Page 35 of Death Match

Right before she reached the door labeled Employees Only, a voice called out, making her freeze with her hand on the handle.

“You’re late again.” A man with a thick mustache, black hair, and a green apron appeared from the back corner of the store, a pricing gun in his hand and a displeased look on his face. His Spanish accent clung to every word. “I thought we talked about this, Jade.”

I felt myself cringing at his disappointment, and when I looked at my living-self, she was doing the same. I just didn’t have good luck when it came to jobs and bosses, huh? Didn’t matter where I worked.

Like with Jade and the gangsters on the stoop, Mr. Ricardo didn’t notice me standing there either, only adding more validity to this being a part of my memory theory.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ricardo,” other-Jade started with a grimace. “I promise tomorrow—”

His hand shot up to silence her. “You mean like you promised me yesterday? And the day before?”

Yikes. No wonder she was rushing to get here.

Bad at another job? Just another thing that had transferred over after my death.

Living-Jade didn’t respond. She didn’t know how to, and I didn’t blame her.Ididn’t know how I would have responded either.

The man named Mr. Ricardo sighed heavily and shook his head. “Oh, Jade. Please don’t make me fire you. I really don’t want to.”

“I’m really sorry,” she replied in a rush. “I-I overslept. Again.”

Lie.

I knew myself well enough to know when I was lying, and that was absolutely a bull-faced lie. The way living-Jade rubbed her lips together told me there was so much more she wanted to say but wasn’t going to. Something was holding her back.

Mr. Ricardo didn’t seem to notice, though. He was suddenly more occupied in adjusting the price gun’s knobs.

“Set an alarm.” He clicked the trigger to punctuate each word. Little sticky tags fluttered to the floor each time. “Have your mother wake you, if you need to. There’s such a thing called responsibility.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

But from the look on Mr. Ricardo’s face, he didn’t believe it. This obviously wasn’t their first time having this conversation, and he was sure it wouldn’t be their last, either.

He nodded toward the door. “Ricky’s in the back unloading the morning’s delivery. Give him a hand, will you?”

Living-Jade nodded stiffly, pulled the door open, and walked through the door. I followed.

Once in the back room, I let out a sigh of relief, but she held hers in as she placed her messenger bag on the floor, grabbed a green apron from the hook nearby, and threw it on. As her fingers made quick work of tying the strings at her waist, she blinked rapidly, as if she was holding back tears, and my gut twisted. What was going on? The late shift? The lying to her boss? Now this? Something was definitely going on here.

While other-Jade moved around the backroom, I did a general sweep of the place. It was full of metal shelves, boxes, and extra product. In the corner, the hatch to the cellar was open, revealing some very questionable and unstable looking stairs. Noises echoed from down there, like someone was moving things around. Then a boom as something fell and a curse.

“Ricky.” Living-Jade walked over to the stairs. “Please don’t tell me you dropped anything liquid this time. Or expensive.”

More curses.

“Fuck, Ricky. Really?”

I’d take that as a yes.

Suddenly, a young man’s face popped into view as he climbed up the steps, then his matching green apron that was darkened and splattered by whatever he’d spilled. Living-Jade moved to let him up, and she groaned the second she spotted his soaked apron.

“Milk again?” she asked.

Ricky pulled off the winter gloves he was wearing and chucked them on the ground in frustration. “What do you think?” he huffed, likely angrier with himself than anyone else. “It’s even in my high tops, man. I just got these, too.”

“You need to stop trying to carry those crates by yourself. They’re heavy as hell.”

“I need to bulk up,” Ricky replied. He held up his arms and flexed them, revealing skinny arms covered in tattoos. “The store is my gym.”

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