“He must be charming, and intelligent. He must be truly kind, and merciful, and can’t just fake it otherwise people will see through it. He must be capable of leading people and facing down the most daunting tasks. He needs to be truly Noble.” - Unknown.

***

“Thanks, Have a good one.” I waved nonchalantly as I stepped off the bus.

“You too young man!” The driver cheerfully shouted back as he closed the door. 

My keys jingled in my hands as I searched through them. The bus that dropped me off pulled away from its stop and drove to drop off more of its passengers. The early mourning dawn painted everything a shade of blue as I walked across the nearly empty parking lot with the sign TRIPLE TREE HILL MALL still having its lights on, illuminating the words from the earlier night. I cycled past my house keys, the key to dads car, and the key to my old high school locker that I kept meaning to throw away but my sentimentality stopped me from doing so, finally, I found what I was looking for, the key with a large capital W on it. Hopping up the step to the sidewalk I approached the row of locked glass doors in front of me. 

    Closing and locking the doors behind me I noticed plastic Jack O Lanterns hanging from the walkways on the second floor surrounding the entrance, mischievously smiling down at everyone who would enter. Next to the raised palm tree surrounded by cement benches was a grim reaper sporting its signature scythe propped up against it. Walking around in the mostly dark and empty mall was sometimes scary but now that the staff had decorated the mall interior with orange and purple fairy lights it felt charming. I hope I won’t take the lights for granted anytime soon but knowing myself I would probably start ignoring them by the end of the week. 

Climbing up the stairs I made my way to my store and noticed motion from the food court. ‘I’m going to have to move fast before Haley gets too busy to hang out with me’. Picking up my pace I turned the corner and saw my store with the lights still on and not properly locked up. 

“Again?” I said with an audible sign.

Lifting the unlocked shutters I stopped myself from turning the already-on lights on and walked in. Checking that nothing was obviously missing from the register I made a show of waving at the security camera. Tiding up and preparing for the day I walked into the back room and cracked open a cardboard box. Ten minutes later I finally had the cardboard cut out of a duck person wearing a wizards hat and robes wielding a staff and looking menacingly forward displayed at the front window. Taping the posters next to it I went outside to examine my handling work. “Storm Drake II: The Quackel of Lightning” It read with the duck wizard standing on a thundercloud. 

Placing one of the boxes for the game behind the counter I quickly hopped over the register and locked the door to the store then ran to the food court. Just before I rounded the corner I slowed my pace and forced myself to catch my breath then puffed out my chest and entered the food court as confidently and nonchalantly as possible. Haley was watching the bread bake in the ovens with her back turned to me. Her brown curly hair was bobbing to the beat of a song along with the rest of her head as she waited. The strand of her purple hair along her face was a sharp contrast to the rest of her dark brown hair. She was wearing her company’s uniform with the only sign of her more artistic passions being the purple streak of hair and the many colorful bracelets she wore over her sleeves.

Sitting down on the table closest to Haley and using the chair as a footrest, I grabbed a napkin from the center of the table and balled it up. The improvised ball bounced off Haley's head, ricocheted off her shoulder, and rolled down the front of her shirt. Looking around in confusion Haley turned and saw me smiling, staring right back at her. 

Haley made a huff sound and spoke, “Don’t throw things at me Leo, and get off the table. God, you are worse than my brother.” 

I slid off and walked over to her sandwich station. Draping myself over the glass protector while I gazed at Haley. “You sound like my mother. Have you two been colluding behind my back.”

“No, you just act like a child. ” She said as she picked up the balled-up napkin and tossed it at my head. I made an exaggerated head snap to the napkin hitting me. “Are you here to beg for food again like you always do?”

“No! I’m also here to objectify you for your good looks.” 

“God you’re hopeless but I guess it’s fine, I only flirt with you to get a discount at the T.V. Hut.” Haley said flippantly. 

I made a wounded motion as I grabbed my heart “And here I thought you had fallen for my boyish good looks.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Well I guess you're not too bad to look at, and mayyybe I enjoyed watching that movie with you the other night.”

I groaned “I still can’t believe you like that movie.”

“” Dirt Covered Love”? Of course. Didn’t you like the dirt bikes (Haley made a whatever gesture with one of her hands )or something?”

“I mean… dirt bikes are fine but there was like, only 30 seconds of screen time. It was only a few shots of the guy practicing and that was it. He even crashed at the end off-screen.“

“Hmm, yeah but it was romantic when she got off her bike to go help him.”

“Off”, You never even see the girl riding hers, she just wore the jacket and ran around. For a movie about rival dirt bike racers falling in love with each other, they never had any dirt on them nor did you see them race.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I liked it and the movie did well in the box office, I bet you are going to have to put up posters all over the store promoting it when the DVDs come out.”

“The movie only did well because the actress got in trouble a few days before the movie came out.”

“OH. MY. GOD. For the last time, her boyfriends black.”

“Doesn’t mean she can sing “ALL” the lyrics to a rap song.” 

“Well, whatever.”

“Speaking of, what are you listening to now.”

Haley grabbed her phone and started scrolling.“I’ll tell you what I’m going to be listening to.”

