Under My Skin

Amanda

“Noooooo,” Amanda Austin groaned at her chirping alarm as she pulled her pillow over her head.

She contemplated laying here forever. She was exhausted. Not at all ready to once again face the world. She reluctantly reached her arm towards the nightstand, her fingers crawling across the surface until she found the source of the offending sound. She tossed the pillow to the side and looked at the screen of her phone. Eight p.m. She had an hour before she had to be to work, her second shift today.

Amanda worked at a multi-national corporation. Sounds exciting when you put it that way. In reality she was a cashier at a big box store in Kansas City. It was getting close to Thanksgiving, which meant mandatory overtime. She’d volunteered to stock overnight.

At least I won’t have to deal with many customers.

She went in the bathroom and splashed some water on her face and looked in the mirror. She was exhausted.

Yeah. You look like it.

She rolled her eyes at the voice inside her head, threw her hair into the usual messy bun, and headed back to the bedroom. She quickly dressed in her jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt.

Coffee.

She headed to the kitchen in her too-small, too-expensive apartment. Grabbing the essentials, iced coffee and pop-tarts, she quickly made her way towards the door.

Twenty minutes later she was sitting in her car in the parking lot. She glanced at the clock on the dash. 8:30. Half an hour til work. She stared at the store wondering how she’d gotten to this point in her life.

‘Cause you couldn’t hack it at college, dummy.

No. That wasn’t it. She was an intelligent woman. She could have gotten good grades, graduated, and become an art teacher like her family wanted. She had tried to convince herself that’s what she wanted, it just hadn’t worked.

She cranked up the radio to try to drown out her own thoughts. Some highly energized, angst-filled music came on. The emo music she’d listened to in high school seemed to still have a way of pumping her up and exciting her. Just what she needed to make it through this shift.

As she started bouncing and singing with the music, a sudden smack on her window almost startled her out of her own skin. She looked at where the sound had come from.

“JESUS KATE!!” Amanda glared at her best friend and saw nothing but a big toothy smile in return. Kate had trained Amanda when she first started this job 3 years ago. She rolled down her window.

“Jumpy much? I didn’t know you were working tonight too. Yayyyyy!!! ” Kate practically squealed.

“Yeah. Yay.”

The sarcasm rolled out of her. She already knew she could not fake enthusiasm about working here, but wished she hadn’t come off quite so snarky.

“At least we’re in it together I guess,” she added quickly, hoping Kate hadn’t taken offense.

Of course she hadn’t taken offense. This was Kate after all. She practically skipped around and hopped in the passenger seat.

“Look what I did!”

Kate held out her arm to show Amanda her newest tattoo. A big floral thing that took up half her arm. Peonies, roses, little sprigs. It was perfectly feminine, and perfectly Kate.

“Oooo, pretty!!!!”

Amanda didn’t have to fake enthusiasm over this. Beautiful lines inked in her friends skin. It was beautiful and beauty had always excited her. She had been going to school to be an art teacher, but she was more interested in the art part than the teaching part. Her parents had convinced her art itself wasn’t a career though.

Yeah and this is?

“Thanks Mandy! When are you going to come to the shop with me?”

Kate was a regular at a local tattoo shop and had been trying to get Amanda to get one forever. Not that Amanda had no tattoos, she just had a couple tiny ones though.

“When I design something I’ll actually want in my skin forever.”

She looked at the clock again.

Shit. 8:55.

She grabbed her purse and shut off the car flying in to the store. Call her a freak but she was always paranoid about being late. That’s why she always left her house so early and hung out in the parking lot until ten minutes before her shift.

Right when she was rounding the last of the many aisles before the back room she ran right into the back of another human. She visibly cringed without looking at the person as she quickly side stepped , continued her hurried pace and without looking back waved a hand behind her. “S-Sorry,” she half shouted half stuttered as she blasted through the back room door to the time clock.

She made it on time of course. 8:56. She sighed and slumped back against the lockers on the opposite wall of the time clock and closed her eyes.

Clutz.

Ugh. She wished she could turn this inner monologue off for once in her life.

She slammed her stuff in her locker and went to clock in. She’d be stocking cosmetics and personal care tonight. She went to that department and started emptying the bins the unloading crew had positioned in her area into a cart. It was easier this way being able to see the products.

Everyone hated stocking this department. Lots of tiny, tedious, time consuming stock. She didn’t mind. It kept her busy all night. She looked around before slipping in her earbuds. Totally against the rules, but totally worth it.

She looked at her cart. There seemed to be more toothpaste than anything, so that’s where she’d start. She headed down the oral care aisle and got busy.

She hadn’t been stocking long when she felt a tap on her shoulder and jumped letting out a startled sound.

Whipping out her headphones with one hand before continuing placing the rest of the toothbrushes in her arm on their pegs, she started off on a tangent.

“Kate, I swear. How many times in one night can you manage to nearly scare the piss out of me? I’m exhausted. This is my second shift today and...”

Spinning around once her arm was finally empty, her throat went dry.

Uh-oh. Not Kate.

“OhmygodI’msosorry!” The words all came out as one as she stared utterly mortified at the person who was most certainly not Kate.

“Man, first you tried to run me over. Then I get an earful. What’d I do to get so lucky?”

The man half chuckled and shook his head glancing her up and down. He looked positively amused. And rugged. And god-like. He was taller than her by a good foot and dressed in a suit. Though he looked just slightly less than perfectly professional.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean..”

“It’s quite alright.” A bright white smile flashed within his neatly groomed beard. “Do you mind if I just grab a toothbrush?” He held up his hands in mock surrender.

God those arms.

“Jeez, I’m sorry. Of course.” She scooted away from the toothbrushes she’d just been stocking. “Let me know if you need anything.”She turned away to head out of the aisle.

“Your name?”

Shit. He’s going to make a complaint.

Turning around she put on her best customer service smile. “Excuse me?” She tried her best to sound sweet and not sarcastic.

“You said to let you know if I needed anything and I’d like your name.”

“Amanda, sir.”

“I’m not sir, I’m Abel.” He chuckled at his own joke and she barely kept her eyes from rolling. Her customer service smile broke and she bit her bottom lip with a more genuine half grin.