A/N: if anybody is confused with the temperature in this chapter, i use celsius not fahrenheit so 34 degrees is like... hot enough to cook a steak if u left it in ur car for long enough.

Chapter 3

Scarlet glanced at the clock on the wall. Then sighed. Forty-five minutes until her break. And those teenage boys hadn't left the cafe even though they had finished their food twenty minutes ago.

At least she was busy, customers kept popping in and out of the cafe, looking at the signs advertising the limited edition gingerbread frappes and the peppermint chocolate biscuits that were made for the Christmas holiday.

Scarlet forgot how many gingerbread frappes she had made that day, and it was only 11 in the morning.

She eyed the boys at the table. She would have to ask them to leave soon. Their entire group took up two of the 6 seater tables, and with the amount of people who kept ordering at the cafe, the seats would all be taken up soon enough.

She would give them two more minutes, and if they didn't leave by then, she would have to kick them out.

The bell at the door jingled, indicating a customer had entered.

She turned towards the familiar face. She wore a blue lanyard around her neck, which had PERFORMER in large letters. Scarlet recognised her as one of the face characters of the theme park. She wore a yellow sundress, so Scarlet figured she had just checked in. She wore her blonde hair in a milkmaid braid, probably so it was easier to put her wig on when she went out for the parade and any other appearances she was due to make.

"Hey Scarlet, can I get a gingerbread frappe and a Christmas cookie please?" She asked.

"Sure thing, Cress." Scarlet said.

She slid open the glass door, and with a pair of tongs in hand pulled out the brown cookie sprinkled with red and green flakes. She put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Cress.

Cress moved over as Scarlet gave the drinks order to her co-worker and friend, Emilie. The two of them worked as a team at the cafe. Emilie would make the drinks, and Scarlet would make the baked goods in the back room and put them on display.

In a matter of minutes, Cress had her gingerbread frappe in her right hand and her cookie in her left and made her way out of the cafe, to the staff room to get ready for her appearances as whatever character she was supposed to perform as today.

Scarlet looked at the boys at their tables. Then sighed. She told Emilie she was going to kick them out.

"Good luck with that." She said.

Scarlet sighed, and opened the gate that separated the cafe workers from the customers.

She walked over to the table, her hands on her hips, straightening her posture. The boys looked at her. Scarlet tried to ignore the way one of the boys eyed her curves.

"Hello, sirs, is it possible for you to leave the cafe now? We have a policy to keep as many seats free as possible so others may find a place to sit, and you have been here the longest out of anyone and are taking up the most space." She gestured towards the tables.

The boys stared at her. None of them moved.

She stood up taller. "I must ask you to leave."

One of the boys pointed a finger at her. "You think you can just ask us to leave?"

Scarlet frowned. What petulance. "Sir, you are at an amusement park. I'm sure there are more entertaining ways to spend your time other than just sitting at a cafe doing nothing."

The man who was eying her grinned. "I'm sure there are more entertaining ways."

Scarlet grimaced at his insinuation. "Leave. Now."

Scarlet heard the bell of the door ring. Someone had entered. She was supposed to be taking people's orders, and certainly there was a queue now. She looked around, people were looking curiously at her and the boys she was asking to leave.

"What would you do if we didn't leave?" One of the boys asked.

"I would call security to come and kick you out." A low voice said from behind Scarlet.

Scarlet whirled around. Ze'ev Kesley stood there, his intimidating presence gave Scarlet some comfort. She remembered asking him to guard the SpookyCoaster the day the mechanic came to inspect the ride.

He wore a black t-shirt. On the back the words SECURITY were printed on it, and it was printed on the right side of the front of his shirt. He wore grey pants with a belt, and brown boots.

Scarlet turned back to the boys. Their eyes were wide.

One of them stood up. "We don't want any trouble. We'll leave now."

He and the rest of the boys scrambled out of the cafe as if they couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Scarlet turned back to Ze'ev. "Thanks." She said. "But I had it under control."

Ze'ev frowned. "Right. Well, I just thought you could have needed some help."

"Maybe some overkill." She grumbled under her breath.

Scarlet scowled and pushed past him, and resumed her spot back behind the register. Ze'ev went to the back of the line.

She turned towards the customer in front of her. "Sorry for the wait. What was your order?"

By the time she reached Kesley in the line, she had put the order through for 9 gingerbread frappes, 5 lattes, and 4 chicken and tomato sandwiches.

