“Your best friend is a dick."

“Yes…?”

Frankie turned to him, eyes narrowing, “More enthusiasm.”

“Yes,” Ezra said.

“Thank you,” Frankie said.

It was dead in the Cafe and they had nothing to do. Frankie had already taught Ezra how to use a mop, then he’d taught Ezra how to make the drinks, and then he’d taught Ezra how to wipe down tables. All things he already taught Ezra last week.

It wasn’t astounding that he didn’t know how to clean- Ezra was pretty well off, the type of well-off that had other people pick up after him. What was really astounding was how he got hired in the first place. Stella wasn’t there to hire or train him in person since she had some kind of emergency and was off but whoever hired him was clearly distracted while they were doing it.

“I told you, too much water,” Frankie said, taking the rag from Ezra’s hands and ringing it in the sink. It was like he was trying to drown the counter.

Stella should’ve already seen his horrendous cleaning skills and decided not to hire him.

“You’re stressing me out,” Frankie said while demonstrating how to use the rag.

“You’re stressing yourself out,” he mumbled as Frankie put the rag in his hand.

“What?”

Ezra tilted his head at Frankie‘s words.

“You said something,” Frankie stated.

“I agree with you. Foster’s a dick. What did he do this time?”

“That’s not what you said, but, whatever.”

Cheeky fuck, Frankie thought. Ezra made good company if nothing else.

“I woke up this morning yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I go to take a bath, like I always do at six forty-five, and who’s in there?”

“Foster.”

“Yes,” Frankie said while putting a hand to his chest, “At my time,”

Ezra deduced, “He doesn’t know what time you shower.”

“He should,” Frankie said.

Frankie dragged the cloth across the table again and again. Taking his frustration out on a counter had been cleaned for the fifth time just today.

“But what if he didn’t?”

He paused to look at Ezra.

“He…he does shit like this to me all the time, he hates me-”

“Foster doesn’t hate you,”

“Really now? Did he tell you that?” Frankie said narrowing his eyes.

“No. I can tell by how he talks about you,” Ezra said, “If anything, you’re the one who hates Foster-”

Frankie passed a bucket and mop, interrupting his words.

“Clean the staffroom.”

“Me?” Ezra asked pointing at himself.

“Just take the mop and go,” Frankie said, shooing him away.

His conscious poked at him as he watched Ezra disappear into the staffroom, but the door closed quickly and it was too late to take it back.

Frankie wiped down the wet mess Ezra made of the counter, sluggishly.

Ezra had gone from barely speaking to barely being able to shut his mouth in about Four weeks since he was sat next to him. Sunny Hill, Frankie figured it started then while shocked by the fact it’d already been a bit over a 3 weeks since they went. It made sense why he and Foster were best friends now, they were alike in a lot of ways- coincidentally all the ones that Frankie wouldn’t hate.

He rearranged the syrups as he sighed. Firstly Ezra had arranged them in rainbow order, which wasn’t correct, and secondly Frankie felt he’d been a bit mean. His conscience was having a go at him. Ezra was just speaking and he just had to react like that.

It wasn’t true.

Yes, Everything Foster did pissed him off or annoyed him- he disliked him but he didn’t hate Foster, that was too far.

The bell of the door jingled, to Frankie’s surprise.

It’d been dead for close to an hour, it was only 30 minutes from closing and he didn’t think anyone else would come in. Customers were rare on a Sunday evening, and they were only open from 11 till 4.

“Welcome to Stella’s…” Frankie started. His greeting fizzled out when he recognised the person walking towards him.

“What have you got?” Elijah asked. His voice was hoare as he spoke, like a chainsmoker, his eyes flashed with surprise as he looked Frankie over.

“We have a menu,” Frankie said as nicely as he could, pointing to the board behind them.

“Ezra’s little friend,” he started. “You work here?”

“Yes.”

Why would I be behind the counters if I didn’t work her? Frankie thought while ignoring the rest of his words.

He raised his brows before asking, “Well, what have you got?”

“There's a menu,” Frankie said.

Elijah kissed his teeth. “I don’t care about the menu, tell me what you have.”

“We have coffee drinks, doughnuts, pastries…” Frankie trailed off as he tried to remember what the other thing they had today. He dipped his head under the counter to look at the foods through the transparent backing.

“Doughnuts? Pastries?” He asked while tutting. “I don’t want that sissy shit get me some actual food.”

Frankie furrowed his brows for a second while he was still seeing what they had. He couldn’t see Elijah’s face but his tone was displeased. Sissy food?

“We have sandwiches aswell,” Frankie told him as he rose from under the counter and gestured the lowest part off the display case.

