But First, Coffee

by Sarah Darlington

  She didn’t want anyone in her office to know we were dating yet. I understood why, that it might look like she hired me for all the wrong reasons, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I have two days’ worth of work to catch up on. I might have to stay at the office pretty late tonight.”

  The crib mattress hidden under her desk popped into my head. I’d forgotten about it. This frustration rippled through me at the idea of her curled up under her desk, sleeping in such a tight space tonight. No, just no. She would not be sleeping on that damn thing ever again. I couldn’t stomach it. “I don’t care if it’s four in the morning. When you’re finished working, you call me, I’ll pick you up, and you can stay in my king-sized bed tonight.”

  “Joe.” It was a protest.

  “Lana.”

  I did not want to argue about this. There was no point to it. We were together now. That meant I wanted her in my arms—where she belonged—each night. And that certainly meant not sleeping under her desk anymore.

  I swallowed hard, surprised by my anger over this. First chance I got, I would be removing that mattress from her office and throwing it in the nearest dumpster. But for now, a little afraid to let her see the full extent of my stubbornness, I let it go. I had the rest of today to convince her otherwise.

  I kissed her forehead. “We can figure it out later. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

  Shit. Shit. Holy shit! My chest tightened as I realized moments too late that I’d let the words slip out again. As if I had no filter whatsoever. Fuck. “Bye,” I blurted out before she could respond. I turned on my feet, left her at her car, and headed in the direction of mine. And I didn’t even walk . . . I jogged.

  Seriously. Fuck.

  Reaching my car, I yanked open the door. Then I left as fast as I could.

  By the time I reached the house, my stomach was in knots. I shouldn’t have said that. She needed more time. Time worked differently for me. Slower at times. Faster at times. And besides, I was the type of person who, once their mind was made up, it was a done deal. I don’t think Lana operated the same.

  After waiting in the line to go to the Top of the Rock, reading some of her emails, I now knew that she was looking to switch to a whole new coffee bean supplier. There were several farms she was considering and had been considering for several months. If it were me, I’d pick one and be done with it. But not Lana. Lana needed to weigh up and agonize over the details of this decision. Was she weighing up and agonize over the details of the decision to date me too?

  I thought this thing between us was a no-brainer. Maybe she didn’t see it the same way I did. I wasn’t boyfriend material. I wasn’t even really friend material, either. But for her, I could be both.

  I dropped the keys on the table by the door, walking into the living room. Kitty sat on the couch, eating Cheetos with her feet propped up on the table, watching a kid’s superhero show on TV.

  Her fingers were bright orange. I rolled my eyes. Sometimes she was hard to live with. If she got orange on my couch, I’d lose my shit.

  “How was New York?” she asked. “Run into Mom and Dad?” I could hear the teasing in her tone.

  “No, thank God.”

  “And Lana?”

  “We’re good.”

  “That’s sweet.” She licked her fingers.

  I heard the hint of sarcasm in her voice, but I ignored it. I noticed there was a cell phone on the coffee table to the right of her feet. It wasn’t hers. She didn’t have the money for a cell phone that nice. “Whose phone is that?”

  “Doug Maddox gave it to me yesterday.”

  What. The. Hell. My eyes went wide. I reached over and snatched it off the table.

  “Hey!” She jumped up, diving at me, trying to grab it back from me with her gross Cheetos hands.

  Jesus, little sisters, they never change.

  “It has my personal videos uploaded into it,” she cried out. “Give it back!”

  I immediately gave it back, too afraid I’d hit a button and they’d start playing.

  “They’re the only and last copies, or so Doug says.” She pocketed the phone quickly as if she were afraid I might try to steal it again. “And, weirdly, I think I believe him.”

  “Well, why don’t you delete the videos and destroy that phone? Be done with all this crap once and for all. You want to go light a bonfire in the backyard right now. Maybe take a hammer to it. Oh, I know, a baseball bat. Like in Office Space. It could be fun.”

  “No, thank you. I’m trying to decide what I want to do next. The videos, as Doug pointed out, are evidence against Zane. So I can either delete them, do nothing, and try to forget him for good. Or I could press charges against that asshole and use the videos to implicate him. I can’t decide.”

  My stomach swirled. I wished Kitty didn’t have to decide something like that. I wished it never happened in the first place. And I hated that Doug had been the one to point this out to her. It was hardly his job to protect her. I sighed, unsure what to do. “At the very least, you should transfer those videos onto your computer. And then destroy the phone. I don’t like you carrying around something Doug could track your location with. He gave us the first video on a thumb drive. Why give us the rest back on a nice phone like that?”

  “I just figured he’s got so much money, he never thought twice about wasting a phone on me. Plus, it’s not like he doesn’t know where we live already.” She mumbled all this in her sarcastic voice.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Doug doesn’t scare me.”

  “Well, that’s nice, because he fucking scares the shit out of me. Destroy it, Kitty, today. Okay?”

  “Okay. Fine.” She sat back on the couch, arms crossed and eyes glued to the TV. “You should be thanking me. Now you and your girlfriend are free to be together and be in love and all that bullshit. You’re welcome.”