She looked at Kesley.

"Uh, could I get a choc mint chiller. No caffeine."

Scarlet raised her eyebrows. "Sure. Want whip with that?"

Kesley paused for a moment, thinking about it. "Does it cost extra?"

"50 cents."

He shrugged. "Sure."

Scarlet put the order through, and Kesley moved to the side while he waited for his order.

She served the next customer. Then the next, and the next.

Kesley left the cafe as soon as he got his order. He would probably be drinking it on the job. Scarlet had to laugh at the thought of big, burly Ze'ev Kesley with a choc mint chiller in hand.

She looked at the time. 6 minutes until her break. She tapped impatiently on the counter. She watched the seconds arm on the clock tick by slowly, slowly.

The last customer she served was a pretty brown haired girl who ordered a ham and cheese croissant.

Finally, Sascha Chang came to relieve her. Scarlet grinned at her as she gave her the apron she wore around her uniform.

"See ya, Emilie." She said.

"Bye, see you in 15." Emilie said gloomily.

Scarlet exited the cafe. She looked at the Christmas decorations she and the other workers had strung around the theme park. White plastic in the shape of melting snow decorated the corners of shops, fairy lights hang from the gazebo and on the sails which blocked the elements from disturbing the parades.

A giant Christmas tree stood reaching for the sky in the centre of the theme park, and they had transformed the garden to a fairy garden, where, at night time, four of the female performers would dress up in glitter and fairy wings and take photos with children. There was even a special section just for Christmas activities.

Though Scarlet's family was atheist, they still celebrated Christmas, but now, it was harder to be excited for it. Her mother was no longer around and her father usually ruined the celebrations by getting drunk. Her grandmother would try and make it as enjoyable as possible, before she got that disappointed look in her eye and turned into bed early. Then it would be just Scarlet up with an array of delicious food she and her grandmother had made which had gone to waste.

She sighed, as she walked to the staff room. If she didn't feel obligated to it, she would have rather just not have celebrated Christmas this year at all.

She made her way to her locker and punched in the code that would unlock it and rummaged in her bag until she found her phone and a cling-wrapped sandwich she had made this morning.

She sat in her usual spot on the green curved couch in the centre of the staff room, which had a small matching coffee table.

She unwrapped her sandwich and threw the cling wrap onto the coffee table, and took a bite out of the ham, cheese and tomato sandwich.

She unlocked her phone and connected to her data, then logged into Facebook. As she scrolled down, something caught her eye. A name:

Winter Blackburn-Hayle.

She had changed her profile picture. The last time she had changed it was 5 months ago. Scarlet looked at the new picture. She had photographed her profile. The right side of her face, looking down at an angle. She looked sad..

Her black curly hair was cropped, a loose strand fell to her nose. Her brown eyes were framed softly by long black eyelashes. Her flawless skin was dotted by two beauty marks on her cheek and chin. Her strong, sloping nose, her soft neck. Her full lips.

Scarlet scrolled down. She shouldn't be looking at that. It would just make her feel like crap. Winter didn't- no- couldn't like her like that anymore. She needed to get over her.

Despite herself, she scrolled back up. 21 people had liked her photo already. Two people had commented.

The first comment was by a guy named Jacin Clay.

Jacin Clay: Ugly :)

The second comment was a reply from winter to Jacin.

Winter Blackburn-Hayle: Rude

She didn't know who Jacin Clay was. She tapped on his profile.

His profile picture was a picture of him. He was looking directly into the camera, his mouth was crooked on one side, his long blond hair hung in his face. He had thick, straight eyebrows, and hooded blue eyes. The picture was grainy, with a filter that gave his face a green tinge. Despite that, he was obviously attractive. Still, Scarlet felt herself form an instant dislike to him. She studied the picture, trying to find flaws with it.

He should have tilted the camera upwards a bit, so his forehead didn't look so big.

The lighting was bad, it accentuated his bad skin.

He looked like a terrible person.

She knew that those thoughts were a result of her jealousy, that someone could be becoming closer to Winter, while she was still missing her.

She closed the picture, and scanned his profile. He was a trainee therapist, and he had come from interstate. The rest of his profile was private.

"Who's that?" Came a voice from behind her, someone had leaned forward on the couch, their arms crossed.

She looked around to the source of the voice. Carswell Thorne. She looked back to her phone.

"None of your business." She grumbled.

