Free Aftershocks by Monica Alexander Page A

her.
    “Hey Abby,” Sophia said, as she glanced in our direction. I noticed she didn’t acknowledge Luke, and I felt sort of bad for him.
    I smiled at her and said helo, making an effort to be friendly. “Are you looking for anything in particular today?” I asked, getting up from my stool and walking over to her. “We’ve got some great bathing suits for half-off.”
    “I’m actualy looking for a skateboard,” she said, “for my brother. It’s his birthday this weekend.”
    “Wel, we’ve got a whole line of —”
    “Abby?” Luke said from behind me, interrupting my sales pitch.
    I turned around to see what was so important and raised my eyebrows at him.
    “There’s actualy a new shipment of hoodies that came in this morning. Larry wanted to make sure they got out today. Can you grab them from the back?” he asked, gesturing with his head toward the backroom.
    “Um, I’m kind of helping a customer now, Luke,” I said, confused by his request since for the past few months whenever Sophia came into the shop he had bolted for the backroom and made me help her. “I can do it when I’m done, though.”
    “I’l be happy to help,” he said then, jumping off of his stool and striding over to me and Sophia. He looked confident, but I could tel he was nervous. “You were looking for a skateboard, right Sophia?”
    She nodded, but I saw a look pass over her face that said she wasn’t sure why he was talking to her either. “Yes, for Jared.”
    “Okay, right this way,” Luke said, taking her over to our selection as he left me standing there dumbfounded. He looked back over his shoulder. “Abby, can you take care of those hoodies?”
    I raised my eyebrows at him again. I could not believe he’d been an assistant manager for a month and he just assumed he could pul rank on me. It wasn’t until he gave me a pleading look, putting his hands together, prayer style and mouthed ‘please’ that I realized he wanted some alone time to talk to Sophia.
    “Sure, no problem, boss,” I said loud enough for Sophia to hear.
    Luke gave me a winning smile before turning back to Sophia and the skateboards. I smiled to myself as I left them alone hoping a war wouldn’t break out while I was off the floor. As I reached the stock room, my cel phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Connor.
    “Hey dude!”
    “Dude?” he asked incredulously.
    I shrugged. “I’m at work. The surfer girl in me comes out when I’m here. What can I do for you?”
    “Not much. I just wanted to see how it was going.”

    “Boring,” I said, as I looked around the stockroom wondering if there realy was a hoodie shipment that needed to be stocked. “We’ve only had one customer since I got here, and Luke pounced on her, so I am now laying low in the stockroom pretending to work.”
    He laughed out loud. “Let me guess, Sophia, right.”
    It was a smal world. When Connor had come to visit me at work on Tuesday night, I learned he was friends with Luke. They’d met at the beach over the summer and had become surf buddies. It was the first time that I’d started to think that al aspects of my life in one way or another seemed to lead to Connor Richmond. It was sort of freaky, but in a good way since I was enjoying having him as a friend.
    “Yeah, how’d you know,” I said, leaning back against the shelf that housed the women’s flip-flops.
    “He’s been talking about her for a few weeks. I think he wants to get back together with her. I’m shocked that he actualy talked to her, though,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
    “I know, right!”
    We continued speculating about Luke and Sophia for another few minutes before Connor said, “You get off at eight?”
    “Yup, sure do. Which means, I have just under five hours of boredom left, but I’m sure four and a half of those hours wil be spent with Luke obsessing about whether he should take another chance with Sophia.”
    “True,” Connor said, “but, at least it wil pass the