“Please don’t. We are both white, all we get to sing is Country, Rock, or Pop.”

Haley clicked her tongue in annoyance “guess Pop songs are fine. OH, I almost forgot, do you have a copy of the duck wizard game? My brother has been pestering me to get it for him.”

“Yep. I’ll bring you a copy after work.”

A guilty look came across Haley's face. “Could you bring it over at lunch?”

I started to pout “We aren’t going to hang out after work, are we?”

“Well you see my friend just broke up with her boyfriend and she was hoping I could go over to her house and help her study for her midterm exam.” Haley said with as much persuasive charm as she could.

“Fine…”

“Yes!”

“But…”

“No!”

“You have to kiss me now and…” Before I could finish my sentence Haley reached over the counter and kissed me on the lips. 

Smiling Haley pulled back and stared at Leo’s blushing face. “And?”

“And when I see you at lunch.”

“Hmm, well you drive a hard bargain but I guess I have to do. Now go I need to watch bread bake.” Haley said as she shooed me off. 

I couldn’t get the smile off my face if I tried as I walked back to the T.V. Hut and my expression did not go unnoticed when I got back. Josh was standing behind the counter with the gate only half closed. Noticing movement from the corner of his vision Josh looked away from his phone and quickly waved before returning to his phone. 

“You seem happy. Hanging out with your girlfriend at the food court again?”

“Yep, After I checked to make sure nothing was stolen after you didn’t lock the gate”

“I locked up last night.” Josh said defensively.

“You closed the gate, but you didn’t lock it.”

“Oh, well you know how it is. I lost the key to the gate. Nobody was in the mall when I left so I’ll get a new key later.”

“You’ll get a new key?”

“Yeah.”

“A key for the gate.”

“Yeah.”

“Then how did you get in?”

“Get in where?” 

 “Here, how did you get in here, because I just relocked the gate before heading out?”

“…Well…you know, I lost my key but I found it again. I need a new key because... I need a backup. In case I lose one of them.”

I just rolled my eyes “Whatever man, at least nothing happened. Just make sure you lock up from now on.”

“Right right, I will, don’t worry about it. Nothing is going to happen.”

“Oh, why are you so sure about that?” Leo said as he straightened out some of the miss-aligned DVDs. The DVD cover had a mysterious island with a pair of giant glowing eyes in the forest canopy while tentacles reached out trying to grab a ship traveling towards the island with the title on top “The Guild Master: Forging Prophecy”.

“Because I was hanging out with Stacy last night and you wouldn't believe who got the boot.” 

“Someone got fired last night, who?”

“Bill the security guard, pink slip and everything.” 

“Aww, that’s sad.”

“SAD, how? The guy just walked around and gave everybody the stink eye for a while then went to that bar and drank till his shift was up. Honestly, I don’t think his life is going to change that much other than not wearing his stupid windbreaker.” 

“Even so the guy is like in his sixties. He reminds me of my grandpa.”

“Doesn’t matter. Stacy said the mall is going to outsource to a security company.”

“So how does that mean you don’t need to worry about locking up?”

“Well, the new guards will have keys to all the gates and will lock up for us.” 

I stopped what I was doing and stared at Josh who seemed excited about the prospect. “So your whole plan is to have them do your job for you?”

“Yeah!”

I signed knowing anything I say would be hopeless.“Alright, I guess if everything works out then it's fine.”

“You worry too much. After Stacy told me what happened we took a ride in my car and drove up to Sugar Road and well…let’s just say I got myself some sugar.”

“Eww.”

“Oh don’t be like that. I’m telling you man me a Stacy are hitting it off. I think she might be the one.”

“Yeah, the most recent one.”

“No you don’t get it, she likes all the same movies I like and she plays RPGs. It’s like god made me the perfect girlfriend.”

“It is impressive that there is someone out there with the same terrible taste as you.”

“Hey, “Lunatic Lumberjack” is low-key good.”

“It’s not a low key, It’s a dead key.” 

“And you don’t like RPGs.”

“RPGs are fine I just don’t like how much of a time sink they are. A lot of those games require you to invest like a hundred hours in them. I think a game should be like ten to fifteen. I don’t like that if I look at “hours played” it counts the days.”

“Yeah, but you spend all your time playing Shooters. You probably got days if not weeks of play time in those.”

“That’s different.”

“How is that any different?”

“I play Muti-player.”

“So it’s different because you get to smack talk an eight-year-old.”

“I don- I need to put the rentals back up on the shelves. Markdown everyone that returned their movies and games.”

“I win.”

“You don’t win.”

“I won, you changed the subject.” 

“Well, I’m going to tell Miles you didn’t lock up last night.”

“Do it, I don’t care. He’s not going to fire me.”

“Oh yeah, why are you so sure about that?”  

Josh popped open a box of chocolate mints displayed next to the checkout and smugly tossed one into his mouth. “Oh Leo, simple simple Leo. It’s good that you're so handsome because you are going to need your good looks in life. Allow me to educate you. One this is not the first time I forgot to lock up, why would he fire me now? B We are getting a new security company to close and lock the gates now so it’s not my problem anymore, AND THRICE, because Miles was the one who told me how low-key good “Lunatic Lumberjack” was.”