Frankie liked to call it a bakery but it was more like both, bakery in the back and cafe i the front. They sold housemade sandwiches everyday, except for sundays, they also made salads and whatnot. When Sunday rolled around they just sold leftovers from Saturday, for a reduced price, as well coffee drinks.

Elijah scoffed before going up to the display case.

Frankie could’ve sworn he was a lot more polite the first time they met, no matter how fake it was. He did ask him invasive questions but he wasn't so outwardly rude.

Elijah looked at the sparse options, annoyance growing by the look on his face, before he landed on something he wanted.

“That one,” Elijah said while pointing.

“The club sandwich?” Frankie asked. ”Five fifty.”

“I don’t have that on me,” Elijah said.

“We do apple pay, contactless…pretty much everything.”

Elijah snorted. “You’re not very bright, I said I don’t have the money at all.”

“I can’t…” Frankie struggled to find the words, everything that wanted to come out of his mouth would come off rude.

“You can’t what?”

“...I can’t serve you if you don’t have money, sir.”

Elijah dug into his pocket and then set a two-dollar bill on the counter for Frankie to take.

“That’s not five fifty.”

“You think you're so funny, huh?” he asked as if it were a rhetorical question but seemed to wait for Frankie to answer him. “It’s not the full amount, get the rest off my little brother, or do me a favour.”

Frankie looked between Elijah and the two dollar bill and then sighed, “I can't do that, sir, you’re just going to have to leave.”

Elijah looked him up and down then laughed. He walked around the counter and Frankie watched him as he did.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Elijah said, kissing his teeth. He grabbed a sandwich from the display case and gave Frankie a self-satisfied look as if he’d somehow won.

Frankie watched the entire thing with slight displeasure.

Stella told them to never chase thieves, that it wasn’t worth them getting hurt, and she would get the police to deal with them later. He’d only ever seen Jenner steal like that, brazen and used to thievery—never reported him though, it would be more trouble than it was worth, instead he just paid food the food taken himself.

He wondered if telling on Ezra’s brother was worth it.

The staff door opened and out of it came an unhappy-looking Ezra.

“Frankie, I…” he started before trailing off as soon as he set his eyes on Elijah. The unhappiness om his face was gone replaced with pure displeasure.

He turned to Frankie with narrowed, “Did he pay for that?”

Frankie turned his eyes to Elijah, who was frozen just one foot away from the entrance. His eyes pleaded with Frankie.

“No,” Frankie said. “Listen, we’re not supposed to fight customers if they steal.”

“Not a customer, he’s a thief.”

Ezra approached him.

“What are you doing here?” Elijah asked.

“I work here.”

“You? Working?” Elijah questioned as if it were the strangest thing he’d ever heard.

Ezra ignored him. “Give the sandwich back.”

Elijah breathed in sharply, “You know all my cards are frozen, I haven’t eaten in ages, I need this.”

“Go home?”

He scoffed, “Go home? You really think it’s that easy?”

Ezra folded his arms.

“Easy for you to say, you don’t have anything to do with your life—I do. They can’t just control me forever, I don’t wanna be under their thumbs for the rest of my life and I don’t wanna be a puppet. Do you know how hard this shit is? Wait till you find something you wanna do with your life, see you how abandoned you feel then...but you won't because they'd never do this to you—”

“I don’t care. Give me the sandwich.” Ezra said, brows furrowed in confusion.

Elijah paused, shook his head, and gave a wry laugh. He pushed the sandwich infront of Ezra and looked away from him not wanting to meet his eyes.

Ezra took it, about to turn around and leave.

“Don’t tell them about this, okay?” Elijah asked him desperately.

Ezra didn’t reply and just turned around, walking towards Frankie, instead.

“You can go now,” he said as he glanced at him for a moment.

The doorbell sounded and Elijah left.

Ezra presented the sandwich in front of him.

“Thank you?” Frankie said as he stifled a laugh, “How about we eat now?”

They hadn’t had their free food today and the cafe was closing in half and hour so it was the perfect time. Frankie went to take sandwich from his hand but he moved backwards—Frankie looked at him strangely.

Ezra went to the display case and returned the sandwich Elijah had gotten, he took two new ones out of it then pulled Frankie along to the brown leather couch.

“Does he come here alot?” Ezra asked while passing a sandwich to Frankie and then siting down.

“Not that I remember,” Frankie said, if he had come here while Frankie was working he definitely paid that time.

“Good,” Ezra said before patting the seat next to him.

“He could’ve beat you up,” Frankie said.

Ezra snorted, “Me? Him?”

