But First, Coffee

by Sarah Darlington

  The bag didn’t move from his chest. “No.”

  Okay then. “Let’s get going then.”

  Little was said for the first hour of the car ride. Kitty was quiet in the front seat, listening to her music, being just as Joe said she would—simply another body in the car. I worked on my laptop while Joe looked out the window, saying very little. Eventually he relaxed and set his duffle bag in the space between us on the seat.

  Around the two-hour mark, after battling some nausea from looking at my computer too much, I gave up trying to work. Working while riding just wasn’t happening for me today.

  I glanced over at Joe. One of his legs was bouncing up and down incessantly, while his hand moved over his face, rubbing at where he’d shaved, rubbing it raw actually.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Huh?” He glanced in my direction, not fully looking at me. “Fine.”

  Kitty turned around in her seat. ‘Kitty’ was not an appropriate nickname for this girl, maybe ‘lioness’ or ‘alley cat’ or anything fiercer than a simple kitten. Apparently, she hadn’t been listening to her music at all because she’d heard me speak to her brother. “Joe doesn’t do great on long car trips. It’s his ADHD. He’s like a four-year-old. He can’t sit still and gets bored easily.”

  “Thanks for that, Kitty,” Joe said to her, gritting his teeth. “I’m fine. I know how to ride in a car.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. Then she turned around in her seat, headphones going back in place.

  “I guess I’ve never known an adult with ADHD before,” I commented, trying to be polite, yet secretly wanting more information from him.

  “Yes, you have.” Joe looked at me straight on, and his stare had a way of slicing through me. “You just don’t know that you have. It’s more common than you think. Most people just hide it better than I do. Usually I’m good at hiding it, too. I’m just out of sorts lately.” He glanced away.

  I was the person putting him out of sorts. This new job was putting him out of sorts. It occurred to me that never once had I stopped and asked him if he even wanted this job. I’d simply dropped it into his lap.

  I thought about how he’d quit law school with only a semester left. A person whose only concern was making lots of money didn’t do something like that—quit to become a barista—so what was his motivation for wanting this job now?

  “Don’t worry about hiding it or whatever with me,” I told him. He looked back at me and I nearly lost my nerve as I spoke. But he needed to hear this. I needed to say it. “I didn’t hire you because you fit into some box. I hired you because you’re an outside-the-box type of a person. If I had an office full of Nancy’s, I’d still be running the original Java Beans out of my parents’ backyard shed.”

  He smiled. For the first time, I made him smile. And the small gesture gripped at my insides.

  “No offense to Nancy,” I added, feeling a little shy now. “She’s really good at her job. She makes phone calls and lunch runs better than any assistant I’ve ever had.”

  He laughed out loud. I made him laugh. Then he picked up his bag and put it on his lap. What was with him and that damn bag? But the bag went forgotten as he gently said, “I’m so far outside the fucking box.”

  “I noticed.”

  “You might be a little outside-the-box yourself, Lana.”

  I caught my breath. This man was going to destroy me. One kind word from him and the air suddenly felt way too hot.

  I started talking work stuff, just to change the subject, telling Joe about the three different locations we’d be visiting today, and the pros and cons of each. He didn’t know it, but I was kind of testing him with this. I’d already made up my mind about which of the three would be best for a future Java Beans site. I wanted to see if Joe would come to the same conclusion. Once the location was decided, we’d be meeting with our contractor later today.

  We arrived at the first spot.

  Then the second.

  Then ultimately the third.

  Kitty got out of the car at each stop too, never saying much, but tagging along with Joe. Part of me wished she’d stay in the car, at least initially, but by the end of the third stop, I found myself wondering what her opinion of the three locations were. I mean, the girl was hella smart, edgy, and probably right smack dab in the middle of my company’s key demographic. She wasn’t edgy and tattooed because she’d been raised by a rough family, growing up on the streets, having some traumatic childhood, or something like that. No, I’d long ago determined that she and Joe came from money, big money, and that they’d probably both had a rebellious streak against their parents. Hell, maybe they were both still in the middle of their rebellious phase.