Thorne made a whining noise. "Don't be like that, baby."

Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that."

He grinned. "Just trying to get into character. I'm supposed to be Danny Zuko today."

He walked around the couch, so Scarlet could see his outfit. His brown hair was darkened with water, slicked back on the sides. His hair fell in front of his forehead with a curl hanging between his eyebrows. He had a white t-shirt on, with a leather jacket, and black pants held up with a belt. He wore white socks and dress shoes on his feet.

He looked like a 50's super star. The character was somewhat familiar.

"Who's Danny Zuko again?" Scarlet asked.

"You know, from Grease?"

"Greece?" Scarlet asked.

Thorne looked at her. "Don't tell me you haven't seen Grease. G-R-E-A-S-E." He spelled it out for her. "The most popular musical of all time? Starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John?"

Scarlet shrugged. "Oh. That one. I've seen glimpses of it."

Thorne looked astonished. "Only glimpses. Well, we need to fix that. Maybe you should come to my place later, I'll find it on Netflix, we can chill."

Scarlet scowled at him. "Shut up, Thorne."

He raised his hands. "Just practising." He said with a crooked smile. "Hey, do you know who my Sandy is?"

"Sandy...?" Scarlet asked.

"You know, my duet partner, my on stage girlfriend. Did you see any performers today?"

Scarlet thought back. "Well, I did see Cress in the cafe today."

Thorne frowned. "Who?"

Scarlet looked at him. "Uh, she's kind of short, blonde... Has a really nice singing voice."

Thorne paused, mulling it over. "Is she the one with the hair like..." He pointed at his own head, then mimed his hand going down, past his thighs, in an imitation of Cress's ridiculously long hair.

"That's the one." Scarlet said.

He nodded, his face was one of appreciation. "She's cute, despite all the... hair. Still, I was hoping for Darla."

Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Do you ever think about anything other than girls."

"Do you ever think about anything other than Winter?" Thorne retorted.

Scarlet glared at him.

"What?" He asked, completely clueless.

She sighed. "Never mind."

At that moment, the staffroom door opened and Ze'ev Kesley made his way in. He was now choc mint chiller-less. He scanned the room, until his eyes landed on Scarlet. He made his way to her, and slumped down on the seat beside her.

Thorne looked at Kesley, then at Scarlet. He raised an eyebrow.

Kesley ignored the look Thorne gave them and turned to Scarlet. "The parents of those boys who you kicked out of the cafe today are looking for you."

Scarlet closed her eyes, and pinched a finger to the bridge of her nose. "Of course they are."

"I told them to get stuffed." Kesley said. "But in a nicer way."

Scarlet looked at Kesley. "You did?" She couldn't help the smirk playing on her lips. "What did they say?"

"They got really huffy, you know, like how parents do. Then I stared at them and they walked away."

"That easy, huh?" Scarlet said bitterly. She knew that if she did the same they would have just abused her until they were satisfied, despite the fact that it was just Scarlet doing her job. "Why did you do that for me?"

Kesley shrugged, she wasn't sure if she was imagining it, or if his face had turned slightly red. "You were on your break. I figured you wouldn't have wanted to deal with angry customers on your break."

"Well, thanks." She said. She truly did appreciate it.

She felt weight shift beside her. She looked at Thorne, who sat on the other side of Scarlet, effectively sandwiching her between Thorne and Kesley.

She'd had tried to ignore his presence while she spoke to Kesley, but Thorne wasn't the type to go ignored for long.

"You're a hero, Ze'ev Kesley." Thorne said, in a high pitched voice. He was mocking Scarlet.

Scarlet exhaled. "Thorne, aren't you supposed to be in makeup or something?"

He looked at the time. "No, not till 12:10."

"You have 5 minutes, Thorne."

He shrugged.

"Call me Wolf." Kesley said.

"What?" Thorne and Scarlet said simutaneously.

"Ze'ev is my Hebrew name. It means Wolf in English."

"Your parents named you Wolf?" Thorne asked incredulously.

Scarlet snapped towards Thorne. "Do you ever think before you open your mouth?"

Thorne grinned. "Just say what's on my mind. It's gotten me this far in life."

"Well, you better prepare for a short life." Scarlet grumbled.

Wolf laughed at her comment. He looked gentler when he smiled.

"Ze'ev is a unique name." Scarlet said, ignoring Thorne, once again.

"It's the name on my birth certificate. My mother used to enroll me in schools as Wolf, though, so that's what I'm used to."

