I was nervous when I stepped into the café the next morning, but was relieved to see Honey wasn’t on the schedule for the day.  Looking at the schedule, I made a mental note to try to rearrange some of my shifts to avoid working with her as long as possible.  Anything that gave me a better chance of survival.

    Molly made a beeline for me the moment I stepped into the kitchen to start work on my tasks for the day – baking all the treats we sold.  “Riven!  Are you okay?  You rarely take time off.  Is anything the matter?”

     I was startled to find her there, given that she was rarely in the café in person, before wondering if maybe she’d had to fill in when I took my unexpected vacation.  I felt guilty as I scuffed one foot against the floor.  “I’m fine.”

     Very underwhelming response, but what was I supposed to tell her?  It wouldn’t have been right to explain even if I’d been comfortable doing so, because it would involve telling other peoples’ secrets.  Presuming she didn’t know about Honey, that is.  And unless I was told otherwise, that’s what I’d assume.

     Molly waited, then sighed when it was clear I wasn’t going to volunteer anything else.  “Oh, Ivan quit, so I hired a new girl, her name’s Beatrice.  She started yesterday and Jenny’s training her today, so just keep an eye out in case they need anything, okay?”  She then rattled off to me everything else I would need to know for that shift, and I nodded every so often to indicate I was paying attention, but didn’t say anything else.

     Thankfully Molly left me alone to my work soon after.  Well, alone with Devon, who was also in the kitchen today.  He was one of the easiest coworkers to work with because, like me, he didn’t talk much.  We could settle into an easy rhythm, figuring out what to help with and what to handle on our own without even talking about it.  It was peaceful, working with Devon.

     Or it was, until Jenny decided to introduce the new girl to me.

     “Riven!  You’re back!  I didn’t even know you took vacations, that was kind of weird.  You’re just like, always here, so at first I thought you’d died or something.”

     I shrugged as I rolled out the dough, not looking at Jenny.  This wasn’t a busy time of day, so it was probably fine for her to be back here, but personally I’d rather she stayed at the registers in case customers came in.

     Jenny continued on obliviously.  “Anyway, this is Beatrice, she started yesterday.  Beatrice, Riven is one of the assistant managers – it’s him, Monica, and Doug, who you met, he was in yesterday – so if you need help with anything, feel free to ask Riven.  He’s a tad quiet but he knows what he’s doing.”

     I flinched a little at the “tad quiet” thing.  That…wasn’t exactly what it was, but it wasn’t like I was going to correct her.

     “Hi Riven, I’m Beatrice, like she said.  It’s nice to meet you.”

     I gave her a nod but didn’t look at her face.  I didn’t need to.  I saw enough from the sideways glance and looking at the floor where I could see her tail dragging lazily behind her.

     Beatrice was either a naga or a lizardfolk.  I wasn’t sure which, yet, but based on Ren’s description, she was one of them.  And…he’d made it sound like I should avoid them.

     Lovely.  Just when I thought it might be okay to stay at the café, another coworker showed up that would give me great anxiety just to be around, even if she didn’t know that I was weird.

     Honey and Beatrice weren’t the only supernatural coworkers I’d had over the past few years.  Devon was one, actually, a familiar, as Ren called them, but despite that I worked fine with him because he kept to himself.  There’d been several others during the past five to six years, usually who didn’t stick around for too long – students working summer jobs, that sort of thing.  Honey had been here for just over two years and Devon about one, so I’d worked with them the longest.

     A little over four years ago, one of my coworkers had been one of them – a satyr.  He’d been loud and boisterous, and Molly’d had to fire him eventually when it became clear he just wasn’t a good fit for the café.  But, she fired him when I’d finally reported some of his behavior, like getting into arguments with customers – including straight up throwing someone’s drink at them – breaking things, not working while on the clock and just hanging out with his friends, all of that stuff.  He found out from Molly when she’d told him to leave that I’d reported him and apparently decided to make me pay for it when I got off that night.

     He’d already been planning to beat me up, but he’d been using an invisibility spell to wait next to the dumpster, either to make sure no one else caught him loitering or to terrify me.  So he did not expect me to notice him and try to move out of his way when he stepped into the alley in front of me.

