Sam caressed the silver ring with his thumb, this was the umpteenth time he was doing it, he just couldn’t get it off his head that he was going to propose to Amelia. He had dropped out of college to secure a job to pay her fees. 

Tomorrow was the big day, finally; he was going to propose to the love of his life, Amelia’s graduation ceremony was the following day, and Sam had planned to propose to her on that day. 

It was the best time since she was done with school and would be more than ready to settle down with him. He was anxious and he couldn't get rid of the heaviness in his heart. 

Sam didn’t necessarily need to work at a restaurant, he could have worked anywhere else, but he chose this fancy restaurant because he wanted to learn how to propose to a lady, and it happens often in restaurants like this. 

“What the hell are you brooding about, new guy?” George, one of the waiters in the restaurant waved in Sam’s face, startling him and jolting him out of his reverie. 

Sam was a little embarrassed, he was lost deep in his thoughts, what had Amelia not done to him? He gazed at George with an expressionless face and continued cleaning the table top before he was going to spread the clean tablecloth on it. 

His blonde curled locks dangled as he cleaned the table, Sam was a very handsome young man. He had an attractive body, blue eyes, and a handsome face; not to talk of his blonde hair. His masculinity made him a little older than his age. 

“Don’t let the manager catch you snoozing off loser, it might be him next time,” George said the words aloud, for other waiters to hear and what he wanted happened; they burst out laughing, stealing glances at Sam. 

Sam bowed his head to the table and continued cleaning it aggressively, he was trying his best not to lose his mind, ever since he resumed the job. His colleagues, who were supposed to encourage him, kept tormenting the life out of him. 

“Hey Bozo, don’t clean the marble aggressively, you’d damage it you know!” One of the other waiters, who was on the other side of the room, called out to Sam. 

“Guess he had never seen that kinda table before,” another chipped in immediately.

The whole room went up with laughter again, it was early in the morning, and customers were yet to arrive for breakfast. The restaurant was a big one with five male and two female staff, the female staff worked mostly in the kitchen. 

Sam wished the ground would open up and take straight down, he wondered if this was how they treated themselves when they were also new. He finished setting up the table and glanced at the big wall clock that was hanging above the entrance of the restaurant. 

It was almost seven, people would soon start flowing in; that was what he used in escaping the daily torment he got from his colleagues, the worst part was, the manager wasn’t even doing anything about it, even though he knew. 

“Hey bozo, could you get these plates to the ladies in the kitchen, someone might have forgotten them on the table yesterday,” Stephan, one of the male waiters said, handing two ceramic plates to Sam. He had an offensive smirk on his face. 

Sam stared at him in disdain and grabbed the plates, they were all waiters and were paid the same wages, but he was being treated as if he was a junior staff; well he should have expected that being a newbie. 

Sam had only taken two steps away from Stephan when he collided with George’s ass, who was mopping the floor. It was so obvious that George collided with Sam on purpose, to trip him, Sam staggered, and one of the ceramic plates flew from his hand.

He tried to go for it but suddenly realized that if he did, he might end up breaking the other one he was holding. The ceramic plate hit the tiled floor and made a crashing sound as it broke into several pieces.

The sound of the crash was so loud that the manager ran out of his lobby, rushing to the room, his eyes widened in shock when he saw the pieces of broken ceramic on the floor. 

“Who the hell did this?” He asked, furiously. 

All hands slowly pointed at Sam, including George’s. Sam lowered his head, like someone who had given up. He was expecting nothing less, even though they all knew George came his way on purpose; if he argued, he wouldn’t win.

Three others would support George and that would allow the manager to believe them. 

“It…it was an acc-,”

The slap landed on his face before he could complete the sentence. Sam felt the twitching pain surging through his cheekbones, he absorbed it and stared unremorsefully at the manager. He wanted to explain and apologize, but he wasn't going to anymore. 

“That plate is worth $500 kid, and you are going to pay for it right now, you can ask your colleagues; my workers pay for their damages,” the manager said angrily, 

Sam was shocked, nobody told him that condition. $500 was the actual money he had in his account, now he was going to be broke if he paid for this plate. 

“Sir,-”

“I don’t need any explanation, Sam, go out there and get me $500 for the plate you just broke, I do not give a damn how you get it, well I’m sure you’d have made up to that since you started the job,” the manager cut him short, yelling the words at his face. 

The restaurant went silent, as everybody watched the manager's and Sam's drama. 

“What are you all looking at, get the hell back to work.” the manager growled at them, and immediately the sound of mopping and cleaning continued. 

“I’ll step out to withdraw the money boss,” Sam muttered, he had no other choice. Many thoughts were going on in his head, but still, he had to do what his boss wanted if he really wanted to keep the job. 

Tomorrow was Amelia’s graduation and he wanted to propose to her, how well would that go with zero dollars in his account? Sam heaved a sigh and started towards the door of the entrance. 

He could feel all of their eyes on him; he felt like swinging the plates to George’s head, Sam knew he had a hilarious smirk on his face at that moment, he didn’t look at any of them, he focused his attention on the entrance door and walked briskly.

Before Sam could get to the door, a young lady and a man entered the restaurant, smiling happily at each other. 

When Sam saw who it was, he forgot he was holding the other ceramic plate in his hand and it involuntarily left his grip, hitting the floor once again, this time; it didn’t only startle the manager, it startled everyone including the young man who just came in with a lady. 

The lady was Amelia, his girlfriend, the exact one he wanted to propose to the following day.