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By now you'd think that corporate would've fixed the issue. But no matter how frequently it happened: the 1217 Cloud 9 employees still found themselves standing inside of the dark front of the store, staring at automatically locked store doors.
It'd been Black Friday - a tiring day no matter the circumstances - and as usual the utter chaos of the event left the store in ruins. Broken products everywhere; a concerning amount of blood smeared on the floor; spilled produce - glass shards in every single aisle and clumps of hair somehow? It resulted in the floor workers having no choice but to stay back for the next four hours (with no clear answer on if they're even being paid for their extra work) as they tidied as much as possible for the next day's worth of shoppers. The shelves were basically empty from ravenous customers but no matter how fruitless the Saturday crowd’s carts would be, they shouldn't have to tread over broken electronics and possibly a severed foot or two just to get food for their families.
So when the place was clean enough - or at least not a health and safety violation - the group stumbled to get their coats, exhausted, and tried to leave. Emphasis on tried.
As if to mock them, the lights were lit and the doors were open the entire time they cleaned: and all turned off mere seconds before they crossed the door’s sensors. Locking them inside.
“Not this again,” Garrett complained amidst the exasperated sighs and moans from the tired workers.
“Damn it,” Amy muttered under her breath before taking her position as store manager and moving to stand in front of the group, “Don't panic. I'm sure we're all… used to this by now. But I will… I'll find a solution. All of you go and relax until me and Dina sort this out.”
If that was her attempt at instilling calm into her colleagues it didn't work at all. Most of them were loudly telling her what they had to do and still asking if they were going to get paid for working late, their overlapping voices hurting her tired head, especially with Marcus's volume. She'd been up half the night with Parker to begin with and this was so close to her last straw.
Amy walked away quickly to her office, escaping the anger pointed towards her from her employees. She’d called corporate earlier that evening to notify them that they were working late but, as usual, they had (probably intentionally) ignored her and not acted upon the promise of the doors staying open. Dina followed her, “They're such whiners,” she commented.
Amy smirked slightly, “Can’t say I blame them. I mean, why does it feel like corporate wants us to suffer?”
Dina raised her eyebrows, lips pursed, “Do you want the honest answer, Amy?”
Amy pushed her office door open and waved her hand in a silent response to shush what Dina was about to say, which would definitely be pessimistic - but truthful. Of course the parent company doesn't care about their “problem-child”-Cloud 9, let alone the floor workers who were slaving away there. Deep down Amy knew that there wasn't anything she could do to prevent that night from becoming another sleepover-style all-nighter, but if she didn't try to get them out of there then she'd fail as a boss.
The crowd of employees also were aware of this as they stood in awkward silence where Amy had left them. “We're gonna sleep here tonight, aren't we,” Jonah said deadpan. He was met with a sad cluster of “yeah”s.
Amy got through to the corporate front desk, explained the problem, then was put on hold for fifteen minutes with the promise that “A member of staff will be speaking with you shortly”. “They're not transferring me anywhere are they-”
“Not a chance.” Dina replied emotionlessly. Amy hung up.
She sighed and combed a hand through her hair, “They're going to eat me alive.”
“Who? The whiners? I doubt any of them are cannibals, although now that you mention it Elias has been acting especially shifty recently - and won't give me any straight answers as to why, and I mean - judging the kind of people we seem to hire it wouldn't be that surprising if he were sauteing a little human flesh in his free time. Oh and don't get me started on Carol-”
“Dina,” Amy interrupted, head in hands, “I mean they're going to be mad. At me. As soon as I go out there.”
Dina shrugged with her hands in her pockets, “Then let's wait until they're drunk. Let's give it ten, fifteen minutes?”
Amy scoffed, “They wouldn't drink the stock this early on in the night, right?”
As soon as the words left her mouth - one, she knew how wrong she was - and two, TiK ToK by Kesha started blasting through the ceiling speakers. “I mean it's not like the store was in fit condition to open tomorrow anyway,” Amy hummed as she stood up.