Scarlet nodded. "That's cool to know."

"It's a bit of a hassle, because now I've had to get used to people calling me Ze'ev as well."

"Well, I'll call you Wolf if it makes it easier."

He shrugged.

They sat in silence. Scarlet sensed that Wolf wanted to say something to Scarlet, but couldn't with Thorne sitting right beside her.

She looked at Thorne.

"You should get an early start on makeup." She said pointedly.

Thorne looked at her, raising and eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because I said so."

"Mademoiselle, you wound me." He said dramatically in a bad French accent. Ever since finding out Scarlet's parents were from France, he had taken it upon himself to start talking in whatever French he knew in an accent. Probably because he thought it made him more attractive. Thorne stood up. "Fine, I can see when I'm not wanted." He winked at Scarlet, then made his way to makeup.

She turned back to Wolf, rolling her eyes.

"Sorry about Thorne. He's annoying."

"I noticed." He said darkly. "Does he like you?"

Scarlet frowned. "Like me? Like, like like me."

Wolf nodded.

Scarlet laughed. "Nah, he's just a major flirt. He would never try anything with me anyway. I just got through a bad break-up."

"You did? What happened?" He paused. "Uh, if that's not too personal."

"Well, my ex's mother is a huge bigot, and she found out about me and my girlfriend. I don't know what happened exactly, but the next thing I knew was that my girlfriend broke up with me and she couldn't see me again." She tried to keep her voice even. "It's not her fault. It's for her own safety, but it still hurts, you know. We couldn't even stay friends."

Wolf's face softened. "That sucks." He said simply.

Scarlet was glad that he hadn't given her any unwanted advice, or made the common reaction of stopping her halfway through and asking in an incredulous voice: 'wait, you're gay?' and Scarlet having to say that no, she wasn't gay. She was bisexual.

"Yeah. Well, what can you do. I still love her, but now, the only thing to do is get over her."

"You shouldn't lose hope. You never know what could happen." Wolf said.

Scarlet shrugged. Nothing seemed to be happening right now. "Well, hope makes me want things that'll never happen. It's pointless."

"Still, you never know."

"I guess not." Scarlet said, though she wasn't sure she agreed. She had a pretty good idea what could happen, especially now that this Jacin Clay was in the picture.

At that moment, Scarlet looked up, and saw Cress walk out of the dressing rooms. She scanned the room and found Scarlet, sighing in relief, she walked up to her.

"Tell me, do I look completely ridiculous?"

Scarlet looked at her. It was a complete transformation from what Scarlet saw her wearing in the morning. She had changed out of her cute sundress into a black off-the-shoulder shirt, tucked into black leather pants topped with a chunky belt on her waist and red platform heels which accentuated her legs and gave her a little boost in height. She still had her hair in the milkmaid braid she had come in with, but Scarlet knew that would be replaced with a curly permed wig.

Scarlet wolf-whistled. "You look hot."

"I am hot." She said. "It's 34 degrees out there!"

Scarlet laughed. "I mean, you look hot."

Then Cress blushed. "Well, I feel ridiculous. Couldn't they get someone else today? Like Darla? I'm too short for Sandy!"

"Nobody will even tell with those heels, Cress. If it was Darla, she would be towering over Thorne and it'd be better to have a short Sandy than a short Danny, I suppose."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Thorne is Danny?" Cress all but screeched. Her face turned red.

"Um, yeah?" Scarlet said. "Oh come on, Cress. He's not that bad of a person."

"No, no, it's not that." Cress said. Then she took a deep breath. She cleared her throat. Her face returned to its normal colour. "Okay. I look hot. I'm a performer. And I can get through this. Without embarrassing myself."

"That's the spirit." Scarlet said, though she got the feeling that she was more talking to herself.

Without another word, Cress turned around and marched into the makeup room.

"Performers these days." Scarlet said with a smile, turning back to Wolf.

"She certainly seemed like a... character." Wolf said with a smile on his face.

Scarlet looked at him, no expression on her face. Then she burst out laughing.

"Ha! Nice one!" She snorted. Wolf smiled. "Character."

When she had calmed down, she noticed Wolf looking at her.

"What?" She asked.

"You look nice when you smile."

Her smile fell for a moment. That had been the first words Winter had said to her. She tried to banish the thought.

"I- I could say the same about you."

Those had been the first words Scarlet had said to Winter.