“Okay, maybe not him, but other people,” Frankie said. “Let them leave, remember that?”

Ezra looked at blankly.

“Did Stella not teach you that?” Frankie asked. He repeated it again with a little shimmy, “What do you do when you see a thief? Let them leave!”

“No.”

“Oh, ok.”

They were silent for a while, before Frankie spoke. “Do you and your brother get along…most of the time?”

“No.”

Frankie nodded.

“You wanna know what he did,” Ezra said, picking Frankie’s small curiosities.

“...A little.”

Ezra finished the other half of his sandwich—Bacon between white bread. No vegetables, no butter, not even sauce. Just a couple bits of bacon between bread, an abomination someone made yesterday and stuffed behind all the other sandwiches for fear of someone else finding it.

There was no doubt that whoever made it didn’t expect someone to actually eat it.

“I’ll tell you if you answer my question after.”

“What’s the question?”

“You won’t know until I ask you.”

Frankie looked at him with distrust and said with irony, “You sound trustworthy.”

Ezra smiled a shallow smile, tinged with mischief.

Frankie mulled it over for a half second before nodding.

“My Dad kicked him out because he didn’t want to work in the company and didn’t want to do anything else,” Ezra said.

Didn’t want to do anything else?

“From what I pieced together I thought he had something else he wanted to do.”

“He did but it’s nothing important. Some dead-end degree that I can’t remember the name of,” Ezra said. His words had an unusual humorous tone to them.

“It’s a bit much though, don’t you think? He said he couldn’t eat at all,” Frankie added

Ezra blinked. “He’s done that to himself. He’s not homeless or hungry, he has a house to go to.” He chewed on a lollipop then turned to Frankie, “why do you feel bad for people like him?”

“People like…?”

“People who treat you like shit.”

Frankie let out a half-dead laugh, lacking the humour he wanted it to come out with—he fiddled with the shirt under his hoodie and pressed his thumb against the soft material. This one had no holes, not yet. “I don’t.”

“Jenner. Elijah.” Ezra stated one after the other.

Frankie had already asked him about Jenner, a day or two after they met, about whether anything he said was true. He told Frankie that he’d never done anything like that to Jenner and that he was lying. Frankie was curious but put it at the back of his mind, afterall he never saw Jenner Jenson after that day—people say he moved.

“I don’t feel bad for them…I just look at it like a person,” Frankie started. “If I were Elijah I’d be pretty unhappy if someone just ignored my career and everything I want to do in life.” He took small glances at Ezra as he continued speaking, “It doesn’t mean I feel bad for him, I just imagine myself in that situation.”

“But It would never be you,” Ezra told him, “You’re not rude, you’re nice to look at, and I like being around you—you’re not like them.”

Frankie snorted. “Thank you?”

Nice to look at.

Ezra had a way with compliments.

Frankie hoped he played it off well, that he looked less excited about these compliments than he actually was. If he could blush, he would.

“Do you…” Frankie started, treading carefully, “Do you not like your brother?”

“I hate him.”

Frankie must’ve looked visibly surprised as Ezra asked him, “Is that a bad thing to say?”

It wasn’t, not at all, it was just that… ”I didn’t think anyone really hated their siblings or their family,” Frankie confessed. What could Elijah have done?

“He didn’t do anything to me,” Ezra told Frankie, as if reading his thoughts, “i just don’t like him.”

Hate was a bit strong though?

“Oh.” Frankie said under his breath.

Life without Foster was a strange alien thought that came back to haunt him every once a while.

“Do you hate your brother?”

Frankie’s thumb went right through his shirt. The thing was old, washed too many times, and hiding under a hoodie—he should’ve known that was going to happen.

“No,” Frankie said, definitively. Hate was too strong of a word for the two of them. “Was that your question?”

“It was,” Ezra told him. “Foster loves you... he’d never say it but he does.”

“Right.”

“I’m not lying,” Ezra said. “If he’s not talking about football, he’s talking about you.”

“He talks about me…infront of your friends?” Frankie asked with narrowed eyes.

Ezra nodded.

For almost three years he ignored Frankie in hallways, avoided telling people they were related, even pretended like he didn’t know him at all. Frankie had once overheard him telling someone that he didn’t have any siblings and that Frankie was just someone random freshman who liked following him around.

He told Frankie to never talk to his friends, that they wouldn’t like him at all and that Frankie would only embarrass him.

Yes, Foster's friends were often nice to him in the limited interactions that they had but that didn’t mean anything. Frankie had encountered nicer people and heard nastier things from them.

What was Foster playing at?

( The rest is in the description, sigh )