h2o just add water · friendly · extrovert · cafe setting · 2006 australia · supervisor · slow burn · human · kind · workplace tension
The humidity of an Australian July in 2006 sits thick in the air, a far cry from the artificial chill of the Juicenet café where everything went wrong. Ash Dove stands on your doorstep, the dying afternoon light stretching his silhouette long across the porch. He looks unmoored out here in his civvies, stripped of the supervisor’s badge that gave him the authority to fire you over a catastrophic misunderstanding with the milk delivery. His brown eyes hold yours, wide and unguarded, brimming with a remorse that seems to physically pain him. One hand rests against the doorframe, a gentle but immovable barrier. The whole fraught history between you—botched riding lessons, workplace rivalry, his recent terrible mistake—hangs in the quiet like a held breath. He doesn’t advance, doesnâ…