  “What do you think, Joe?”

  We stood in the empty construction site of a new development. This was the third location we’d seen today and the one that I wanted. New development. Growing area. Right next to a grocery store. Now that I’d seen it, even though the space was a little smaller than I had expected in person, I wanted it.

  Joe smirked at me. “Is this a trick question? I know you like this place, Lana, so why ask my opinion at all?”

  Kitty smacked on a piece of gum, her eyes darting between me and Joe, with a big fat smile on her face. She seemed to particularly like when Joe challenged me as if it were fun for her to watch. Hell, I kind of liked it when he challenged me, too. Though I’d never let him know that.

  “It’s not a trick question. You’re going to have to find these locations and make these decisions on your own, me with the final say of course, but the more you can do without me, the better.”

  He paced in a full circle. The building we stood in was half-finished, with no air conditioning, and I could see the little beads of sweat forming on Joe’s forehead. But he wasn’t sweating because of me.

  “Number three is nice,” he said. “New construction. New area. The grocery store next door will bring in tons of people. But that particular grocery chain, I know for certain that they make their own coffee in house, probably for a fraction of your prices, and it’s pretty good. Not to mention the rent on this place, since it’s new and all, is way too damn high. So, final answer, Ms. Bitterman, is location number one.”

  Kitty grinned liked Joe had just told me to shove number three up my ass. In a way, he kind of had.

  I widened my eyes at him. He was so sure of himself. “Tell me why you like number one.”

  “Okay.” He stopped pacing. “It’s in an older part of town but still a popular area. The rent is low—”

  I shook my head. “Low rent tends to be for a reason. But keep going.”

  “I like that it’s big. I like that you could make it a drive-thru location.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I had to stop him right there. “There was never any mention of drive-thru option today.”

  He took a step toward me. “No, but there should have been. I’m willing to bet a drive-thru location in that spot would outsell any one of your other stores ten to one.”

  My heart raced a little harder. This was a step I hadn’t made with my business yet. It was something I wasn’t fully ready to consider, a leap I wasn’t sure we were ready for. All the stores followed a similar design and layout. A drive-thru would be like reinventing the wheel.

  I swallowed hard.

  Joe was making me incredibly nervous. He stepped even closer. My skin felt prickly and my heart started to run rampant.

  “Number three, even with its high rent, is the safe option. Number one is riskier, but risks have the highest rewards.” His voice changed to its gentler tone. “Number one, Lana,” he pressed, “trust me.”

  I looked over to Kitty because I couldn’t really take the intensity of his eyes on me a second longer. “What do you think, Kitty?”

  “I think . . . that Joe is never wrong. Like, literally, he’s never been wrong in his life. The guy was doing multiplication as a kindergartener. So,” she shrugged, “I’d trust him.”

&nbs
p; “But you’re biased as his sister.”

  She huffed at me, “Whatever.” She went straight into defensive mode. “Don’t ask me if you don’t want my opinion, then. Don’t ask Joe’s if you don’t want his, either.”

  “No, that’s where you’re wrong.” I stared at Joe as I answered her. “I want his opinion. It’s these types of opinions that help a business grow. But ultimately, the decisions will always be mine.” I sucked in a deep breath. I’d made up my mind. “Okay. Let’s do number one. Let’s do the drive-thru.” I felt a little giddy as I said the words. I was taking a leap of faith on him, and the only other person I’d ever really taken a leap of faith on had burned me. This was kind of a big deal for me. But I also liked knowing he . . . had my back. Those were the exact words he’d said to me yesterday. I have your back. It was kind of a random thing to say, especially coming from Joe, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d said it.

  “Yes,” Kitty hissed as if my decision had been her own personal victory.

  If Joe felt the same, he held a much better poker face. He looked as if either decision would have had the same exact effect on him, which was zero.

  I took my phone out of my pocket. “My contractor is waiting on my call. I’ll get him to meet us at the first location.”

  “Alright, let’s do this thing,” Kitty hollered, fist-pumping the air, and she raced off and out of the building.