  “It’s not bullshit. And thank you. Speaking of Lana, I need to go get dressed for work. She’s expecting me at the office today.”

  She dramatically slapped her hands down onto the couch. “You’re still going to work there? Are you kidding me?”

  “Lana needs me.”

  “Lana needs you to get her off. And that’s about it.”

  I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t believe my sister was speaking to me so harshly.

  “I’m not trying to be mean, Joe. I’m trying to point out the obvious truth. That company, and her job, they will always come before you. She loves Java Beans more than she could ever love you. Didn’t you learn anything growing up with Dad? How many more missed birthdays would it have taken for you to see that? Because I can see it pretty clearly. Let me guess, she wants to keep your relationship a secret back at the office. She wants to wait until it’s the right time to tell people. You’re hot, big brother. You know that, and I know that, and right now, Lana’s enjoying having you between her sheets. But what happens when you threaten her precious Java Beans?”

  My jaw locked. A one stupid tear betrayed me by slipping down my cheek. I wanted to scream at Kitty and tell her she was wrong, and demand she take those words back. But I didn’t. I only turned and left the living room.

  Because what if she was right?

  CHAPTER 29

  LANA

  Still wearing my I heart NYC shirt, I walked into the office focused and determined. I hadn’t bothered stopping at home first, to change or even reapply my makeup, and had raced straight here from the airport. The moment Joe mentioned that, whatever the time, he planned to pick me up tonight and bring me back to his bed, I decided I needed to haul ass and make sure I’d be free of all my work burdens by that time. Because I wanted nothing more than to spend tonight exactly the same way I’d spent last night—trapped in his strong arms, soaking up his intoxicating scent, and waking up for slow sex in the dead of the night.

  I’d gotten so used to living by myself, spending each night working late, or when I did go
home, sleeping alone in my big apartment by myself, that maybe I was starved for any sort of companionship. But one small taste of life with Joe, and I was an instant addict. I couldn’t get enough of his touch, his nearness, or his addictive personality.

  We’d barely been separated a hour, and yet, all I could think about was him.

  He was in my brain. His scent was still on my skin. His heart quickly was stealing mine.

  He said, “I love you,” to me when we parted earlier. The words from his lips still echoed in my ears. Part of me thought those words didn’t count the first time he had said them to me because he’d said them during sex, high in the moment as he came inside me, making me wonder if he meant them at all.

  But when he said them a second time today, so casually, included as he said goodbye to me, as if he’d already said them to me a thousand times before . . . I knew they were true.

  He meant them. He loved me.

  A man in love with me was such a foreign concept—unless you counted the time Doug Maddox professed his love to me in college, which I didn’t—that I hardly knew how to process this.

  No matter. I walked off the elevator and through the hallway of my office with the widest grin on my face. I was sure everyone had to be thinking the same thing, Lana Bitterman got laid. Well, it was true, and I hardly cared what the rest of them thought. Maybe I’d just come out and announce to everyone that Joe and I were together, screw what they all thought of me, screw the repercussions. This was my office. My business. If I wanted to date an employee—was that really so wrong?

  Nancy wasn’t in her seat. I rolled my eyes, wondering where the hell she was, pushing open the double doors to my office. There was a man in a suit in my office, and for a split second, I thought it was Joe. That he’d beaten me back to the office, which didn’t seem possible since he’d said he planned to stop and check on Kitty before coming in.

  But it wasn’t Joe.

  It was Doug Maddox.

  Speak of the Devil.

  Standing in the middle of my office, like he owned the damn place, his arms crossed over his chest, his feet square and firmly in place, and his eyes on me. After meeting Leo Maddox III, I saw the family resemblance—same thin nose, same strong jawline, same pretty eyes. Only Leo had jet-black hair, and Doug had honey-brown hair. And Leo, to my knowledge, wasn’t a fucking psycho like the man standing in front of me. Doug was attractive on the outside, but I knew on the inside, he was only ugly.

  Holy crap. Nancy.

  Her presence surprised me more. She was here too, sitting on my desk with her long legs crossed over my keyboard, with the nastiest smirk on her face.

  “What is this?” I snapped at her. The happy smile from my night with Joe faded from my lips. “Nancy, you need to get back to work. That is, if you want to keep your job. Maybe call security while you’re at it. Have them come escort Doug Maddox out of here.”

  “Yeah, Lana, I don’t think so.”

  Her voice was different today. She had a much thicker accent than I’d ever noticed. A New York one, I believed. The hell?

  “And my name’s not Nancy. It’s Natalie. And I quit.” She made a kissy-face at me, swinging her legs off the deck, jumping to her feet. Then she walked past me, as if she were a model on a runway, unbuttoning her blouse two more buttons as she went.

  She’d always seemed so timid. I didn’t know what to think now. I watched her leave with my mouth hanging open.

  I assumed Doug had everything to do with this.

  “Who was she?” I asked now that we were alone.

  “My half-sister.”

  “I didn’t know you had siblings.”

  “She’s not a Maddox. And I only found out she existed a few years ago. Long after our relationship ended. So you wouldn’t know about her, now would you?”