“Your call, boss.” Dina replied.
She considered before choosing. “Then I want to get drunk,” Amy grinned, deciding (hoping) that some alcohol would kill off the guilt in her stomach. It was easy to blame Glenn for being locked in the store but this time it was on Amy and she felt pretty awful about it.
“I'm going to stay here and see if corporate have actually put you on hold or not.”
Amy smiled at Dina, “Thank you, you're the best.”
Amy followed the noise of laughing voices and found the majority dotted around home and bedding, where her friends were sitting on the far left sofa display, a few armchairs dragged over to form a makeshift living room. Most people had a bottle of beer in their hands. Amy grabbed two and flopped down beside Jonah in a grey armchair that was just big enough for them both. He wrapped an arm around her and she nestled in slightly. “Corporate are jerks,” she mumbled in a voice only loud enough for him to hear.
“Don't I know it,” he hummed in agreement, taking one of the beer bottles from her when she offered one. “Oh, can you take off the cap for me please?”
“They're twist offs,” she replied simply, doing her own.
“I know,” Jonah mumbled quickly. She covered her mouth to laugh, taking a minute before twisting off the cap for him discreetly. “Thank you.”
“Were you waiting for me to come and do it for you?” she asked, a hand still covering her condescending smile.
“No comment.”
After laughing at him for far too long, she finally took a long swig of the Cloud 9 brand beer (it tasted as cheap as it was) and savouring it. Maybe tonight would be nice, a rest after the anarchy of Black Friday.
It took about three beers for Cheyenne to pipe up with: “This is high-key really boring, guys,” there was sassy irritability in her tone alongside the slurring from the alcohol, “Can we play a game or something?”
“We have Monopoly!” Glenn said with sudden excitement.
In the cluster of sofas around Glenn sat Mateo, Cheyenne, Garrett, Amy and Jonah. And the suggestion of Monopoly was met with boos from every one of them.
“I'm too relaxed to move for a game,” Amy drawled, her head leaning on Jonah's shoulder. “Can we just do something like truth or dare? And I'll just pick truths and not move.”
Cheyenne shrugged, “Damn Amy, good idea.”
“I'm surprised you don't have secrets you're scared to share,” Mateo commented.
Amy sighed, “Oh come on.”
“Okay, it was Amy's idea so she starts. Choose someone and ask them ‘truth or dare’,” Cheyenne explained, crossing her legs on her spot in the middle of the sofa and accidentally kicking Mateo who was beside her in the process, clearly borderline drunk, but still twisting the cap off of her fourth bottle of beer as she awaited Amy's choice of target.
“Alright… Glenn. Truth or dare.”
Glenn turned to look at her as though she were accusing him of a murder and began to stutter, “Uh, w-which is the easiest?”
“Depends on the question,” Mateo explained, but then looked Glenn up and down pointedly, “but I doubt you have a single secret so for you the easiest option would be truth.”
Glenn nodded frantically, “Truth.”
“Alright,” Amy grinned, sitting upright as she more got excited over the game. “Glenn… you know how - a few times - when I’ve done something a little selfish you tell me how you donated a kidney to a total stranger. You always look a little duplicitous about it… is it even a true story?”
Glenn, struck dumb, took a few moments to whisper his reply, “It's not true.”
Garrett replied with an over-exaggerated gasp, “I did not expect such a big lie to come from such a good man as Glenn.”
“Alright that's enough,” Jonah stopped Garret's teasing, “the poor man looks on the verge of tears.”
“Am not,” Glenn retorted, “and I always call Jerusha after I… lie because I feel so bad!” he had his hands clenched together as though he were about to pray for forgiveness right there and then.
“Alright alright alright,” Amy interrupted, “moving on, Glenn you now get to pick someone and ask truth or dare.”
“Okay I pick…” he muttered a Cloud 9 variation of eenie meenie miney mo under his breath before announcing: “Cheyenne!”
