My shifts hadn't overlapped much with Jerico's for the last several days, so I'd barely seen him. I was excited as I headed to work, knowing I'd be spending the day with him.
"Hey Riv." He waved as I entered the shop. I stamped my shoes into the mat as he continued, "I've missed you."
"Same here!" I hung my coat up and gave him a quick hug, asking, "Just the two of us today?"
"Yeah. Gary is away with his girlfriend today, and Shelley and Josh are off."
"Oh, yeah he mentioned that the other day."
A few hours later, the lunch time rush finished, and the shop was empty, I went around cleaning the tables and realigning the chairs as he cleaned out the machines. "You see the community bulletin board?" he asked.
I glanced over to it, on top of the usual 2 for 1 deals and dance class posters was a 'Missing' poster of Maxwell Reach, a blonde boy, about our age. "They still haven't found him. It's been what, two weeks now?"
Jeri nodded sombrely.
...
After locking up the shop we headed back to mine so I could grab a bag. Talking through our plans for the next two days.
Ezra and Kobe were both working away, so it was just the two of us, "Right, so no proper adults for the next two days, so we can stay up late, watch movies and eat whatever we want!" he joked, holding the door open to my room.
I squeezed past him, pressing far more of my body against his than was actually necessary, "Well, maybe we'll find time for other things too. Oh- and I'm meeting with Ezra's friend, Sally, about getting into marketing in the morning."
I smirked, "Amazing. Right, right I've got your bag, just get a change of clothes and we can head straight to mine."
As we walked down the hall of the hostel, I nudged Jeri's arm and nodded to Frank, the old guy in his pink bunny slippers. Jeri rolled his eyes and smiled as we descended the stairs. There was a loud thump from one of the rooms, quickly followed by raised voices. "Fuck, what was that?"
I shrugged, "Dunno, there's always someone arguing."
"Should we tell someone?" he asked worriedly.
"Babe, it's just part of the everyday dramas of living in a hostel, the guy behind the desk is used to far worse."
"You need to get out of here."
I shrugged, "I will, but it sure beats dealing with whatever latest asshole my Mum's with."
"I get that, but it's still not okay."
Jeri lived a twenty-minute walk from me and as we walked beneath the glare of the streetlights, he talked about me moving out of the hostel for a few minutes before I managed to move the subject onto discussing different movies we were looking forward to seeing and then about a rumoured adaptation of one of his favourite comics. He was still talking animatedly about what scenes were essential to the story, when we settled onto his bed, and he loaded up his console. I smiled happily as he spoke and again thought how right I'd been to move to the city.
After an hour or so of playing games, Jeri excused himself to his ensuite. When I heard the shower start running, I pulled out my phone and saw two messages one from Gary:
[Josh is ignoring my calls; can you go in early and open tomorrow and do a double?]
[Sure, enjoy your weekend.] I shot back before opening the second message from Ezra.
[Hope you're having more fun than me. Been in meetings all day. Now off to dinner with some clients, luckily Kobe's coming along to that, so it shouldn't be too mind numbingly boring.]
I thumbed out a response, [I'm sure it isn't that bad, looking forward to you coming back tomorrow night though.]
[Me too. Missing my boy already. Talk later x]
I felt my balls tighten instantly as I read it.