Corey
Jesus fucking Christ. He needed a nap - ASAP. Homeroom was as perfectly dull and boring as always — no pep rallies, no fundraisers, no dances, no other annoying and useless school function he'd never attend. Why? Because it was less than a month into school. Homeroom was a thirty minute period at the beginning of each day — unless there was an announcement, in which is lasted an hour. Amazing. In those thirty minutes, absolutely nothing ever happened. His homeroom teacher usually slept through those thirty minutes, jolting awake when the bell that signified a class change rang out.
And that was exactly what Corey had planned to do, too, except the kids on front of him where chatting too loudly for him to actually fall asleep. They were right in front of each other - one girl was literally sitting on top of the desk - so he wasn't really sure why they felt the need to practically scream their conversation, but here he was. Overhearing gossip had never been so utterly boring. If Jackson was such a piece of trash, Katrina should just dump his ass already, save the world some trouble. And him some sleep.
After a sleepless homeroom, the rest of his day was equally as dreadful. There was a brief respite during their hour lunch break where he got a quick twenty minute nap in the study hall, which got him through both English and Economics — somehow, it was a miracle, truly — but started failing him in history. He wasn't really sure if it was a blessing or a curse that History was his last class of the day, but what he did know was that he loathed every part it. Even more than he hated spinach, and that was saying something.
From his History teacher's monotone voice and equally monotone appearance — seriously, he didn't think she owned a single article of clothing that wasn't fully grayscale — all the way down to the history topics they were reviewing. All of it was garbage, and irrelevant in his every day life. Sure, history had its purposes, but there was no purpose in doing ridiculously in-depth deep dives on every political figure of any sort of important post Industrial Revolution. At least pre-Industrial Revolution stuff was entertaining enough to sit through.
That was enough thoughts about that. School was done for the day and he was free from the clutches of Mrs. I-Hate-Everything-Colorful for another twenty three hours. Though that didn't mean his day was over, nowhere close, actually. His day hadn't even begun at the same time as everyone else's — for him, yesterday hadn't even really ended before today had started. A late night shift at Joe's Gas Station had marked the end of yesterday and beginning of today, and effectively robbed him of all but two hours of sleep. That wasn't really the name of the place — the sign read Joe's Gas N' Goe's — but everyone just called it Joe's, JGS, or Joe's Gas Station. He never met anyone, other than Joe, his boss, who actually called it that.
JGS was a hellhole and a half, and the pay wasn't even that good, but every bit helped. Joe was the only person other than Mrs. Rosanna willing to hire teenagers under eighteen, so he had to take what he could get. He didn't usually work night shifts so late — usually two to ten — but he'd covered half a shift for someone else and hadn't been off the clock until four a.m. He hadn't been alone — Joe never had only one person working, even during the night — but Richard was, well, Richard. Corey kept to himself, and Richard kept to himself. He didn't have any problems with him, and he was definitely a million times better than Peter, but he didn't really have any solid opinions on him. Which was rare, Corey usually had pretty solid opinions on most people.
Flash forward to now, after school, and twenty seconds away from starting his shift at his second job, the Lucky Diner. The outside was pretty simple, but the inside looked like pure sunshine. Pastel yellows, white, a darker gold color for accents, and a few light honey brown accents as well. Even the stereotypical checkered floor was sunshine-y — white and dark gold checkered the entire floor of the diner, even the kitchen area. On each table was a glass vase — one of the honey brown accents — that held a small bouquet of flowers. The flowers were swapped out weekly and chosen by Mrs. Rosanna herself; this week was a mix of white freesia and yellow buttercups.
As he entered, the tell-tale little jingle of the bell sounded. He glanced towards the counter and made direct eye contact with Joanne, who'd glanced over at the door when she'd heard the bell. She smirked and gave him a wave, pushing her arms over the counter as she leaned towards him. "Hey there, Cowboy," The blonde hair girl grinned, entirely relaxed in demeanor. Corey grimaced at the nickname — ever since that elderly woman had somehow misheard his name as "cowboy" instead of "Corey" on one of his shifts a few months ago, she hadn't let him live it down.
"You get any drunkards last night at Joe's?" Joanne asked, following behind him as he went into the staff room. There wasn't anybody in right now, so they had at least a few minutes to chat before the high school crowd showed up. "Don't get me started on last night," Corey groaned, pulling off his shirt and replacing it with the buttoned down one that had tiny writing in the upper right corner: "Lucky Diner." Joanne snickered, leaning against the wall. "That just makes me want to know even more."
"Richard damn near had to call the police at four in the morning because these two morons wouldn't leave the store and were causing a scene."
She faked gasped in shock. "Oh wow, loitering. Spicy."