     Yeah, that didn’t go over well.  One of those brilliant moments of mine where I managed to let on I knew something about them to someone who already planned to beat me up.  It went over about as well as one could expect.

     Thinking back on that incident in the kitchen now as Jenny and Beatrice went back to the front, I wondered a bit why I hadn’t died.  I mean, some of my injuries over the years were bad but there were a few incidents that stood out as particularly awful.  My “friend” when I was 15.  Nearly getting my right arm ripped off when trying to help an injured shifter.  The satyr’s attack.

     It had been bad.  I remembered dragging myself into my apartment and realizing my clothes were not going to be salvageable from all the blood and rips.  Then realizing that I couldn’t even see out of one eye and I was pretty sure the bones in my right calf had been crushed.  Not to mention there were actual hoof-shaped stab wounds in my abdomen where his sharp hooves had kicked me hard enough to not just break skin but almost go all the way through me.  I was pretty sure some of the stuff leaking out wasn’t just blood.  Like…internal organs are supposed to not be leaking out, right?  I’d passed out in the bathroom, pretty sure I’d never wake up again, but somehow, in the morning, I had.

     Mercifully for me, the satyr had also vandalized the café after leaving me for dead.  That sounded awful to be thankful for, but it had meant the café was closed for a few days, and Molly had given everyone paid leave under the circumstances – I think at the time she was afraid we’d all get scared off and wouldn’t come back otherwise – but it meant I had almost a week to recuperate in my apartment without having to force myself to go work despite how bad I felt.

     By the time the café reopened, I went back to work just as normal.  I limped, felt nauseous when eating most food, and still had a large bruise on my face, but I’d told Molly I fell down the stairs at my apartment and she seemed to believe it.

     Now, four years later, I had to wonder why it hadn’t been worse.  I’d been so sure that night that I was going to die, and thinking about the injuries I’d collected, I…I probably should have.  Or maybe I just exaggerated them, being in pain and paranoid at the time?  I mean, if my bones had been crushed, they wouldn’t just…heal, right?  So there’s no way I’d be fine now.  He must have just really bruised it or something and I thought it was crushed.  And the stuff oozing from my injuries must have just been blood after all.

     Maybe that explained most of the incidents where I felt like I’d been super lucky to survive.  Maybe I’d just exaggerated them due to fear and pain and confusion.  That actually made sense to me.  I had no medical training, no one to help me, and the pain and fear likely made me think the worst.  I mean…what other option was there?

     The timer on the oven interrupted my thoughts and I went to pull out several sheets of perfectly toasted tarts.  I set them aside, where Devon automatically started decorating them with bits of fruit, and placed some trays of cinnamon rolls and cookies in the oven instead.

     This was why I enjoyed working in the bakery.  Quiet, time to think, and with Devon in the kitchen as well, very efficient.  No customers, no one I needed to talk to.  It was nice.

     I mean, as long as I wasn’t obsessing over old injuries or anything.  Which of course I wasn’t.

     The rest of the shift actually went pretty smoothly, just quietly working on the baked goods with Devon, right up until Jenny stuck her head back through the kitchen door.

     “Hey Riven?”  She said with a weird sort of giggle.  “There’s a really hot guy out here asking about you.”

     I paused.  From even that tiny description I was fairly sure who it was, but I wasn’t done for another hour.  I had finished baking, though, and was currently working on washing dishes, so it was easy enough to set them aside, dry my hands, and come out to the front.

     Beatrice was apparently trying to get Ren to order something, smiling at him and encouraging him that the menu was awesome, but he was just fiddling with the zipper of his backpack until he spotted me emerge and then his face lit up.

     “Riven!  We didn’t talk about when we’d meet up next so I was hoping it was okay to drop by.”

     I went to the other end of the counter from Beatrice, who looked kind of pissed off that Ren had been basically ignoring her and now was clearly interested in me, and from Jenny, who was just standing there openly staring in shock.

     Great.  They were going to be annoying about this, weren’t they?

     I turned to Ren, who was blissfully unaware of my new concerns.  “I don’t get off for an hour yet.  It’ll be kind of late then, maybe you should just go home and we can meet up another time.”

