Bleeding Hearts

Love sucks

The shop is dark so I grab my keys and unlock the place, flicking on the lights I see Max passed out on the couch in the back of the room. Max’s snore doesn’t stop when the lights flick on meaning he was probably up late drinking last night when he passed out, at least he manage to lock the place up. I toss my stuff on the counter and Angel walks over to Max then starts nuzzling him tell he wakes up.

“Mmmmmm what…… Angel? What are you doing?” he laughs and pushes her from his face as he slowly sits up rubbing his face.

“good morning beautiful man, did you have a ruff night last night? Or did you sleep here because its more comfortable than your place?” I jokingly shout to him knowing full well he is hung over and miserable.

“Funny Bells. I was working late then I decided to drink, didn’t want to drive so here I am, now be nice and hush your voice or you will be fired" he whispers painfully back at me while rubbing his head. His black hair is a disaster and his cloths covered in paint and what looked like whisky or maybe scotch, some sort of brown liquid. The sight of him when he stood up looking like a damn mess tells me he had been here last night in misery thinking of Amy and that led him to drink and paint God knows what, last time he was like this he painted a beautiful portrait of her then burned it right in the middle of the park which led to him being arrested for a night. Luckily this time he at least stayed in the studio so no bail money needed.

“you should have called, you know you can anytime. I’m here for you, just like you are there for me when I need it. I don’t want to wake up one day to another call from the PD saying I lost another friend. You are all I have left Max.” I walk over and hug him, almost barfing when I catch a whiff of him, he smells of whiskey and bad B.O. “ you smell like s**t"

He laughs and raises his armpit the rubs it in my face. I smack him and gag as I push him away. He laughs even harder then grabs his head as he winced in pain. Damn hangover must be kicking his ass this time. How much did he have? I grab some Tylenol from my bag and a water bottle from the fridge in the back room. In the corner of the room I see a painting on the floor, the canvas had been smashed to bits and torn up, shoe prints made of paint covered the floor. This must be what he was painting, I leave it be and head back to the front. Max had sat back down on the couch and Angel had her head in his lap, he was petting her gently and kissed her head.

“Max here take these, it will help” I hand him the Tylenol and water “ when you feel better you should go home and get cleaned up, maybe try to get more sleep or something. I can man the shop today"

he chugged the whole bottle of water and took the meds quickly. Looking down and Angel and petting her more he finally says “ no need to stick around here alone, ill get cleaned up and eat then come back. Aaron will be in later and he can take over while we go to the hospital. Seeing the kids today remember?” He looked up at me and put on a smile, half forced and half real, he loved to visit the kids with me. The kids at the hospital are some of the coolest people I know, they are facing hell there daily, yet when we show up and hang with them you couldn’t even tell. The kids are so full of joy and happiness it becomes contagious. I know Max could really use some cheering up so I’m glad he remembered our plans for the day.

“I would never forget, why do you think I came in so early, go get cleaned up and eat I have some work to do and can watch the place for now" I start unpacking my laptop and get it started up while he heads to the back room. I hear him cleaning up the broken painting and tossing it into the trash can. A few minutes pass then I hear the doorbell chime as a couple walk in, they look to be early 30s and the woman looks like she just had a billion dollars given to her with the promise of more to come. “may I help you two today?” I ask, already assuming she’s going to say they need engagement and wedding photography done, why else would she be so damn giddy at 8am in the morning on a Saturday?

“Ohhhhh I do hope so miss, my best friend had he wedding photos and her ceremony filmed by you guys about a year ago, they turned out amazing so I was wondering if I could see about getting ours done, we just got engaged and have a date planned already. We want to make sure we get everything set up as soon as possible so we don’t miss out you see” she talked so fast and was practically bouncing out of her boots. The boy on the other hand looked like he would rather be in bed still.

“congratulations, yes I’m sure we can get you put down on the schedule. First I need you to fill out some paperwork so we can set up an account for you then I can walk you through our package options and show you what we can do based on your preference and styles of work you would like done. Also we can go through price ranges so we know what we have to work with and don’t put you over budget by accident or anything.” I handed her a clip board with all the papers attached and a pamphlet showing her prices and packages. She nearly knocked her man over in excitement to grab the papers and pens I was giving her.

“Ohhhh I’m so excited….. thanks ill get this done right away" he grabbed her man’s hand and headed over to the tables on the other side of the room so they could get to work. I rolled my eyes at them already sensing she’s going to be a hell of a bride to deal with. This poor boy looks like he just may be second guessing his choice to wed the girl already. Max came walking out from the back carrying 2 large trash bags over his shoulder. Angle hopped up from the couch and followed him up to the counter where I was loading up an iPad so I could show the eager woman some ideas on what we can do for her.

“well I’m headed out, Aaron will be here in an hour he says, I won’t be too long. Try not to crush any dreams while I’m gone will ya?” he said with a silly smirk on his face. He knows I’m not into doing wedding work. Not much of a fan of people who think its all sunshine and unicorns when they plan to get married. I have seen the other side of weddings and their dramas they cause, not to mention my dating history or lack there of has me sour towards love.

“I will do as I please, you hurry back or I may burn the place down" I reply and stick my tongue out at him as he walks out. Just then the lady sees Angel and squeals

“PUPPY… OMG LOOK JACK LOOK IT’S A PUPPY …. OMG CAN I PLEEEZZZZ PET IT PLEEEZZZ?” she ask excitedly while tossing the clipboard to her fiancé.

“Sure go ahead, her name is Angel, she’s quite friendly” I responded while going back to working on the IPAD. The lady runs to Angel and starts petting her and kissing her all over, instantly I start thinking that if I were a dog this lady would be first on my bite list. After 10 or so minutes the lady returned to her boyfriend and the papers and I started downloading photos from my camera memory chip to my laptop and organized them into the correct files for me to scan through later then put up on my company f*******: page.

“OK we are all done now, ready to start looking. Oh and no need to worry much on price, our wedding is going to be perfect so we need like thousands of photos regardless of price. My daddy has it covered” the lady is back at the counter and her fiancé is lounging at the table on his phone totally oblivious to what it happening around him. I do my best to fake smile as I walk miss princess Barbie through the different packages and what we can do. I put all her info into the computer and start applying her wishes to her profile so when the day comes we have all the info we need on date, location, number of guests and so on so forth. She flips through the photos on the Ipad so see ideas on poses and settings for engagement photos. 1hr and 46 minutes later we are finally finished with the set up of her photo and video package for now. We will meet again closer to the date of engagement photo session to work out more exact details and off she goes through the door with her zombie fiancé in tow.