Later, back in their less-than-stellar hovel on the edge of the more unpleasant and rundown side of town, Adagio was pacing back and forth across the squalid living and dining area. She’d been doing this for some time following her return now, and the other two - Sonata on the mouldering and perpetually damp sofa they’d rescued from a street corner and Aria lying flat on the floor with her jacket beneath her head - were sort of halfway watching her.
Wasn’t like they had anything else they could be doing.
“Who does she think she is? Coming in and talking to Thom - my Thom! Laughing! Thom’s an idiot, why would anyone laugh at what he says? When he makes me laugh it’s because I’m laughing at him! And I’m allowed to do that! I put the time in! I slave away in that shop. I didn’t just show up and start...talking and laughing!” Adagio said to herself.
Her storming circuit of the room brought her over to the first window that Sonata had managed to break and Adagio took a moment to glare at the cardboard she’d had to duct-tape in place over the damage.
Why Sonata had ever thought she’d ever have any talent for juggling was anyone’s guess. Just the sort of thing that happened when Adagio wasn’t around to keep them under control.
And who practises juggling with chunks of masonry, anyway?
Grunting in annoyance she turned on her heel and kept on pacing and kept on ranting.
“And she’s coming back! Probably tomorrow! To talk about books she says, but I bet it’s just to laugh some more and take up space and distract Thom. He doesn’t need distracting! And if he did I should be the one doing it!”
“You really like this guy, huh?” Sonata asked, head cocked. Adagio’s glare now fell on her instead and Sonata withered, shrinking back into the sofa.
“Of course I don’t like him! I just have to put up with him because I work with him! But he could be worse. He’s tolerable. He’s about the only one around here I can have a halfway intelligent conversation with. And that’s just embarrassing.”
“Oh. So that’s good?” Sonata tried, tentatively, confused by what direction this conversation was trying to go in, seeing as how it seemed to be going in several all at once. Adagio, still glaring, bending briefly at the waist to flick Sonata on the nose, leaving the poor girl just as confused and now rubbing the tip. So to speak.
“No!” Adagio said, resuming pacing, only to stop for a second and consider. “Well, it is. Or it was. He’s okay I guess. That’s my influence. But now this stranger is coming to make things difficult and complicated!”
Pacing resumed in earnest.
“Thom doesn’t need difficult or complicated, he’s confused enough as it is. If I wasn’t there he’d be in bits. So I’m going to have find some way of dealing with this stranger and getting things back to the way they were - the way they should be!”
“You’re coming across like a toddler with a toy who doesn’t want to share it,” Aria said, staring at a stain on the ceiling and trying to work out if it was bigger than it had been yesterday. This she did until her view was blocked by Adagio looming over her, hands on her hips.
“Are you calling me jealous?” Adagio asked.
“I didn’t say that, like, at all but yeah, sure, you’re jealous. Of someone you didn’t even see. For dumb reasons. Because she talked to a guy you don’t even like.”
“I don’t have to like him that’s not the point. It was unprofessional of him and it was her fault. He doesn’t talk like that to the other customers! I’ve heard him. It’s how he talks to me and that’s how it should be.”
“So yeah. Jealous,” Aria said flatly with a smile.
Adagio glared. Aria was just trying to get a rise out of her now, she could tell.
It wasn’t about jealousy. Not at all. Not even in the slightest. It was about being the centre of attention! The undivided centre of someone else’s attention! The focus of their thoughts! The axis of their little world.
Clearly this was the case with her and Thom.
The light broke for Adagio and all clicked into place. It all made perfect sense to her now.
Their time together working in the shop had obviously caused Thom to fall head-over-heels in love with her, the poor boy. Thinking about it Adagio was embarrassed for having missed it for so long when it was just so obvious. His rampant idiocy around her and inexplicable niceness - culminating in that coffee incident - blatantly stemmed from this. There could be no other explanation.
No wonder she enjoyed being at work! She’d been basking in the warmth of his clumsy, doting affections for near-on two months now without even realising. Clearly she was off her game if she hadn’t immediately noticed. Better late than never, she supposed.
Not that it meant anything to her, of course, but it was just pleasant to be appreciated and to be the subject of someone’s concern and, of course, generosity. The generosity was the main thing. That meant stuff and stuff was good.
And Thom knew just what sort of stuff she liked. He was good like that. Despite his idiocy.
She wasn’t giving that up! She wasn’t letting some random strumpet just waltz in and upset the applecart! Ruin all her hard work! All the time and energy she’d put into making Thom an acceptable person to be around! Just when things were going her way!
“He’s a sap and an idiot but he’s my sap and idiot. I won’t be having someone just snatching him away from me!” Adagio snapped, jabbing a finger down at Aria.
“Are you sure she wants to do that?” Aria asked.
“She was laughing!”
As far as Adagio was concerned this was all she needed to say, no further explanation required. The other two were left in the dust.
“Oh no,” Aria said flatly, giving the jazz hands of absolute peril. Adagio turned away in disgust. Some people just refused to see sense.
“He’s obviously already besotted with me,” she said, folding her arms.
“Be-what?” Sonata asked, face screwed up. The other two ignored this.
“And how’d you figure that?” Asked Aria, propping herself up on an elbow the better to look incredulously at Adagio who just flounced her hair.
“How could he not be? We spend just about every day together. Anyone who spent any length of time with me couldn’t help but fall in love with me. That’s just how humans work.”
“Is it?” Sonata asked from the sofa. This time Adagio deigned to respond:
“Yes. It is,” she said.
Sonata’s eyes widened.
“Huh. I didn’t know that!” She said, full-on sincere and amazed.
“What you don’t know could fill-” Aria started only to have an enthused Sonata - buoyed by having learnt something new - cut in brightly with:
“A box?”
This was not the right answer as far as Aria was concerned, and having it just appear undermined what she’d been trying to do. Sonata, as ever, ruined everything. Aria let herself flop back down onto the floor again with an:
“Argh!”
But Adagio wasn’t paying them any attention anymore. She was thinking now and thinking with a clarity. It really was obvious. The whole situation was plain. Presumably hanging around with Thom so much had dulled her enough so that she hadn’t grasped the facts of the matter. But that had been before. Now she was onto it, now she was on top of it.
This errant customer was just a distraction and could be easily dealt with. And once that was done things could go back to the way they should be. Which was just her and Thom and Thom paying attention to her. Professionally.