Page 9 of All Night Long

Gray wasn’t so sure if he would ever feel comfortable knowing someone, a human, could pick up on his thoughts. Life was a bitch, it was fucking Gray up the ass with no lube, and it burned.

“Fuck.”

Chapter Four

Working at Gerry’s had good and bad days, but today sucked so much. Gerry’s was a good place to work, and the owner treated his staff fairly. Henry had worked in places where the staff had been treated like shit, but Gerry was okay.

It was a standard market, with plenty of aisles carrying everything a person would need and plenty of cameras to watch those people. The number of thefts had slowly been increasing, so now they had a full security system installed and Gerry was considering staff for the door.

Today wasn’t a good day, and it didn’t help that Henry still felt like shit. One minute he was hot and sweaty, then he was cold and clammy. Like his body couldn’t decide how it wanted to feel and kept changing its mind.

He couldn’t hide in the back, either. As supervisor, he would normally be in the office working, but one of the staff had been in a traffic accident and was off, so he was out front working the cash register. Working in a supermarket had its perks, but today wasn’t one of them.

The number of rude people he’d served was in double figures. Why couldn’t people say please and thank you? Had the words been wiped from their vocabulary? And the fight he had to break up over a package of beef jerky had him shaking his head. Who cared who saw it first? It was whoever picked it up first that had the right to the product.

He couldn’t wait to go home and get into bed. Three long days he’d felt like this, and he was beginning to be concerned. Maybe the guy who was allergic to condoms had actually given him something. The tests had all come back negative, but he wasn’t so sure they’d been accurate. If he still felt this way by the time the weekend arrived, he’d be going back and redoing them all again.

His stomach clenched, and he smiled at the person in front of him, ignoring the pain. Breathing shallowly, he bagged the groceries and took the customer’s cash, handing over their change. Once the customer was gone, Henry spotted Stan and went over to him.

“I need to finish some paperwork. If it gets busy again, come and get me.”

Stan nodded. “Will do, boss.”

Henry helped a customer out, then another store assistant before he managed to make it to his office. Once inside, he collapsed into his chair and grunted in pain. Rubbing his stomach, he picked up his bottle of water and finished what was inside.

It did little to quench his thirst. A thirst he’d had for days now. Probably something to do with that guy. Everything was that guy’s fault. Nothing had felt right since they’d fucked. His body was constantly in pain and Henry was beginning to become worried. Or more worried than he already was.

Only a few more hours to go, then he could head home and do nothing but sleep and hope—again—that he’d feel betterwhen he woke up, but he had a feeling this wasn’t going away. Whatever it was. The aches and pains and on off cramps needed to leave asap.

“Henry. Trouble.”

Sighing, Henry stood, then paused when his legs trembled like all the strength had been drained from them. Once he felt steady, he went onto the shop floor and sighed. Two women arguing over cereal. Cereal. Amanda was calmly telling them they had more stock out back and she would get what they needed, but at this point nothing was getting through. The two women were screaming at each other, hurling insults and ignoring Amanda.

Henry knew things would escalate to a physical fight if he didn’t intervene, but he had to make sure there was space between them and the women. He’d had staff accused of assault for breaking up a fight and he couldn’t risk that happening again.

Walking over, Henry placed himself in front of Amanda. “How can I help?” he asked and braced himself.

“That fucking bitch stole my cereal! I had my fucking hand on it and she took it right out of it,” the young blue-haired woman shouted.

The other woman screamed, “No you didn’t you lying piece of shit!”

“What did you call me? Fucking ugly cow.”

Oh, it was going downhill fast and Henry wanted to be anywhere but there. “Less of the name calling, please. As Amanda has said, we have more stock out back, and if you could give us a minute, we’ll get it for you. Amanda, if you could.”

Amanda nodded and practically ran from the floor, leaving Henry and now Stan trying to deescalate the situation. He should have sent Stan, so at least one woman was here. He didn’t want them to feel like they were being ganged up on by men.

“I’ll take this one, then, and you can wait. I had my hand on it first.” And it went downhill from there.

Blue-haired woman went to walk away with the cereal box but only managed two steps before the other woman snatched the box from her hand. Blue hair went nuts and jumped on the back of the other woman, trying to punch her in the face and take the box back.

Henry immediately reacted, trying to separate the two women as Stan shook his head and grabbed the cereal box. Neither woman noticed the box was now gone. Both were too busy trying to hit the other person. Henry forced his body between them and tried to move them apart, but took a slap to the face.

“Get out of the fucking way while I deck this bitch,” blue hair screamed.

The other women screamed in return and attempted to jump over Henry, arms and legs flailing. Security miraculously appeared and helped to separate the two women, who were still trading insults and trying to hit one another. One poor man ended up being kneed in the balls and dropping to the floor. Henry winced in sympathy, knowing how much a blow there hurt.

The remaining security guard had a look of resignation on his face as he stood between the two women, who continued to scream insults at each other. Once they’d calmed down, which took a long time, Henry stood, hands on his hips as he shook his head. “Out. You can come back when you’ve both calmed down.”

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