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To be fair, not many good things happen at Panera.
“Gil! Gil!”
He hated that name. He hated the fact that his manager forced him to go by it because he felt ‘Guillermo’ would be too hard to read for the tourists that stumbled into their location. Not that Gil really helped, he was still called Jill more often than not.
Tourists were assholes.
His manager was an asshole.
“Gil!”
Guillermo looked up from where he was trying to wipe trash off his uniform. He had been put on trash duty for the day and for some reason every bag seemed to break as he threw it into the dumpster. He could see the other Panera cashier, Leah, motioning him over but he shook his head. “I need to wash my hands, I need-”
“He’s back!” Leah hissed embarrassingly loud, her eyebrow piercing glinting in the light like a threat even though Guillermo swore the manager had told her to take it out three times already.
The teen didn’t need to be told more, he washed his hands quickly before putting on his apron to hopefully cover the trash stains on his clothes as he walked up to the counter. They were closing, technically he should have been clocked out an hour ago so that he would have time to prepare for his AP History practice exam but it had been about a month ago that their Panera started getting the strangest of visitors.
Well, visitor.
Okay, so Guillermo might be seventeen and only a senior in high school with no real prospects in life or love but there is one thing Guillermo knows and that is that vampires are real. And for some reason, one keeps visiting Panera bread.
The man was tall and broad and quite frankly, handsome. His long hair and out of time fashion made Guillermo’s seventeen year old heart flutter as he remembered childhood fantasies of vampires and Armand but clearly this man was not Armand. (Armand wasn’t real, Guillermo knew this.) The man walked stiffly to the counter and Guillermo made himself busy by the bread, getting ready to bag what they hadn’t sold for the day. Leah popped her gum, and seriously, Guillermo had no idea why he was the one always getting shit trash duty when she didn’t follow any of the rules, before she smiled at the man. “Hey, handsome.”
“Uh…” And Guillermo dropped a piece of bread at the man’s deep voice before ducking under the counter to hide his bright red face. He was such a loser, why was he freaking out over some old stranger that would never notice him to begin with? The deep voice interrupted Guillermo’s spiral. “Yes, I would like a human meal.”
“Sure…” Leah popped her gum again. Guillermo could hear her texting on her phone and poked his head up to see the man seemingly confused at the menu and looking at Leah for help. Leah sighed. “Can you be more specific?”
Guillermo watched as the man opened his mouth and felt a sharp twist of excitement as he saw the man’s fangs.
Maybe Guillermo had been reading too much Ann Rice recently, his abuela had told him those books would mess him up but he couldn’t -- surely he wasn’t seeing -- the deep voice interrupted his thoughts again. “I would like the human food that you call a bread bowl. With bread. In the shape of a bowl.”
There was no way a vampire would be that obvious, right?
The thing was, Guillermo never remembered seeing the man eat…or pay for that matter. In fact, typically Guillermo wouldn’t remember much of the man’s visits except for sometimes one of his co-workers who had been around would suddenly be gone but that wasn’t new. People walked out without notice at Panera all the time.
Didn’t they?
Three weeks later Guillermo stared at the dumpster in front of him with a frown. Leah hadn’t shown up for a week which was really weird cause she was probably the only one the Guillermo liked in this place but his memory had started to feel a bit spotty when he tried to remember the last time he saw her. He just sighed as he lifted another trash bag only for it to break just as he was throwing it and he found himself once again covered in trash. Guillermo swore under his breath before he felt a chill and turned around just in time to see the large vampire standing behind him with his arms in the air as if he was about to attack. “AHHHH!!”
“Uh, oops?” The man put his arms down with a sigh. “You don’t have to scream so loud.”
“YOU ARE A VAMPIRE!” Guillermo felt justified and completely terrified and honestly way too young to die. “I KNEW IT!”
“Yes, I am a vamp-what? You knew?” The Vampire had looked like he was about to brag before he frowned and took a step closer to the teen and Guillermo pressed up against the dumpster with a choked noise in the back of his throat as the man got into his space. “You know vampires?”
Really, he wished he could blame his age on everything that happened next but it had nothing to do with his age.
“I’ve wanted to be a vampire since I was a small boy.” Guillermo whispered with his eyes wide and the vampire seemed just as shocked at his words. “Of course I know about vampires!”
If his voice cracked at the end then Guillermo was grateful no one brought it up. Instead the large man stared at him for a moment before the man slowly started to smile. Guillermo couldn’t help but smile back as the man seemed to regard him with genuine curiosity and interest.
“Do you still want to become a vampire?”
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