Chapter Text
Coral brushed through her freshly-dyed red hair. After she had roughly dried it, she realised that Tanner had done the roots all splotchy and proceeded to have a go at him for the following half-hour.
She supposed it wouldn't be that bad, it's not like she had anything extremely important planned for the next week or so. School work was tedious, and none of it seemed to be getting into Coral's head. She wondered if it was the recent move, the new job or the other thing that was taking up all of the space in her mind.
Oh, who was she kidding, Lucy Gray Baird wasn't a thing.
She was a beautiful, angel-voiced singer who had just moved in to the flat next to Coral's.
Unfortunately, Lucy Gray Baird had made it a habit of going to the café where Coral worked every morning and ordering a large iced mocha with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon, the only order Coral could bring herself to memorise.
So, yes, Coral wouldn't usually be deeply perturbed (though she would still be annoyed and have a go at Tanner, for fun) by something as trivial as slightly splotchy roots, but Lucy Gray had changed her. She would probably kill a man in favour of admitting it but Coral had an all-consuming, mind-blowingly embarrassing crush and it was ruining her life. She'd have to get over it soon, otherwise things would start spiralling like they did in her last relationship. Now that was something Coral didn't want to mention.
Tired of thinking too hard on the matter, Coral set one of the hats that Mizzen had bought her ontop of her messy roots (one of the only things Coral had that related to her brother) and made a mental note to never trust Tanner to dye her hair again. There, that would do it. She'd just have to pray that Lucy Gray wasn't in the mood for coffee this morning. Though that would indeed be a miracle, for she had shown up every morning without fail since she'd first moved in. Not even Treech was that dedicated to mocha.
Speaking of Treech, Coral gave him a text before she left to go to the café, reminding him that he and Lamina were closing today, not Coral. Treech would be greatful that she told him, as he always was when he got to work with Lamina. The way his eyes lit up and the corners of his mouth upturned when she walked into work said enough. Treech was smitten, though whether he actually knew it himself was hard to say.
For an intelligent person, Treech was very stupid when it came to being aware of his own feelings. Coral of all people would know, because her, Treech and Tanner had been friends since Coral first moved to England, when they were in Year 9.
Well, whatever it was, Coral sincerely hoped Treech figured it the fuck out himself. She did not want to be giving Treech any hints about his love life while her own was in pieces.
After taking one final look in the mirror and cursing Tanner into oblivion, Coral left out the front door with her phone in hand. Seconds later, she recieved a far too eager text from Treech about closing. God help her.
Since Coral's wreck of a car was now declared completely undrivable (she attempted to drive to the petrol station last night, and had to pay a giant fine to get it towed), she'd have to take the bus into the town to work. Coral hated buses more than anything. The truth is, she had no time management schedule whatsoever, so most of the time she didn't even realise when her stop was. But money was tight, and the only mechanic Coral "knew" was Tanner's acquaintance Otto, who didn't really like Tanner anyway. The thing was, Tanner knew alot of people. They weren't his friends, in fact only a quarter of them would say so, but somehow he still stayed in contact with them. To be honest, Coral wasn't even sure that Otto was a mechanic.
She was going off on a tangent now, on Tanner and his mysterious group of "people you know", so much so that she'd missed her first stop already. Fuck.
Some day this was going to be.