     He shook his head quickly.  “Nope, I didn’t get to see you at all yesterday, so even if it’s just walking you home, I really wanted to hang out today.  I can stay, drink some coffee, and work on homework until you’re done.  What do you recommend?”

     “Well…that depends on what you like.”

     “Hmm good question.”  He looked up at the menu board hanging over the front counter.  “Well, I don’t like caramel, but otherwise, I’d say I’m pretty open.  Oh, Honey’s raved about some pastry thing, though, I really wanted to try it, but I don’t remember what it was called.”

     I thought for a moment.  “Wait just a minute,” I said.  I went over to Jenny and asked her to ring up a few items, which Ren came over and paid for while I started making his drink rather than getting Jenny to make it.

     Or Beatrice, but I assumed she wasn’t trained on those yet.  If she was on registers today, that was likely all she’d been trained on so far since she’d only been here two days.

     I could feel Ren watching me curiously while I worked on his drink and then quickly disappeared into the kitchen and reappear with warm, freshly baked goods and set them on a plate.  I handed him the drink and plate.

     “Enjoy.  I’ll let you know when I’m done.”  And then I escaped back into the kitchen before I could see his response to the things I’d picked for him.

     It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know what he thought – honestly, I was a little curious if he would like the two pastries I’d picked out.  I was pretty sure the thing Honey had raved about had been the tart I’d just finished earlier, she loved them and let everyone in the café know so repeatedly, so that seemed like a safe bet.  The other one, though, was a gamble, assuming that he’d like honey and nuts with just a touch of cinnamon.  I mean, most customers did, so he probably would?

     But the reason I didn’t stay – other than just because I wasn’t assigned out front today – was because of the other people watching.  I was okay with Ren watching me, surprisingly, but Jenny was still giving me these glances which made it clear she wanted some answers and Beatrice kept shooting me angry glares which reminded me of – yeah, she was a naga, I was pretty sure.  Those eyes were snake, not lizard.  So more dangerous, which was…awesome.

     It didn’t take long after I got back into washing dishes before Jenny appeared in the kitchen.

     “Riven!”  She hissed.  “Who is he?  How do you know him?  What’s he doing here?  Is he your boyfriend?  I’ve never seen you talk that much before!”

     I found myself glad I didn’t blush easily at her last question and took a deep breath.  I knew she wasn’t going to just let me get away with not answering – Jenny was very persistent when it came to knowing stuff like this, and especially since I’d never had any personal life details appear at the café before, this wasn’t something she was going to let go.  I’d have to give her something, just as little as possible.

     “He’s – a friend.  I helped him out with something.”  That was a reasonable excuse, right?  It wasn’t like I could say I may have saved his life and he’d decided to befriend me, possibly to make sure I wasn’t a threat to him and his family.  Then I remembered that I could add something else that should be safe info.  “He’s Honey’s brother.”

     That stopped her for a moment.  “Oh.  Ooooh.  Yeah I can see the resemblance now that I think about it.  I guess that makes sense – did you meet while you were hanging out with Honey sometime?  Wait if you’re not dating him, is he free?  Do you know what his preference is?  Do you – ”

    She jumped, interrupted by Devon dropping a heavy box on the counter right next to her.

     “This isn’t a dating event,” he growled at her, “or a gossip parlor.  And you left the trainee alone.”

     “Oh.  Oh, right.”  She took a step back, glanced over at me again like she wanted to keep asking more questions, then turned and left when Devon just stood there with his arms crossed.

     When we were alone in the kitchen again, I breathed a sigh of relief.  “Thanks,” I whispered.

     He grunted.  “You should tell her off.  You’re the assistant manager, and she’s just nosy.  She doesn’t understand personal boundaries, and if it makes you uncomfortable, don’t let her walk all over you.”  Then he walked away, headed back to the other side of the kitchen to continue his tasks.

     He must have seen how I was cringing the moment all her questions started pouring over me.  I appreciated his intervention, but it surprised me.  He’d never done anything like that before.  Granted, though, I hadn’t really been in a situation with coworkers like that before since usually I never shared anything personal and they had no reason to even think of asking me questions like that.  The most that ever happened was people wondering why I didn’t look at and/or talk to them, but that wasn’t the same thing.  I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d gotten involved, though.  At least we were now back to our peaceful silence, focused on our tasks.