Page 15 of A World Apart
“I was literally a student less than a year ago. The transition has been a struggle,” I said dramatically, picking up my travel mug and my rucksack.
“No more lecture-naps,” Becka sighed.
“No more student discounts,” I lamented.
“No more one-dollar shots.” She held the door open for me.
“Or one-pound shots.” I corrected, walking past her into the corridor.
“Which one is more expensive?”
I took a moment to think as we descended the stairs.
“British shots. You yanks get more bang for your buck.”
“Depends how many shots you take,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at me before sliding her sunglasses down over her eyes as we pushed open the door to the street, emerging into the bright sunlight of a typical, spring morning in LA.
“No Uber this morning?” Becka asked, hopefully looking up and down the already congested streets.
“Not unless you got a raise I don’t know about,” I said as I began walking down the street.
“Hey!” she called, easily catching up to me. She had several inches on me since her legs were longer. “Some people might consider yesterday’s lunchtime favour an incentive to reciprocate with comfortable travel.” She grinned at me, but my only response was to sling my arm around her and begin propelling her down the street.
“I’m going to smell like a gas station,” Becka whinged as I pushed her forcefully towards the bus stop.
“Better than surviving off crackers and twice-used tea-bags,” I pointed out.
Becka groaned loud enough that the people already waiting at the bus stop turned to look.
08:50
Jeremy heaved a soul-deep sigh the moment I raised my hand to knock on his door.
“I could have been anyone, you know. I could have been Trevor Kyle, or Scarlett Johannson,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
Jeremy didn’t even look up; he just pointed his pen at the clock on the wall behind his desk.
“Punctuality is not a crime,” I pointed out.
“Nope, but you and I must have fucked up in a past life to get the brunt of it this week.” He said, throwing his pen down on his desk and dragging both hands down his face.
“Boss, it is way too early to be this cheerful, you need to calm down.” I joked, earning me the drollest of droll looks.
“I got an email this morning at fucking 5 o’clock to say that Tech are striking and won’t be in. Indefinitely.”
“Oh, bugger,” I stated. He huffed.
“Yeah, ‘bugger’.” His approximation of my British accent was poor, but given the givens, I’d allow it.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked.
“Let’s just hope you really enjoyed your day fucking around with shit from storage yesterday.” He dead-panned.
My fingers twitched in remembered pain at the memory.
Half an hour later and I was headed back up to the studios with another box. This one was filled with boxes and cases of microphones and their various heads and pop shields.
The second floor corridor was quiet and dark. There were no external windows on this level and with the lighting being sensor activated, it could be quite spooky wandering around here on your own.
