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“… sorry, you can’t go back there. It’s for—”
Gwen turned on her heel and watched as Tom’s eyes widened. He looked genuinely surprised to see her, mouth opened slightly as he gawked at her. Gwen ignored the once over, but when it happened again, she felt compelled to break the awkward silence.
“Hey … what’s up?”
“I … um, wow,” he finished awkwardly.
His eyes were definitely on her chest.
Seriously Tom? They’re just boobs,Gwen thought.
Almost as if he had heard her, Tom ran his hand across the back of his neck. He looked antsy and felt …odd.Gwen could feel the stirring of an emotion, but one that didn’t feel like the standard lust she had started easily recognizing from men—and some women—that Gwen had passed by on her way to work. She wasn’t sure what the science—for lack of a better word—was when it came to sensing the emotions of humans.
Simple emotions appeared to be easier for her to decipher in comparison to more complex ones. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear—those had been easy to figure out. They were the standard default emotions for all humans. Gwen supposed it was a bit likePokémonstarters, but without the cute animal companion.
Whatever Tom was feeling was more complicated than the few emotions Gwen had grown comfortable identifying. It was a lot like trying to identify all the spicesin a curry, except Gwen couldn’t rely on her taste buds to figure out the flavors.
What is this?Gwen wondered.
Whatever it was her coworker was feeling, it had the faint scent of peanut butter, brown sugar, and vanilla to it. Not an overall bad flavor profile. Gwen wondered if she could figure out how to eat the feeling before Tom let it go. That had been the bigger question Gwen was grappling with. Not every emotion smelled good, but even things that smelled good in theory would sometimes make her sick. If she could just figure out how to take a littletastemaybe—
“—and your pink hair is just great. You got this whole, like, manic pixie dream girl thing going on. VeryRomona Flowers, y’know?”
Shit, Tom had been talking!
“Oh, thanks.” Gwen adjusted her purse, folding her arms beneath her chest. “I just felt like I wanted to do something different, y’know?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely that. For sure.”
Okay…
Gwen pressed her tongue against her canine as she tried to further unravel what the hell this was. She didn’t know her coworkers super well, but Tom wasn’t socially awkward around anyone. Even her. And that was saying something, considering Gwen had been navigating all social interactions with a mask and script running through her head. Now that she had mostly tossed those aside, Gwen found herself less anxious about rehearsing what to say.
I killed a guy and got fingered by a demon last night. Nothing I say right now could be more fucked up than that.
“You okay, Tom? ‘Cause if that’s all, I kinda gotta clock in…” Gwen gestured toward the swinging doors. “I’d talk more, but Mary will have my ass if I’m late.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” he nodded as he started shuffling backward clumsily. “You should—”
Gwen watched him run into one of the displays of marked down Fourth of July decorations. The blunt edge of a flag pole had caught on his work polo and she winced at the small tearing sound. Tom shuffled awkwardly, maneuvering his shirt and the pole until he was free.
“You okay?” Gwen asked, eyeing the small hole on the side of his work shirt.
“Yeah, I’m—I’m good, I … I’ll see you on the floor!”
Gwen watched him hurry off at a pace that wasn’t quite running away. The emotions went with him, leaving Gwen’s stomach to pinch ever so slightly. She had felt the beginning of that peanut butter flavor begin to turn sticky, like caramel. Ambrosius really hadn’t been kidding when he said she’d always been hungry. Gwen supposed it wasn’t too different from just eating as a human.
Except I have NO idea how to eat from a human without killing them,Gwen groaned internally.
With a sigh, Gwen put her things away, tossed her work apron on, and clocked into her shift. She was on the floor for thirty-minutes before Catie appeared at the register next to her. The new hire looked a little nervous, large eyes and an uneasy smile.
“Mary wants to talk to you,” Catie shrugged. “She asked me to cover registers.”
Oh, wonderful.
The familiar anxiety of having to talk with an authority figure crawled up her neck. Mary didn’t scare Gwen, she honestly didn’t think it was possible for her to do so. But Gwen had always struggled with feeling like she was in trouble around any authority figure. She supposedit was one of the many reasons why she had instantly disliked Ambrosius. The demon had displayed his power even before Gwen knew he was a monster.
“Okay,” Gwen said with an exhale as she logged out of the point of sales system. “I’ll be right back.”