Eddie walks through the main entrance, his headphones on playing loud, he had been listening to Chainsmokers new tracks as he made his way to work and now had them on repeat. Walking through the building he admires the wide open floor plan and the beautifully tiled floor, then the long queuing system that he knew would be filled once they opened, he waves to the people cleaning as he goes through the secure doors to the back.
He moves towards his locker having a little shimmy as he hums to the song but then starts singing.
"Why? You only say you love me when you're high
It's like we go through the same shit every night
Oh, why? Oh, why?
You always swear that it's gonna change, but it never does
Why? You'll only say you love me" he sings.
"Oh shit!" He shouts, jumping at the feel of someone touching his shoulder, he pulls an ear bud out and turns around to see Louise staring at him, with a smile on her face.
"Someone's in a happy mood for a Monday." She says smiling.
"Just the song gets my energy up, plus Chris is at his mom's for the week so it means I can relax." He explains.
"Ah so party time for mr serious for once." She jokes.
"Nope, just lots of catching up on adult shows, I'm just glad he gets to spend some time with his mother, and I get to enjoy some peace and quiet and no talk of kid shows, does that sound bad?" He asks, feeling guilty.
"Hell no, I wish I was able to unload my three kids for a week, just enjoy it while it lasts, he will be back making you watch pokemon soon enough." She chuckles.
"True, well best get set up, let's get ready for battle." Eddie chuckles.
He watches as she heads off and he quickly turns back to his locker picking his tie out before placing this stuff inside grabbing his lunch and locking it. Quickly heading to the toilet he stands in front of the mirror and quickly does his tie, thank god he had learnt how to do ties properly from the army.
"Brew is on your desk Ed." A voice shouts.
"Thanks Amy." He shouts.
One quick check over and he heads out placing his lunch in the fridge and heads towards his desk, it was all set out neat and tidy, his ocd kicking in from the army again, he didn't realize how many things he did in the force would follow him into real life.
As he logs in to his till he unlocks the draws to his desk and pulls them open to make sure his cash float was as it was, once all checked he takes hold of his cup and drinks a sip as the front doors open.
The first few customers come and go, there his regulars so know them well now, it gets to 10 o'clock and he knows his first banking customer would be in soon so starts on clearing his desk from the discarded labels and empty stamp sheets.
"Hey Eddie, how was your weekend?" The guy at the window asks.
"All good Mike, how was yours? Busy nights?" Eddie replies.
"Don't you know it?" Mike replies.
Eddie opens the hatch and takes the bag off Mike and starts to count the money.
"Oh, before I forget here are some cookies for you, I remember you said you liked them when we spoke last week." Mike says and Eddie smiles as he takes the bag off him through the hatch.
"Thanks, you didn't need to though." Eddie replies.
"Nah man it's all good, you sort us out for change and all sorts, so only fair I get you something considering I don't see you in the club." Mike says.
"Yeah, not my scene. But thanks again." Eddie says as he finishes up counting.
"One day, I mean you all must surely do night outs?" Mike asks.
"We would if it wasn't for us all having kids." Eddie chuckles.
"Fair enough."
Once done he deposits the money into the bank account for Mike and watches him head off.
"Eddie, can you help Helen with a parcel that's a bit too heavy for her?." Louise asks.
"Yeah, give me a minute and put this cash away." He replies.
He puts the cash away and locks the draws before heading down towards Helen, as he gets to her he can see a pile of parcels so grabs the lighter ones and puts them in the right bags and then moves to the heavier one.
"So did you ask Mike out?" Helen asks as he picks up the box.
"Really Helen, I've said it before he's not my type." Eddie replies.
"You say that, but you smile the second he walks in." Louise chuckles.
"I do that to most of our customers." He replies as he puts the box in the corner, making sure it stays put.
"Yeh but most grump back, he smiles back at you, oh and don't forget the treats he brings you." Helen adds.
"Ugh you're both insufferable, I'm going to serve more customers, to get away from you both." Eddie says, waving them off as they continue to talk.
"You can walk off, but we're all behind the glass together" Louise chuckles, he knew she was right, only downfall to be locked in a fortress, all the desks are behind glass to protect them, which meant he couldn't get away from them.
He sits back down at his desk and starts serving people, the time flies by and it's soon time for dinner, he closes his till up and heads to the canteen, he makes a drink and gets his food out the fridge, it was leftover lasagne his Abuela had made.
Sitting at the desk he scrolls through his phone, a few messages off Chris saying what he and his mum were up to and then a photo of them. He was glad Chris was happy, Eddie had been so unhappy when he got with Shannon but the army changed it all and telling her the truth set him and her free and to be honest was the best decision he ever made.
