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“Wright. Spillage in aisle five.”
Phoenix scowled up at the nearest tannoy speaker and its smug demands. He dropped the crate he’d been moving in a huff and left the storeroom to get his cleaning supplies. Mop in hand, he headed over to the aisle in question. Dairy products, oh joy of joys. Probably some scatterbrained mother letting her errant child use milk bottles as chew toys.
He managed to smile tightly at the poor woman who’d upset the cow juice while she fluttered about apologising profusely. To be honest, she was annoying, and getting in the way. Payne loitering around in the background smirking at him instead of stacking shelves grated on his nerves, too. Great, just great. It wasn’t even eleven and he was already in a foul mood. That didn’t usually happen until at least three thirty.
In short, working at Asda was fucking awful. His coworkers were either dicks, useless or outright weird, the assistant manager was a smug git and god forbid you cross the store manager. He still had scars from the time she caught him playing a round of late-night can bowling. Never again.
He would quit right there and then, but he had a kid to support and keep in top hats and fancy tricks. Little Trucy was counting on him to bring home to dough to their cluttered little apartment above a chippy. She wanted to be a magician, that kid. She was already pretty damn good, and he would hate to be the one to refuse her the tools of her trade on the grounds of silly things like bills or rent. As such he was probably going to be evicted in three weeks. Oh well. They’d cope. He was working as much overtime as he could stand to keep them afloat and she had a show two nights a week at a bar which almost bought in the same amount as his job. Such was life.
He realised he’d been zoning out and staring at the now milk-free floor for a few minutes. Fuck. He better do something before—
“Loitering, Wright?” That self-righteous tone just rustled Phoenix’s jimmies. He plastered a sick grin on his face and turned to face his assistant manager.
“Terribly sorry, sir, just going, sir Edgeworth sir.” His voice sounded sarcastic and he knew it. He just couldn’t help it with this guy. Miles Edgeworth was a pompous ass with delusions of grandeur who really wasn’t any better than the rest of them. They’d grown up together, but Miles moved away before secondary school. They only met again when Phoenix applied for the job and found himself interviewed by his childhood friend. That was a shock. He’d changed, too; from a somewhat uptight but honest and genuinely fun, somehow, boy to a cold and heartless man.
Edgeworth’s eyes narrowed dangerously at his flippant reply. “Don’t take that tone of voice with me, Wright. I suggest you man the self-service checkouts for an hour or two to see if the robots can’t teach you some manners.” He sneered, then turned on his heel and stalked off. The man was ridiculous. He wore this frilly cravat with his standard issue green lackey shirt, and jazzed it up with a waistcoat and Italian shoes. He’d overheard him lecturing Gumshoe over spilling tea on his fancy shoes which he custom ordered from Italy once a year. Snob. Posho. Twat.
Phoenix called him many names worse than that in his head as he put away the cleaning supplies and skulked over to the self-service machines. He hated the self-service. Dozens of parroting robotic voices yelling at you over and over and breaking and messing the simplest of things up until confused members of the public paw at you for assistance and you go over and punch in your code and calm the machine and just FUCK THAT GUY.
About half an hour into losing the will to live, Phoenix noticed that Edgeworth was working a checkout a few metres away. It was rare that he had to do that, but they were a little short staffed that day and the lunchtime rush seemed to be inexplicably heavy today. It was a nice day; maybe they were shopping now all the better to enjoy the evening. He didn’t really care, but for a lack of anything else to do, he ended up eavesdropping on the transaction. The old woman he was serving seemed to be arguing that she should be able to use this kind of coupon, and Edgeworth was steadfastly refusing. Interest piqued, Phoenix sidled closer.
“The magazine clearly said they could be used in Asda! You have to take them! I am a valued customer of this store and I know my rights to have my vouchers accepted. Edgey-poo, I thought you knew the rules. It’s not like it used to be, when I was a young girl, and the breeze was blowing through the trees and-”
“I’m afraid our store does not accept that type of voucher, madam. Please check our website or call customer service for affirmation.” Phoenix placed Edgeworth’s eyebrows at about a three on the wrinklometer, signalling moderate to severe irriation. Intervention time.
He walked up to the pair, rearranged his features into a pleasant smile and asked sweetly, “May I see those?” The woman, puffing angrily, handed them over. It was as he thought; these vouchers came from a campaign that launched two days ago, and were perfectly valid. He’d seen Gumshoe taping up the notices. Obviously Edgeworth had not.
