asoncalledgabriel | (no subject)

Gabriel found an extra job to get him through the summer, working at a cafe. It was probably better to have something to do all summer, and his other job was only part time - mostly because he didn't want to spend the entire summer outside. He was lucky - for an Irish lad he tanned fairly well - but summer here was warmer than it was back home, and doing landscape work in the heat and humidity was exhausting.

At least the cafe had air conditioning.

Keeping busy gave him less time to think, anyway, and that was also probably for the best. Since coming to Darrow, he felt un-tethered from everything. All the things he'd wanted back home felt uncertain and far away now. He'd wanted to go to university to get away from his family, his life, and now... he was in a place that gave him all that. He went to university here because it seemed the thing to do, but was that a good enough reason? He wasn't sure.

The more he thought about it, the more he missed home. Things felt awful there, but at least he'd had an idea of where he was going. He had a handful of hope that.

As the day wound down, he changed the music playing over the speakers, putting on his ABBA playlist while he cleaned up, getting ready to close. The place was empty and had been for about half an hour, so he didn't feel terribly bad singing and dancing around a bit. Surely no one else would come in.

Threaded | Flat

Accustomed as she is to summers in cities, Therese can't pretend to be enjoying this weather very much. It's as humid and unpleasant as New York was. Still, she can't just sit around all day in the air conditioning, as much as she might like to. She's been out today taking pictures of an event in the park for work, so rather than heading straight back to her building, she decides on a whim to duck into a café, needing something cool to drink and maybe to get out of the heat for a few minutes.

She doesn't look at the hours on the window as she steps inside, so she isn't expecting to find the place looking all but closed. For that matter, she isn't expecting to see a familiar face, either, unable to help smiling a little at the scene she's interrupted, even if she feels a little bad about having done so.

"Sorry," she says. "Are you closed?"