Unpleasant moments.

The door to the break room was in the middle of the hallway, right between the kitchen and the bar. The aesthetics of it were similar to the bar, with dark wooden furniture and red walls, only it was better lit. There were couches, a TV on the wall and four booths for four people each. There was a water cooler and a long counter along the wall with microwaves, electric kettles and a box with tea bags and coffee. There was also the fridge the head chef mentioned, or rather two black fridges, so of course the first one I opened turned out to be the one meant for the staff to keep their personal stuff. Sandwiches, tupperware and the like. The other actually had all the drinks. It was full of bottles and cans of juice, soda, iced tea, energy drinks and sparkling water.

This seemed like going well out of your way to give your employees way too nice a break room, at least until I remembered our employer was Luke Allen. He tried to find the best people he could and keep them. Actually, seeing the people working here, most of us were pretty young. So far I’d only seen one person who seemed to be over 40 years old. Maybe he’s also like Maria in that he likes to give the younger generation a chance? Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit? I’ll ask him eventually.

I sat down at a booth with a large can of iced tea, and sitting down made me realize how tired I was. I think the work was similar enough to what I was used to doing in the coffee shop that I didn’t realize I’d been already working for about five hours.

Diana and Dylan arrived not long after they saw me sitting at the booth and sat with me. Diana sat beside me and Dylan sat across from us.

“So the bar is closed now?” I asked Diana.

“For 40 minutes, yes. We eat and go back. Depending on how things go on other days, we may not be able to close and we’ll have to take turns.”

Dylan sank in his seat and groaned. “God, I’m starving. Forgot to eat something before coming to work, so I haven’t had anything since lunch.”

“Good thing your job is to make the cocktails and not drink them,” I joked.

“Yeah, I’d be plastered otherwise,” Dylan laughed.

Diana, however, had a serious look on her face. She was frowning, arms crossed, and I could detect a hit of irritation in her. It told me I didn’t need to bring up what I’d seen before.

“Dylan, we need to talk about how you treat female customers,” Diana said, her tone firm, cold, reminiscent of when we first exchanged words. I moved my foot so that I would barely brush against her shoe, and she seemed to catch herself.

Dylan raised an eyebrow. “What? What do you mean?”

“You…!” Diana stopped, sighed and shook her head. “You need to avoid getting too friendly with female patrons.”

“I meant what I said. I love entertaining people. Is that so bad?” he asked, leaning back and crossing his arms as he frowned back at Diana.

“It is here,” Diana said. “The women here come with partners. If they catch you flirting, you’ll get in trouble.”

“Well, it’s my own problem if I do, isn’t it? Besides, I wasn’t flirting.”

“...” Fuck me, this was awkward. Half of me wanted to stay out of it since disciplining him was Diana’s job, and I mean that as in I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. However, the other half of me wanted to back her up because I believed she was right.

“...” I could feel Diana swallowing her words with a mix of frustration and fear, fear to continue coming off as a needless hardass.

“Even if you weren’t, I’d be very careful,” I said, taking a sip of my drink.

Dylan now scowled at me. “Why?”

“Do you know Mr. Allen well?” I asked him.

“I’ve talked to him, of course, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I’ve talked to him as well. Doesn’t he strike you as someone who likes to micromanage his businesses?”

“Ah?”

“If he hears you’re flirting with patrons, he may start looking into it, and the man has some scary intuition. He read me like a book during my interview.” That… was a lie. Huh. Weird how easy it came out.

“That’s…” Dylan grimaced, likely thinking back to his own time with the man.

Diana nodded. “I’m saying it for your sake, Dylan. Mr. Allen wants to provide a very specific kind of atmosphere AND he takes customer feedback and complaints very seriously. I’ve worked with the man for a while here, so I know. I’m not threatening you, I’m warning you to tone it down unless you want to have this same conversation with the boss, because he’ll find out sooner rather than later whether I say something or not.”

“...” Dylan clicked his tongue. “Fine, fine. They’re the ones coming on to me, for the record.”

“And some guys stare at my ass when I turn around while women send Oliver signals,” Diana said. “Doesn’t mean you should play along. Hell, this isn’t your first job at a bar, right? You know jealous drunks can get violent. Why even risk it?”

“I know, I know, just… I wanted to have some fun. It was getting pretty boring.”

“I don’t know if I could risk my job over something like that,” I told him with a wry smile.

“Okay, so you two are always gonna gang up on me?” he asked, but his posture and tone were more relaxed than before.

“We’re not ganging up on you,” Diana said. “Just telling you what not to do if you want to keep your job.”

“You make it sound like a threat.”

“Take it however you like.”

One of the waiters came into the break room just then, carrying our meals. Dylan, Diana and I then ate in an uncomfortable silence before we went back to work.

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