“Dare,” she raised her eyebrows, arms crossed, “do your worst Glenn, I'm the queen of this game - I'll do literally anything.”
Nobody was really doubting that.
“What kind of dare should I even ask her to do?” Glenn asked cautiously.
“You're overthinking, just something like, I don't know,” Jonah simplified for Glenn, “I dare you to eat an uhh… a tablespoon of toothpaste.”
Glenn perked up, “Ooh, good one, Jonah. Cheyenne - I dare you to eat a whole tube of toothpaste!”
“Bet!” Cheyenne retorted, standing up and dashing off to find a tube.
“That's a lot of toothpaste,” Jonah muttered.
“Yeah that won't be good for her,” Amy agreed but made no movement to get up and stop Cheyenne.
The younger woman came back with a tube and unscrewed the cap, “Any last words Glenn?”
Glenn, matching Cheyenne's menacing tone, replied: “Good luck,” he meant it nicely but the competitiveness was taking over Cheyenne's soul and she tilted her head and squeezed as much toothpaste into her mouth as possible.
Whilst trying to desperately swallow she managed to muffle out “It burns so bad.”
Eventually, after a lot of struggle and an awkward amount of time had passed, with the others being forced into making small talk, Cheyenne loudly slammed the empty tube on the ground and opened her mouth, “All gone, bitches!”
The group clapped in respect before Cheyenne said, without stuttering and with a purposeful expression, “Amy, truth or dare. But you said you'd answer with ‘truth’, so here's the question: do you honestly think I shouldn't have married Bo?”
Amy looked surprised and like a deer in headlights before shaking it off, somehow not able to form the words she really wanted to say, “Uhh, I… I suppose I, at first, didn't really think… I.” She collected herself, “Yeah, Cheyenne, I did think that,” Amy paused, finding the flow of her speech, “but now I know that that was me pushing my bad marriage with Adam onto you and Bo. You two love each other more than me and him ever did. Yes you were young and could've… maybe should've waited a bit longer, but the baby confuses things, I know that. And somehow you've both made it work and I'm genuinely impressed. So, Cheyenne, no, I don't think you made a mistake.”
“Awe,” Cheyenne tilted her head and smiled, “that was so sweet Amy, thank you.”
“Of course,” she smiled back before announcing the next target of the game: “Garrett! Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” he shrugged, too bored to be bothered to move for a dare.
“Do you want to get back together with Dina?”
Garrett scoffed and replied smoothly, “Not even slightly.”
Everyone but Garrett raised their eyebrows at eachother but didn't push him.
“Stop thinking I'm lying!” he countered, shrill anger lacing his voice.
“Then stop lying,” Cheyenne and Mateo muttered under their breaths at the same time before looking at each other and giggling.
Garrett grumbled under his breath, now he was fuelled with some anger he had no issues asking the more triggering questions. Yes he still had boundaries, especially for Jonah, but if he asked Amy something that she replied weirdly about and then that just so happened to trigger an argument - then was it really his fault to begin with? “Amy. Truth or dare. You said you'd answer ‘truth’,” he stole Cheyenne's skipping-dare-tactic to give Amy no escape route, “Do you see yourself getting married again in the future?”
Amy widened her eyes and inhaled, “Wow, that's a bit of a deeper question.”
Jonah laughed, “How is it ‘deeper’? It's not that hard an answer is it?” His smile slowly dropped when there was no answer.
Amy looked at him for a second before having to look away, her face sad and almost embarrassed. Jonah faltered. “You don't see yourself getting married again?”
She shrugged, her hands in the air awkwardly, “I don't know Jonah, it's just… ugh. My marriage with Adam sucked it was so hard and I hated a good amount of it. I don't want to go through that again.”
Jonah smiled weakly, “Ohh, I get what happened- You misheard Garrett. He didn't say remarry Adam, he said get married again and that can be to anyone…” he trailed off as Amy didn't meet his eyes, pink embarrassment flushing his cheeks. “Wow,” he muttered, slumping back in the chair at her cowardice to even answer.
