Page 27 of Best Kind of Trouble
“I heard your news,” I say.
She drops the pen, and her shoulders slump.
Sharon approaches our table eagerly. It’s a few minutes past two, and despite its expensive downtown location, this place isn’t exactly buzzing with activity. I’m guessing it’s got a month or two, tops, before it gives up the ghost and is replaced by abusiness selling liquified wheatgrass or patchouli incense and tarot cards purchased off Amazon.
Sharon pauses a half step from our table. I’m tempted to offer her a seat for the show, but she might actually take me up on it.
“Anything else, love?” she asks Briar.
“Oh, I’ll have some more of that awful whiskey,” Briar says. “It’s not as bad after the first couple of glasses.” She waves an unsteady hand at me. “And a glass for my guest.”
I shake my head at the server. “We’ll both have black coffee. She needs to sober up. We’ll take the bill too.”
“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” Briar says, picking the pen back up and waving it at me. “I’m right in front of your face.”
Sharon hurries off, probably realizing the hot drunk girl is more intoxicated than she thought. No one wants a Code V.
“You are.” I wrap my hand around hers and slide the pen out of her grip, provoking an enraged gasp. “I don’t want to lose an eye,” I add.
Briar angles her head to study me, some of her hair tumbling over her shoulders. “You’d look like a pirate if you had an eyepatch. Maybe it would look good. Do you think it would look good, Sharon?” She snaps her fingers. “You’d be like that Redbeard guy. Or is it Bluebeard? Maybe Sharon knows.” She glances over her shoulder, looking for her.
“She went to get the coffee,” I say, smiling. “You’re acting shit-faced.”
She clenches her jaw, and I figure I’m about to get blasted. Maybe she’ll pull a page out of Frodo’s playbook and tell me I’m a shitty employee—obviously—but instead she lowers her gaze to her glass. “I might have had more than I intended. It was a difficult morning.”
I nod. “You had some bad news, but you don’t have to let it breakyou. You remember what it felt like when you punched the heavy bag last night, don’t you?”
Her big eyes seem to grow even bigger. “Yes.I’ve been thinking about it all day.” She places her hand over mine, nearly bowling me over with her unexpected touch. Her fingers are soft but warm against my skin, rubbing gently across my flesh.
She’s drunk. She’s just drunk, and as my father told me when he first taught me how to brew, drunk people are either touchy-feely or punchy-fighty.
Briar Sterling is a touchy-feely drunk.
“This challenge isn’t going to own you,” I say, prying my hand away. “You’re going to take it on. You’re going to punch it like that heavy bag.”
Briar grins at me, practically blinding me with her white teeth.
“I’d like that.” She picks up the notebook and waves it, then drops it unceremoniously, nearly knocking over the mostly empty glass of bad whiskey. “Oopsie-daisy.”
I give her an incredulous look before turning to search for Sharon. Thank Christ, she bursts out of the back with a carafe of coffee and beelines for our table. Within seconds, she’s got both of our mugs full. The coffee smells like what you’d find at a 7-Eleven at three a.m., but at least it’s caffeinated.
“Okay,” Sharon says. “Two decafs.”
“Decaf?” I blurt in disbelief and, yes, horror. “What’s the point of decaf?”
Sharon’s gaze is full of the same disapproval I used to get from my high school principal. “She asked for it earlier.”
I fix a quizzical stare on Briar.
“Too much caffeine disrupts the body’s natural balance,” she says primly. “I like to be in touch with my inner self.”
“Something tells me drinking your weight in whiskey doesthe same thing.” Turning to Sharon, I say, “Yeah, we’re gonna need some real coffee.”
She sniffs and gathers the mugs she just filled. “Fine. But I’ll have you know Ihavebeen feeding her.”
Briar sighs. “Everyone talks about me. No one talkstome. I’m not a child or some plastic doll like Felicity, you know. I’m a full-grown woman.”
“No one could mistake that,” I say, then instantly regret it. It’s too much like flirting, and there are two very solid reasons I shouldn’t flirt with her, on top of the fact that she’s wasted. Reason one, she’s my new boss. Reason two, Hannah will cut my balls off—with a butter knife for maximum agony.