  Joe was slower to move, lingering behind with me. “If nothing else, thanks for distracting Kitty today. Thanks for including her and being nice to her. It might not seem like it, but she’s going through hell today.”

  I wasn’t used to compliments, especially from men who looked like Joe. I didn’t know how to respond, so I shrugged off his words. “I’m not that altruistic,” I told him. I nodded off toward the door where Kitty had disappeared. “Kitty’s in our key demographic. Potential customer. I might be tough with my employees, but to everyone else, I try to be slightly less of a bitch.”

  He chuckled. “You’re not a bitch, Lana.” At some point he’d taken the final step in my direction. He stood close enough to touch. And maybe it was the fact that we were in a stuffy box of a building, with no air circulating, on one of the hottest days of the year, but my cheeks and my entire body felt flushed. If he stared at me like that—like I wasn’t his boss—another second longer, I might just keel over onto the floor.

  He reached out his hand as if he were about to touch my face, and I sucked in a deep breath, preparing for it. God, how wonderful it must feel to be touched by this man. But he immediately stopped himself and retracted. I wasn’t even sure if I’d just imaged it all. He cleared his throat, taking a step backward. “Didn’t you have a phone call to make?”

  “Um . . ..” I blinked, focusing my stare on the phone in my hand. “Yes. I did. I’ll be just one minute.”

  “I’ll meet you in the car, then.”

  “Okay.”

  He left me alone.

  I’d like to say I was relieved nothing had just happened between us, but that wasn’t true. I felt a wave of disappointment.

  CHAPTER 7

  JOE

  The contractor Lana had called was delayed. He couldn’t meet us for another two hours, meaning we had time to kill while we waited. For now, we were out eating lunch at a local restaurant. Lana had invited the driver to join the three of us, but he had—thankfully—declined.

  I’d been suspicious of the man all damn day.

  I mean, did she always have this same driver when she used a service? Did he secretly work for Doug Maddox, too? He hadn’t said a word all day, but I had caught his eyes glancing at me in the rearview mirror on several different occasions, creeping me the hell out.

  Speaking of Doug—fuck him.

  Because on top of my paranoia about the driver and being antsy as hell, I couldn’t stop analyzing every single word that came out of my mouth. If I said anything too nice to Lana, would he misinterpret that? If I said anything too challenging, same thing? In the car I’d kept picking up my duffle bag and setting it on my lap anytime I had anything honest I wanted to say to Lana, hoping I might muffle the microphone taped to my chest.

  I was three seconds away from heading into the bathroom and ripping the damn thing off. Not to mention that I’d felt my phone buzz in my pocket at least ten times. I hadn’t even checked to see who might be trying to call me because I knew it was Doug.

  Our food arrived. I was too hot to eat properly. So I took off my suit jacket, turning in my seat to throw it over the back of my chair. I also loosened my tie, removed that, and then rolled up my sleeves, not caring that I was exposing my tattoos on my arms. I couldn’t handle the dress code a moment longer. Our table sat next to large floor-to-ceiling windows and the sun beat on us.

  Kitty, sighing in relief, followed my lead. Well . . . she took it one step too far.

  She unbuttoned her blouse, removing it completely, rolled it, and used it to tie her hair up as if her shirt were a bandana. All she had underneath was a bra/tank top thing that barely covered the top of her ribs. With her stomach exposed, more of the vast artwork that covered Kitty’s body was exposed.

  Like brother, like sister, I guess.

  Again, I didn’t even care.

  We both glanced at Lana to see if she’d follow suit. She didn’t, of course, and instead, delicately picked up her hamburger and took a bite.

  “What?” she said through a mouthful of food as both Kitty and I watched her.

  “Come on,” Kitty joked. “Join us over on the dark side, Lana. Take something off.”

  Lana chewed and swallowed her bite. “I’m fine.”

  She’d barely broken a sweat today. I was positive Lana Bitterman was used to wearing suits all summer long. She did have an advantage, as a woman, because she wore a skirt and a jacket that was short sleeve—both pieces white. The woman always wore white. And as a man, my suit options were limited.

