Rude!

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, while Jade was doing the books no customers came into the cafe. This meant that she could focus solely on the numbers, which were not her strong suit.

'Gah! Why won't they all add up?'

As she compared the numbers from the till and receipts against the cash received, she could not help but frown.

'A small difference is normal—receipts get lost as does cash. But this is quite a difference. Or am I just being an idiot?'

She went over the numbers once more, but they still were not right.

'I have absolute faith in the others; this is merely a formality. I should check with Bernie to see if he knows where any of this got put.'

Putting the ledger to one side, Jade went back into the kitchen to ask, "Bern, the numbers aren't quite right. Was everything fine while I was gone?"

As if offended at being doubted, Bernie frowned and responded in a gruff voice. "Of course!"

Now frowning herself, Jade went to the counter to check that nothing was stuck at the back of the till or in any drawers.

'Ah! A few receipts here. Not enough to add up properly, but it's a start. Now I need to find the rest…'

Ting ding!

Before she could finish her thought, a few customers came into the cafe.

Shoving the receipts into the apron's pouch, Jade politely greeted the customers. "Good afternoon. What can I get you today?"

It was a group of young gentleman, a few years younger than Jade, who looked to be at university.

"Eeeh?" the boy at the front groaned. "Is the other waitress here?"

"You're looking for Harry? She left a while ago."

"Oh…" The boy had a disappointed look on his face. "I'll have…"

After rattling off the group's order and seeing that Jade was busy preparing their drinks, the boy turned to the others and said, "That stinks. I was hoping to chat with the cute one again…"

His voice was low, but still loud enough that Jade could hear him.

Her face went bright red in embarrassment, and her hands shook.

'What? How rude! Harry's cute, I admit, but you shouldn't compare people when one of them is around!'

As her embarrassment quickly turned to anger, Jade formulated a petty plan.

After disappearing into the kitchen for a few minutes, Jade returned to the group with their drinks. When she opened the door, Bernie's deep chuckled slipped out of the kitchen.

With the politest of smiles and the sweetest voice, Jade handed the drinks and food over and said, "Here you go! Enjoy your day. I hope the drinks are to your satisfaction."

The group thought that her wording was weird, but they did not think much of it. They all took a sip of their drinks, and noticing nothing wrong, they thanked her and left.

…

Five minutes later, the group was on the bus, on their way back to the university.

"Man… we need to come earlier next time so that we see the cute on."

That one boy was still complaining that he had not seen his crush.

He took a sip of his drink and with a twisted expression, spat it out.

"What the hell is that!"