Jonah knew that he and Amy had varying views on their future together but he thought it at least included marriage. It's not like she said a hard “no” in her reply but somehow it was worse to have to interpret it from tone and the horrid lack of eye contact.
A whole minute passed before Mateo said, “Well this is awkward.”
Cheyenne nodded, “Maybe it was too easy a game to upset people with.” She gave a pointed glare at Garrett who retaliated with an eye-roll.
“We could do something more simple?” Mateo brainstormed out loud, “Like… spin the bottle?”
Cheyenne clapped her hands and grinned, “Yes! Perfect idea Mateo!”
“Seems like it could upset more people but oh well.” Jonah commented, eyebrows furrowed, but moved to sit on the floor with everyone else all the same. Except Garrett who wanted no part in this. The group formed a sleepover-like circle with cushions around them to lean and sit on. Mateo hurried away to find a bottle as Cheyenne looked around at the four of them, “This isn’t going to be a very fun game. I mean there's like, four people for me to kiss, one is Glenn who's too old, one is Mateo who's gay, Amy's a girl and I don't like girls - and the other is Jonah-”
“I won't take that to heart, don't worry,” Jonah interrupted, sarcasm thick in his tone.
Cheyenne stood up and announced their game to the crowd.
By the time Mateo had come back, with a bottle of sambuca (which’d been hard to find after Black Friday and the majority of the alcohol having been chugged by the staff that night), the circle on the floor was much bigger. There was now Marcus, Sandra, Carol, Justine and Brett.
Cheyenne rushed through the rules, ending with: “And if you refuse to kiss someone, or be kissed, then we legally get to punch you once in the face.” She quickly spun the bottle on the cold vinyl flooring to see who should go first. The bottle rotated for an awkwardly long time, and there was such a long awkward silence that people started to praise Cheyenne on her ability to spin things.
Eventually Justine grabbed the bottle and called out, “Okay I choose to go first, mama wants a kiss.” She spun it purposefully badly - so that it wouldn't spin for five minutes straight like Cheyenne’s did.
It landed on Glenn.
“Oh no,” he vocalised his fear, words slurred slightly from the drink, “I'm happy with Jerusha, I never want to cheat on her! I'm sorry Justine.”
Cheyenne shrugged, “Your call Glenn, but now we legally get to punch you in the face.”
Glenn's eyes flicked between Cheyenne and Justine before mumbling, “I guess I have to if the other option is being physically assaulted!”
Justine crawled forwards towards Glenn, stopping about four inches away from his face and puckering her lips.
Glenn shuffled forwards with a stiff, begrudging motion, his body language screaming reluctance. He shut his eyes and - eventually - his lips met Justine's for half a second before he flinched away and Marcus clapped.
Cheyenne lent her chin into her palm, “I think we should make a rule that people who are married or have a big age gap are allowed to do little kisses like that but everyone else has to give a proper smooch.” As she was in charge of the game, her word went and everyone accepted the rule.
Glenn spun the bottle and it landed on Carol, earning a mixture of gasps from the others.
Very similar happened, with Glenn sitting stiffly and Carol having to be the one to move to him. She pecked him on the lips and spun the bottle herself. The bottleneck slowed down and ominously pointed at Marcus, who fist pumped for some reason. Due to Cheyenne's new rule they kissed properly and Marcus looked almost smitten afterwards before rolling up the sleeves of his navy overalls and getting ready to spin the bottle. “Please be Jonah, please be Jonah,” he whispered to himself - far too loudly.
“Please don't be Jonah,” Jonah said perplexed, eyebrows furrowed as the bottle slowed down facing none other than Jonah Simms himself. He buried his face in his hands and everyone giggled.
Marcus moved over to kneel in front of Jonah, Amy scooting away to give the ‘lovebirds’ space, laughing with a hand over her mouth as she watched her boyfriend jolt back to avoid Marcus’s approaching lips.
“Marcus do you… have any contagious illnesses?”