Corey rolled his eyes, zipping up his bag and turning around to face her. "More like annoying." That earned another snicker from Joanne, and he cracked a wry smile. Joanne was twenty-two, saving up for college on her own to get away from this small town and make her own life out there somewhere. They'd been coworkers a little over a year now, and they'd grow surprisingly close. It felt sort of like having an older, slightly annoying, sister.
"Hey there, Sug', you're right on time. Those high school young'ins will be here any minute now, so you and Joanne get ready to be busy, busy, busy."
At the sound of his Boss' voice, a genuine smile crossed his lips. Mrs. Rosanna was southern grown and raised, dark skin and unruly curls, with the biggest heart of gold he knew. Southern hospitality was her thing, and in her diner, respect was given and earned in mutual transactions. She was like a bear, strong and loving but incredibly protective and fierce when she needed to be. Between her and Joe, there was no debating who the better Boss was.
"Afternoon, Miss Rosanna." He smiled, giving her a little nod. One corner of her mouth pulled upwards in a lopsided grin, and she shook her head affectionately. He already knew what she was thinking — nobody called her that except for him. To everyone else she was simply just Rosie. He couldn't really explain it properly in words, but it just felt more respectful to call her by her full name, even if she mostly went by a nickname.
As predicted, just like almost every school day, once three fifteen hit, rush hour officially began. From three fifteen to five thirty were always their busiest times. Afterwards, it was always steady until around eight thirty. Then it was late shift workers stopping for their lunch break, sports teams getting out of practice, the occasional late night date, and a other miscellaneous stragglers who didn't fit one of the aforementioned groups.
His shift went by in a blur, with nothing too notable happening. Just another normal shift — sometimes he was cooking, sometimes he was waiting on people, sometimes he was washing dishes. Mrs. Rosanna, Joanne, and him swapped tasks fairly regularly, none of them doing one thing too long. It was a little past eight thirty when the door chimed, and Joanne greeted the party with a fake singsong, cheerful greeting that he knew had her internally rolling her eyes.
Joanne had gotten the last larger party, so now it was his turn. Judging by the size of the party, Corey guess they were coming in after finishing practice, but it took him a moment to realize they were kids from his school. In fact, he only actually realized after they recognized him. Great. Just great. It had been a long day already, too long of a day, really, and this was not what he needed.
"Yo, guys look who our server is," One of them cackled. "It's that gay kid!"
"Bro, what? Fuck, do you think we'll, like, catch his queerness if he brings us our food?"
Corey clenched the stack of menus he brought out a little tighter, but refused to break his professionalism. This was his workplace, and if they caused him anymore trouble, he was sure Joanne would step in and kick them out, anyways. A few of the guys looked clearly uncomfortable — either due to the rowdier ones shitty attempts to belittle him or because of his presence, he was wasn't sure — but only one kid actually spoke up in his defense.
"Hey, guys, knock it off. He hasn't done anything to you, here's just here doing his job. Let's just order." Then the ash blonde hair kid turned to him with a sheepish little smile. "Hey, uhm, I'm really sorry about them."
His apology did little to settle the frostiness in Corey's tone as he responded. "Gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask you to either order or leave."
One guy - the one who first addressed his presence - clicked his tongue and pushed around from the table harshly, the metal legs of his chair screeching in protest. "Man, whatever, let's just get outta this dump." Like some idiotic hivemind, the jock squad followed after him brainlessly, and Corey had to physically restrain himself from laughing. They failed to rile him up so they were leaving? Well, he definitely wasn't going to complain about that.
The ash blonde kid gave him one last little glance, something like regret, and shame, and maybe another apology flashing across his face before he slowly turned to follow his teammates. Only after he pushed in his chair, though. Wow, what a goody-two-shoes.
"Wow, what a bunch of losers," Joanne remarked, propping her elbow on his shoulder and leaning against him. "You good?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied, though Mrs. Rosanna seemed infinitely more worried than his coworker; he could practically feel her fretting across the room.
"You sure you're alright, sugar pie? I don't mind giving you a little break, you could even head on home for the night if you wanted."
But he just shook his head at that. "No, ma'am, I'm fine, really."
Joanne sighed dramatically. "Just leave him be, Rosie, we both know how completely stubborn he is."
"Well, only if you're sure, sweet pea. But you better tell me if they come on in my diner again and cause trouble, you hear? I ain't gonna tolerate that kinda talk to my employees, y'all work too hard to be treated that way." Now that her worry was gone, she tutted and tsked, huffing and puffing over it long after the football team had left. That got another small smile out of him.
Even if there were a lot of assholes in this town, there were some good people, too. You just had to find them.