of the store. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I work in retail, I’m actually willing to believe a lot…” Sal said, which got a laugh out of Ashley.

“I kinda just…lost my clothes. One by one. I swear I’ve had the worst possible luck today…” She groaned as Sal awkwardly patted her back.

“Well…that’s quite a predicament, huh?” he asked lamely.

“Please don’t tell Marcus…if he finds out, I’m sure he’d fire me on the spot,” Ashley said, and Sal grit his teeth.

“I see…” he said, and shook his head. “Look, if you can just…keep hiding for a bit, I can head out and find you some clothes, even if I have to steal them. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Okay…” Ashley replied, feeling on the brink of tears.

“Alright. Just…stay put, okay? I’ll put the ‘out of order’ sign up and tell Samantha that she can head home,” he said, and Ashley went wide-eyed.

“But…won’t you lose a lot of money that way?” she asked, and he smiled.

“No money is worth you dealing with this,” he said, and now Ashley felt like crying for a different reason. She wiped her eyes and nodded, to which Sal returned it. “Alright, I’ll be back as fast as I can.” With that, he stood up and left, and though he wasn’t able to lock the door behind him, he did put up the ‘out of order’ sign like he said. She sat up a bit and took a shaky breath.

She just needed to stay here, huh? For how long? She was sure that Sal would move as fast as he could to get her clothes, so surely everything would be alright soon, right?

Right?