Eating his food he scrolls through facebook, seeing what his friends were doing, seeing some of them settled with a family made Eddie long for a real connection, since starting his job the girls had tried to set him up with any of the women that smiled at him till he set them straight that he prefered men to which set them off on any guy. But he didn't want a one night stand, he wanted something substantial.
The afternoon went slow, steady stream of people posting their parcels, Eddie enjoyed the conversations with random people each day was never the same. It was close to closing time and the store was quiet and it was just Eddie and Louise on, she had gone to do some office work so they would be able leave reasonably early, so Eddie was left serving the last customer of the day from the queue, he could see other people wandering about but looking at the stuff on the shelves and not posting. as Eddie called the man forward he watched the guy approach he seemed off.
"How can I help?" Eddie asks.
"Can I post this please." The stranger asked.
"Certainly, for the purpose of safety, what's inside?" Eddie questions.
"A bomb." The guy calmly states, this wasn't the first time Eddie had heard this, people thought it was fun to joke about sending things like that.
"Sir, that is not funny and is really dangerous to joke about something like that, so again what's inside please?" Eddie asked calmly.
"A bomb." The guy calmly says again.
Eddie had enough of this, so he discreetly calls over the security guard.
"Look sir I've asked polity and you have refused to answer so now you will have to leave, if not Clive here will escort you out." Eddie explains as he stands up at the desk.
"You don't want to do that." The guy says.
"Clive, can you escort this joker out please." Eddie says.
"Sure thing, come on sir, time to leave." Clive says, Eddie watches as Clive picks the parcel up and pushes the guy towards the front door.
Eddie watches as the guy is moved towards the front door, he watches them walk all the way to the main door.
"There's always one." Louise says behind making Eddie turn to her.
"Telling me." He chuckles.
The next thing he knows is there's a loud bang and he's been flung to the floor, he sees Louise fly back into the back office and he hits his head on the floor and blacks out.
Eddie wakes his head pounding, he struggles to move but slowly does, the air is filled with smoke and he can hear a ringing in his ears, but the sound of things falling also makes him roll on to his back, once he does he can see above him the air is filled with smoke, the orange glow showing there is a fire also.
"Ugh, Louise, you there?" he shouts.
There's no answer so he rolls on to his front and gets into a crawl position and makes his way to the doorway where he last saw her. As he gets to it there is stuff in the way, he has no choice he needs to stand, he rips a bit of his shirt sleeve and places it over his mouth to try and help with the smoke inhalation. As he stands he turns to see the front of his desk is on fire, the glass shattered and broken, the smoke hides the view any further past that, he turns and starts moving things to get to Louise.
"Louise, can you hear me?" He shouts again.
There is a faint cough so Eddie starts really going at the rubble, surely by now the fire department would be on the way, but then again would they know they are there here. He finally makes it through and falls to the ground as he moves into the office, he finds Louise unconscious but alive so places her in the recovery position.
"LAFD is there anyone here." A faint shout catches Eddie's ear.
He looks up and can't see a light through the thick smoke.
"HERE! WERE HERE." he shouts
There's no response, he looks at Louise and knows he must get her help so gets up and moves to the desk, he looks round still nothing but can hear the faint shouts again.
"LAFD."
Eventually he sees a light and knows they must be struggling. The flames were raging more at the main desk, he opened his drawer and got a note and pen quickly writing there in the back office and wrapped the note round a stapler and chucks it at the faint light hoping it gets someone's attention.
As he throws it, his head goes funny and walks back towards Louise and falls next to her, he tries to keep awake but struggles, his army training was trying to keep him awake, he knew he needed to make sure the firefighters found them before he passed out, he kept moving until he saw the lights at the desk and the flames die down, eventually feet and then he saw them above him and passes out.
The smell of smelling salts wakes him and he's still in the office, looking to his left Louise has gone and there is one firefighter with him.
"Hey, my name's Buck, put this on it will help you breathe." He explained.
"Thanks." Eddie muttered.
Eddie did as he was told and was thankful for the clean oxygen, he felt the firefighter help pick him up and they made their way out the building, it was still on fire but they had made a path away, soon he was out and Buck helped him on to a gurney.
"You're ok, is there anyone else in there?" Buck asks.
"No it was just us two in the back, is she ok?" Eddie asks.
"Yeah, she is." Buck smiles and Eddie just stares, before he knew it everything was going black.
"HEN! I need help." Bucks plea was the last thing Eddie hears before he passes out.