  Relationship? Ha-freaking-ha. Was that what he believed we shared in his delusional mind? “You had her spying on me, too?” I realized.

  “Maybe,” he said simply, stepping around my desk, sitting in my seat.

  I sighed. I wasn’t afraid of him, only annoyed by his presence in my office. I had work to do, and a man to daydream about. I didn’t have time for another round of Doug’s craziness.

  “Nancy, eh . . . Natalie, worked and spied on me for a full year? You forced your own sister to do that? I think you need help, Doug. Like mental help. You have to realize how insane this makes you seem.”

  He rested his elbows on my desk, ignoring that comment. “You have a nice office, Lana,” he said. “I like it. A little too feminine. Too many plants. But I could change those things.”

  What?

  He stood up, running his fingers along the wood of my desk as he moved. He walked over to the photo I had framed on the wall. I’d had it blown up and printed in black and white. It was my favorite. A picture of me and my father’s shed—the original Java Beans. The summer after my freshman year of college, Dad helped me move his old shed to the parking lot of his lumberyard. We turned it into a little drive-up coffee shop. It took all my savings to buy the equipment, plus lots of paint and early morning hours, but I had a line of workers waiting for my coffee every morning. And I made enough money that first summer to officially start Java Beans the following summer.

  “Look at you,” Doug said, making a face, “so cute and happy. Too bad that shed was my idea.”

  I huffed, “It’s a shed, Doug.”

  “When you told me you wanted to start a coffee company? Who came up with your company name?”

  “You did. Yes, I’ll admit it. But, really, it’s not even that great of a name. When people buy my coffee, they aren’t buying my name. They’re buying my product.”

  “I beg to differ. Who suggested you start off like this?” He tapped on the shed in the photo. “Me. It was a safe way for you to try out your dream without investing too much start-up money. My ideas, Lana! You took them.”

  “No, those were suggestions among two friends. Brainstorming. Advice. Just because you turned into a terrible friend, doesn’t mean I could never use any of your ideas. Maybe I should have used a different name. Is that what would make you happy? Get you to leave me the hell alone. A new company name? Because I’ll do it. I’ll change the name.”

  My temperature was rising, my blood pumping faster in my veins. Apparently, so was Doug’s, because his nostrils flared and his jaw tightened. He didn’t shout at me like I half-expected, only breathed in and out slowly. The man had a temper. A terrifying one. One that scared me enough to end our friendship in one afternoon.

  But maybe time had matured him. Because the next words out of his mouth were calmer than expected. “I have a different idea. A different way we can settle this. I’m frightened of this person I’ve become. I obsessed over you for too many years. It was unhealthy. And it wasn’t even love—just bitterness. I took the bitterness I’ve always felt toward my family, and I transferred it all onto you. Maybe that was easier than facing the fact that, besides money, I have nothing else in this world. None of the things that truly matter. Seeing you gain success over the years, while I only felt exceedingly more and more lonely, wishing I hadn’t ruined our friendship the night I trashed your dorm room, was crippling to watch. But it’s funny how one spark of hope, one push in a different direction, can change everything. I want to apologize for the past and move forward. I’m sorry, Lana. Truly, I am. But I think you owe me an apology, too. For starting, building, and growing this company without me. Because it wasn’t just your dream, it was my dream, too. We were supposed to do it together.”

  I let out a long breath.

  I didn’t fully know how to process everything he’d just said. The funny part was that he talked of loneliness. I’d been on the other side, the good side, of the success he mentioned, and this whole time I’d felt lonely too. The truth was, when I’d first started my dream of Java Beans, I’d planned to include Doug. I wanted him as my business partner. But it all changed in one moment when he told me he loved me, and I tol
d him I didn’t feel the same. He grew violent, throwing and breaking my things, screaming unforgivable things at me. That wasn’t love. That was something else entirely. I saw the monster in him. It surely still lived inside—waiting below the surface. If I didn’t accept his apology now, would I see that monster again?

  I wanted all of this to end. Not just for my own sake, but for Joe’s sake too. “I accept your apology,” I told him. “You mentioned you had a way to settle this once and for all. What did you mean?”

  If he said he wanted to be business partners now, then he might see the monster inside me. Because maybe I used a few of his ideas in the beginning, to start off from, but everything I had today, everything this company had become, I’d built with my own blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices.

  “I bought Weird and Wired,” he announced as the most devilish smile filled his lips, “and I want to trade companies.”

  CHAPTER 30

  JOE

  Where was Lana?

  First of all, where was Nancy? I arrived at the office and she wasn’t in her normal spot outside Lana’s door. So, casually, not sure what else to do, I pushed open the door to her office. “Lana,” I said softly as I entered.

  But only an empty room met me on the other side. Maybe she’d gone to get lunch? It was, after all, way past noon.

  I took this moment alone to retrieve all the hidden microphones I’d once planted for Doug. I needed to make sure they were gone on the off chance he was still listening. Once I gathered them, I stepped inside Lana’s bathroom and flushed them down the toilet. In the sink I noticed Lana’s New York T-shirt and the skirt she’d had on this morning. Since she sometimes slept on that damn crib mattress, I assumed she also kept clothes here in case she ever needed to change.