Now and Then Friends by Kate Hewitt Page B

of the rain last night had bothered her, and if she slept that way, she couldn’t hear anything, including the alarm. Somehow she didn’t think Dan was interested in her excuses. “I’m really sorry. It will never happen again.”
    Finally he closed the drawer of the cash register and looked up, his expression as unwelcoming as ever. “You can start on the newspapers.”
    â€œThe newspapers?”
    He nodded towards the empty rack to the right of the counter. Several stacks of freshly printed and delivered newspapers were pushed up against the wall, each one bound with plastic cord. “They need to go onthe shelves. The
Telegraph
at the top, the
Times
underneath, then the
Guardian
and the local papers at the bottom. Think you can manage that?”
    â€œ
Telegraph
,
Times
,
Guardian
, local. Yes. Right.”
    Dan handed her a pair of scissors. “To cut the cords,” he explained when she looked at him blankly.
    â€œOkay. Thanks.” He’d turned away even though no one had entered the shop, and so Claire went to work.
    It wasn’t particularly interesting work to cut the cords binding the stacks and then slide the newspapers onto the shelves. She glanced at some of the headlines on the national papers; they were the usual dreck about the royal family, an MP who was accused of corruption, troubles with a large bank.
    She glanced back at Dan, who was ringing up a loaf of bread and a tin of cat food for a middle-aged woman Claire vaguely recognized. When the woman had gone, she decided to try a little light conversation.
    â€œDo you carry any tabloids?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThey must sell pretty well, though.”
    â€œSo does porn, and I don’t sell that either.”
    Startled, Claire tried for light. “A man of morals, then.”
    â€œPrinciples, maybe.” Finally he glanced over at her. “When you’re finished there, you can unload the milk.”
    Claire glanced around the little shop; the refrigerated section that usually held milk, butter, and a few pots of yogurt was nearly empty. “Where’s the milk?”
    â€œIt hasn’t arrived yet.”
    A jogger decked out in a lot of bright spandex came in for a bottle of Vitaminwater and Claire got back to stacking.
    By the time she’d finished, she felt tired and dirty, and it was only a little after nine o’clock in the morning. Still, she’d accomplished something, and that felt good. While she’d been working, the milkman had arrived, wearing the Cumbrian farmer’s uniform of flat cap, wool jacket,plus fours, and mud-splattered Wellington boots. He unloaded the milk from a huge plastic crate, chatted with Dan in a nearly incomprehensible accent, and then disappeared.
    With the newspapers finished, she started on the milk, developing a rhythm of lifting, swinging, and putting down. She’d finished about half the crate when Dan’s voice, sharp with irritation, stopped her cold.
    â€œWhat the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
    Claire’s mouth dried and her mind spun. She
hated
confrontation. And Dan Trenton was looking extremely confrontational, with his massive hands planted on his hips, biceps bulging, and his face contorted into the darkest scowl Claire had yet to see him make.
    â€œStacking the milk?”
    â€œYou’ve smeared the newspaper ink all over the bottles,” Dan exclaimed. “Don’t you even look at what you’re doing?”
    Claire blinked, and then saw the black ink smeared across the glass of the pint bottles. She looked down at her hands and realized they were covered in ink smudges from the freshly printed newspapers. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize . . .”
    â€œObviously.”
    She could feel heat surging into her face. “I’ll wipe it off—”
    â€œGo wash your hands,” Dan ordered. “There’s a sink in the back.”