  “I can tell you have curly hair and that you straighten it. I can tell because I used to straighten mine every day for years.” Kitty smiled as she spoke, but I feared she was about to take things too far too fast. “You’re part of the Curly Club, just like me and Joe.”

  Lana set her hamburger down and touched her perfectly straight blond hair. “I do straighten my hair. Is it frizzing in this heat?”

  “Your hair looks fine, Lana,” I commented. I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that it wasn’t naturally straight. Not that it mattered either way to me.

  “It does look fine,” Kitty added.

  “Kitty,” I warned.

  “Nah, I gotta say this. You know what I love about living here in Portland?” Technically we were in Washington at the moment, but that fact hardly occurred to Kitty. “You can let your Portland freak flag fly and nobody cares. You can say ‘Fuck you, Mom and Dad,’ and nobody cares. You can date a woman, you can date a man, you can date a goat, and nobody cares. Well, people might care if you dated a goat, but my point is, it doesn’t matter. And pay no attention to Joe. He’s normally not this boring.”

  “And I can straighten my hair if that’s my prerogative,” Lana added, unfazed, taking another bite of her burger.

  “I’m trying to tell you that when you’re with me and Joe, you can let loose.”

  “Stop it, Kitty,” I interrupted, giving her a look, I knew she’d understand. Silent messages across dinner tables made up the bulk of our childhood years.

  Kitty grunted, frustrated with me, and grabbed her plate. “I’m going to go sit at the bar with my meal. You can’t eat a fucking hamburger and not have a beer with it.”

  “Kitty,” I hissed. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously.”

  She took her plate and she left. Fuck, I wanted to scream. Today was hard enough for me, dealing with this new job, dealing with my own shit, and I didn’t need Kitty’s drama on top of it.

  “I’m sorry about that. She’s projecting her issues and insecurities onto you,” I to
ld Lana. “Don’t pay any attention to her.” I really didn’t have a clue what Kitty’s problem was, but I felt I had to offer Lana some sort of an explanation.

  I watched Kitty across the room at the bar, smiling at the bartender as he poured her a beer. I watched her take a long sip of the golden, rather refreshing looking, liquid. “Christ.” I ran my hands through my hair, focusing my eyes down at my food, away from the beer, away from the temptation that now tugged at me, too. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I wasn’t in the mood to play Doug’s bitch-spy.

  I pushed my plate away, glancing up at Lana across the table.

  Lana surprised me.

  She stared back at me, not with anger, not with judgment, but with concern. But then she quickly rolled her eyes, shook her head, and leaned forward to remove her jacket. She neatly folded the piece of clothing and draped it over the back of her chair just like I had.

  I let out a small chuckle. “Welcome to the dark side.”

  “It’s hot. Let’s be honest, I was just being stubborn.”

  I laughed out loud. “Were you now?”

  “Yes. But there’s no chance in hell I’m joining your Curly Club. I’m not about to go to the bathroom and dump water on my head. I happen to love my hair straight, just like it is. But your sister does make a good point, sometimes I’m too uptight.”

  My eyes were locked with her eyes. And for the life of me, I could not break that eye contact. Some part inside of me was yelling, Back down, eat your food, shut up. But another part was so intensely focused on Lana, so suspended in the moment, so curious about getting to know the version of Lana that lurked below the surface.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, playfully, just to see how she might react. Her reaction was this cute, sexy smile that crept over her pink lips, as if she couldn’t even help but smile , and it kind of made my heart race.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  It did more than that. It made my cock start to grow thick. I swallowed hard at my body’s unexpected, yet not necessarily unwelcomed, response. “Tell me something about you, Lana, something no one else knows.” It wasn’t exactly an inappropriate thing to say but definitely not appropriate to say to a boss. But let’s be real, this wasn’t a real job for me. She wasn’t a real boss to me. More like a means to an end. Who said I couldn’t have a little fun with her until the day came that I’d need to destroy her?