“Sir, ma’am, hold it there; look, these are the new 20% off ‘Rey and Poff’ brand products given out in Wimmin magazine this week. There should be a poster under your till.” He tried not to grin too much as he said it. Edgeworth shot up another two points on the wrinklometer as he peered underneath the desk.
“Objection,” he countered in a clearly pissed off tone, “Look, Wright, there’s nothing there.” Phoenix frowned and peered over the barrier to get a proper look. Edgeworth was right; nothing. Damn, he could’ve sworn he saw Gumshoe— Oh, right. Gumshoe. Of course. He looked around and saw it.
“Excuse me, but turn around, sir. Behind you, on the floor. Gumshoe used the low-tack tape by mistake again.” This time a note of triumph did get into his tone and he couldn’t help whispering, “Take that!” under his breath. Edgeworth found the paper, picked it up and scanned it furiously. He snatched the vouchers out of Wright’s hand ungracefully and punched in the required sequence with barely contained fury. He was almost shaking. Phoenix was loving it.
“Your receipt, madam. Please leave and have a nice day.” Edgeworth hissed through clenched teeth, thrusting the paper at her. He was obviously trying to prevent another rambling rant from the windbag. It failed. The old bag turned on Phoenix instead.
“Thank you, young man, even if you do have one of those ridiculous spiked hairstyles that seem so popular with the youth today. It’s nice to know somebody remembers proper customer service around here.”
“Well, you know what they say; every little helps!” He winked at her before giving Edgeworth beside him the trademark two pats on the bum. The old woman looked scandalised and headed off with her trolley hastily, muttering under her breath about brazen affection and it wasn’t like that and… About then Phoenix realised that Edgeworth had a scandalised look of his own. Phoenix shrugged and gave him a, ‘what?’ look.
“That is Tesco’s slogan, you ignorant cretin,” he hissed, before skittering away in the opposite direction to the old woman, towards the staff rooms. Phoenix shrugged. If Edgeworth was taking a break, he would too. Godot was wandering around with his ever-present coffee cup, so Phoenix waved him over and put him in charge of things. The rush had died down, anyway.
Upon arrival in the cupboard designated a staff break room, Phoenix found Edgeworth hunched over on one of their famous rock-hard sofas, fingers embedded in his greying hair. Much as Phoenix thought he was a bit of a git, he still counted as an old friend. He sat down opposite, although the space was so tight their knees were pretty much touching.
“What’s up, Edgey?” Edgeworth’s head jerked up at the use of his childhood nickname. He looked absurdly on the verge of tears, and his face was almost as red as the poncy shirts he wore on weekends sometimes. (Phoenix only knew this because he showed up to one of Trucy’s shows sometime. He had no idea what somebody like Edgeworth was doing at the Wonder Bar, but who was he to judge?)
“It’s nothing, Wright.” Edgeworth snapped, turning to face the wall, an almost absurd gesture in such a confined space. Phoenix didn’t laugh, though. He leant forward and tilted Edgeworth’s head towards him, forcing the other man to meet his eyes. Edgeworth tried again.
“I just can’t stand being shown up. Especially not by you, Wright…” Edgeworth confessed, looking vulnerable for just a minute before realising what he was doing and flinching out of Phoenix’s grip again.
“What do you mean, Miles? Why me?” Phoenix pressed, genuinely puzzled. Because they knew each other from before?
“Because… Because of you, Wri- Phoenix, I am saddled with unnecessary… Feelings.” His wall-bound stare was so intense Phoenix fancied he could see the wall smoking. Phoenix’s mind (and, to be fair, his heart too) was racing; feelings? What? He wasn’t in love with him, was he?
“Edgeworth, if you have something to say, just say it.” His voice was firm but not unkind. Edgeworth turned to face him again.
“Everything I do, everything I want to be good at, you seem to be just one step ahead. You start shelving before I can tell you to; you order stock nobody’s noticed was running low yet; you even clean the fucking toilets when you don’t have to! And I’m meant to be the damned manager around here, and you’re just…” He almost looked away again, but Phoenix didn’t give him the chance.
Phoenix pulled him forwards into a kiss instead.
Edgeworth reeled back, flushed and flustered and spluttering. Phoenix grinned back.
“I knew that’d shut you up. Now, c’mere.”
And so Phoenix and Miles shared their first awkward kiss in the Asda staffroom. They had their first full blown sexy makeout session next to the boxes Phoenix had so carefully stacked that morning. Miles drove him home in his posh car and picked Trucy up from school and spent the night and they just didn’t care; they just fell into a relationship somehow and all was well.
Working at Asda was still shit, but shit’s better when it’s shared.