"How have you been?" asked the girl named Shannon.
"Great," Aaron responded, not looking up from the tablet and the register he seemed to be putting orders into.
Julie wondered what he would do if he ran out of orders to put in the register.
"Did you need a table?" he asked shortly.
"Oh, I am not waiting on her," Leigh whispered furiously to Julie. "If she sits, you have to take her. We're not doing it."
There was a slightly protective twist on "we're" as she informed Julie of that piece of information, and Julie filed it away to contemplate on one of her lonely late nights.
"It's rude to whisper, you know," the redhead said, a sharp edge to her voice as she turned to glance back at Leigh, a look of animosity in her formerly clear blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," Leigh said, walking over to the counter. "Did you want me to refuse to serve you a little louder?"
Julie gasped, her eyes widening at the first rude interaction she had ever seen from Leigh.
Shannon scoffed. "Excellent service, Aaron. I give it two thumbs way, way up."
Suddenly, she wasn't looking quite as pretty as she had before she opened her mouth.
"Well, there are plenty of other places to eat in the city, Shannon. If you don't like the service here, you're welcome to leave," Aaron stated.
Since Aaron was backing Leigh up, the redhead seemed to retreat. "I wanted to… come in and say hi."
"Hi," he said dryly. "Mission accomplished."
With that, he seemed to be out of things to do at the registers, so he walked away from the girl into the back.
Shannon stood there a bit awkwardly as Leigh stared her down. After a few seconds, Shannon muttered, "I see you haven't changed. Still Aaron's little pit bull."
"Someone has to watch his back for vicious snakes like you," Leigh responded.
"Ugh, you wish," the girl said unkindly. "Like I would have let you serve me anyway—you'd poison me just to get me out of the way."
Scoffing, Leigh said, "I don't have to get you out of the way, sweetie, you did a fine job of that yourself."
"That was a long time ago, okay? Back off."
"You think he forgot what you did to him?" Leigh asked on a laugh. "He'll never forget, and he'll never forgive you, so you've wasted your time coming in here—why don't you go outside and stand on a corner where you'll feel more at home?"
"Very clever," Shannon said sarcastically, her eyes narrowing.
"Oh, come on, surely someone would hang a five dollar bill out the window—it could be a pr
ofitable night for you. More than you’re worth, that’s for sure."
Julie couldn't keep from smiling; she didn't know what had gotten into Leigh, but as sweet as Leigh was, it just made her insults seem very funny to Julie's ears.
The redhead smiled tightly, but before anything else was said Aaron came back up front with salt and pepper, and he began opening up salt and pepper shakers at the counter and refilling them.
That was Julie's job, she realized, and only then did she finally frown.
What kind of person must this Shannon be that she had muddled Aaron's thoughts to the point that he was doing Julie's job. He hated Julie.
"You know, I don't work at Subway anymore," Shannon said, moving closer to the counter. "I didn't know if you had been in there lately, but I left. I'm actually working up at Walgreens now, the one up by the ice rink—you should stop in and get a slushie sometime. I remember how you love slushies," she said, smiling a warm smile as she sat at the counter.
Looking closer, Julie saw that Aaron's jaw was locked so tight that she was actually concerned he might break it.