“No, no, nothing contagious. Jeez, you're such a germaphobe, Jonah.”
“Uh huh,” Jonah said with sarcasm and fear. He let out a long sigh and shut his eyes.
Marcus closed in on him, his lips meeting Jonah's, not just a peck but a proper kiss. Marcus moved his mouth, Jonah not reciprocating but not pulling away either. It lasted about seven seconds until Marcus tried to push his tongue into Jonah's mouth which warranted a n angry shove from Jonah.
Marcus rubbed a thumb across his own bottom lip, as if that were a beautiful kiss which he will cherish. In contrast: Jonah viciously scrubbed his lips with the back of his hand.
Once he'd moved back to his place in the circle, Marcus said “Just so you know, it hurts that you’d think I have an STD or something. The only ’illness’ I have is chlamydia.”
Jonah facepalmed.
Marcus awkwardly chuckled and looked around at everyone as if to say what's his problem.
Jonah was just glad it couldn't be contracted from kissing, but still felt as though he should chug some mouthwash as he held his head in his hand.
“Just spin the bottle,” Mateo reminded him, bored.
Jonah sighed and spun the bottle, hoping it would just land on Amy and not Glenn or some other curveball.
As he watched the sambuca bottle slow down it faced Amy - passing by marginally just before it landed on: Cheyenne.
“Oh,” Amy blinked.
“...I mean, fine, if I have to,” Cheyenne shrugged in an unreadable tone, noticing Jonah's awkwardness and therefore being the one to crawl over to him in order to speed up the kissing process. “Ready?”
He nodded, shrugging, “Uhh, I… guess?”
Cheyenne leaned in to kiss him, it wasn't particularly passionate but it was a good kiss and she smiled a little to herself as she moved back to her spot in the circle.
Amy glanced at Jonah and saw he was blushing a little. She scoffed, anger that probably shouldn't be flooding her body was: flooding her body. Obviously she understood why the kiss had happened but she couldn't help but be cold towards her boyfriend when he leaned and whispered, “You okay?”, upon seeing her expression.
She huffed in response and he furrowed his eyebrows, “Wait - are you mad at me?”
“I don't know, a little, yeah, kinda,” she rubbed her forehead, purposefully not looking at Jonah and watching as Cheyenne’s next spin landed on Justine.
“I- It wasn't my choice…” Jonah murmured to Amy.
“Mh hm.”
Jonah wrapped his left arm around Amy's shoulder and leaned into her, “Okay, you are right I should've turned down the kiss. Or at least made it a smaller one, like Justine and Glenn’s.”
Amy nodded pointedly.
“I'm sorry,” Jonah whispered, leaning his forehead against the side of Amy's face.
She wanted to be mad at him but found that she wasn't anymore and turned her head towards him, leaning her forehead against his. “Apology accepted,” she muttered in a passive aggressive tone. It was followed by a kiss, which definitely topped the one between he and Cheyenne, as it left Amy a little dazed, smiling against his shoulder like a lovestruck teenager.
“Hey, the bottle didn't land on you two,” Mateo grimaced at the couple.
“Sorry,” Amy replied.
“Yeah, get a room, jeez,” Cheyenne nodded, untying her hair thingy to restyle her french braid - just as the lights flickered on overhead! The brightness borderline blinded everyone as their eyes adjusted to the white LEDs - having to shield their faces in pain.
“Hey, everyone!” Dina called, jogging over to the crowd, “We have sixty seconds to get out before they lock the doors again.”
Everyone blinked at her in confusion.
“Get up! Go, go, go!” Dina yelled, glaring at them all.
There was a frantic run to leave, most having to leave their bags and coats on the floor. “At least one person's going to get trapped aren't they,” Jonah laughed to Amy as they stood up.
“Oh I have no doubt about it! But just be happy we can get out.”
The whole group managed to make it outside just before the LEDs flickered off and the automatic doors made a loud clicking noise as they locked internally.
“Oh no,” Cheyenne pouted, “I left my purple hair thingy.”