Kote Holmes

Patreon tiers are:

Ground floor: $1 limited to 100 bts, extra content, early access

Bestie: $5 same as ground floor but no limit

After Chris and Margie had their fill of making fun of her, Alice got to work. There weren’t currently any customers in her section that needed anything so Alice took to giving her tables a quick spray and a wipe. It made everything a little brighter when the tables were clean. This was how she discovered that she was going to be serving a large group. A little silver reserved sign held her at gun point as she wiped over the three 4-seater tables that had been pushed together. When she was done she backed away slowly, as if that sign could actually hurt her. Once she was at a safe distance she turned and did a half-jog, that she could easily transition into a walk if a customer saw her, back to the host stand at the main entrance.

“Please say it’s leftover from last night,” she whispered to the screen with her fingers crossed. She tapped her tag on the plate just below the screen to log in and then checked the reservation log. Scrolling down through today until… “Oh no.” It was a group of 12 under the name McAllister.

“Sorry,” Margie said and Alice squeaked as she jumped. “Oh my, that was adorable!”

“Don’t” Alice warned even though she knew she was as threatening as a sopping wet kitten. She could see Margie’s face turning red as she held her breath, clearly trying not to laugh. “You can’t think I’m cute when you’ve done this to me.”

“Camille will be able to support,” Margie reassured. “They’ve booked an off peak time so it shouldn’t be too busy.” Alice glared at her, despite how ineffectual she knew it was. “You can have your break before they get here.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Alice relented with a sigh.

“Thanks!” Margie gave a grin that showed off the gap between her front teeth. “Camille wouldn't cope with this party on her own and Jasper… well he’s banned from serving anyone under the age of 18 at the minute.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh nothing serious, he’s just got to do his challenge 25 refresher training, so I can’t really give him this party.” Margie shrugged. “You are effectively my only server. I can’t even pull Chris out of the kitchen for double duty because they’ve had a sick call.”

“That must be making him happy.” Which Alice knew was more than accurate because Chris hated working front of house. He had trained to be a chef and was gunning for the head chef position if he could get it.

As the clock ticked by Alice found herself watching that reserved table out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t serve any groups larger than three before she went for her break and when she came back out her favourite regulars were sitting in her section. Gillian and Terry always made her feel like they were going to throw adoption papers at her at any given moment. They were an old married couple that she really wanted to be like when she was old.

Today, they were unfortunately not joined by the real man of the family - their adorable three year old grandson Devin. Alice always missed him when they came without him.

“Where’s my best friend?” Alice asked when she walked up behind Gillian’s wheelchair.

Both of them laughed. “He’s at pre-school today,” Gillian explained turning her head to Alice but not her body, which wasn't surprising given she had her spine fused a few years ago. “Probably winning over the hearts of all the staff there with his handsome smile.”

“He’s already done that well enough here!”

“He’ll be popular with the ladies when he grows up,” Terry agreed.

“Or the fellas,” Alice countered to laughter once more before she pulled out her notepad. “Have you ordered already or can I get anything started for you?” Terry ran a hand over his receding hair that most men his age must be incredibly jealous of.

“We ordered already my dear,” he said. “But whilst you’re here I do have a question for you - have you found yourself a nice, respectable lady yet?”

Gillian smacked her husband with her menu. “You can’t ask people that!”

“She doesn’t mind, do you Alice my dear?” As the old folks started to bicker Alice heard someone open the door and half turned to look towards it. In walked Teddy, the very butch that Chris and Margie had been making fun of her for. She held open the door as her family filed in, all eleven of them. Meaning this was her party of 12. Alice felt her face get hot and knew that her freckles would be all the more obvious.

“You could say I’m working on it.” Alice smiled at Terry in a way that she hoped didn’t show that she was panicking.

Alice touched a hand to her hair, twisting a curl around her finger. It sprang upwards in a little spiral when she let it go. She’d found a styling tutorial online and so far it seemed to be working. On the counter in front of her lay an entire pharmacy worth of curly hair products that she had tried in the past few months as she prodded and poked her way through learning how to style her curly hair.

“Now, repeat that for the rest of your hair,” the video said. Alice looked at the size of that one tiny ringlet and then the cloud of the rest of her hair. She sighed and sectioned off another piece of hair to style. She paused the video and got to work. As she coated each section in curl cream and gel, she watched the light outside of her bathroom window fade.

“There has got to be a faster way to do this,” Alice grumbled to her reflection as she wrapped the last section around her fingers. She let it slide off with a spring and then scrunched it to her scalp. With one final twist, she let it go. She smelt like an ice cream shop as she tied her bonnet over the coconut coated concoction that used to be her frizzy hair. “This better work.”

With the bonnet tied up at the top of her head, she brushed her teeth and left the bathroom, tumbling into her bed. Her shift tomorrow started at 11 so she wouldn’t have mush time to fix it tomorrow if it didn’t work this time.

Alice woke up and rolled over, reaching for her phone. 8am, ugh. She rolled onto her back, spread eagle across her empty double bed. She could still smell coconut, which she hoped was a good sign for her hair. As she stared at the ceiling, willing herself to get up, she realised that her bonnet had fallen off at some point in the night. Both of her hands flew to her hair and found it somehow both a dry frizzy mess and oil slicked down.

“Ugh, not again.” With a disaffected sigh, Alice reached over and grabbed a claw clip from her nightstand. She forced her mass of crusty hair into the clip and then padded, barefoot, into the kitchen to gather herself with a cup of coffee and a granola bar. “One of these days I’ll find a way to tame this mess.”

As the coffee brewed, Alice munched on her granola bar and thought about the butch from her last shift. Had she been flirting with her? Was Margie right? Or was it that Teddy was just naturally flirty with everyone?

Alice could admit to herself that Teddy had been attractive; short floppy brown hair, that dress shirt with it’s rolled up sleeves and enough confidence to make anyone swoon. Alice was a goner. But, she was also a professional. She knew that a customer on a date was not an appropriate flirtation partner. No matter what Margie said, Alice had not been flirting. She hoped. Her coffee machine beeped its cheery little tune at her, breaking her train of thought before it could spiral any further. She sighed, grabbed the mug from under it and burned herself on the first sip. Sticking her tongue out to try and cool it down, Alice leant back against the counter and cupped the mug between her hands.

With her fresh coffee procured and warming both her hands and her heart, Alice got herself ready. The handsome butch almost gone from her mind until she arrived at work.

Margie had a stupidly large grin on her face as Alice walked up to her.

“What’s got you all giddy?” Alice asked, tying her apron around her back.

“The homewreckers here!” Margie called through the passthrough instead of answering Alice.

“Alice!” Chris said as he leant through. “You planning on homewrecking anyone else tonight?”“You are both so funny,” Alice said, rolling her eyes. “What section am I on tonight?” After that, both of her coworkers settled down and Alice managed to have a mostly normal shift. No ruined first dates of any kind. Though there was a botched proposal but that had nothing to do with her.

There were some parts of the beginning of this book where I found myself rolling my eyes, the simplistic explanations seemed a little too simple, the terminology a little outdated, but as I listened to the later chapters I realised that this was on purpose.