Page 96 of Best Kind of Trouble
“No.”
“Someone dear to me saw you sitting in the window, looking mournful.”
“Mournful, huh?” I throw back the rest of the beer. “I’m feeling just fine. Couldn’t sleep is all. There’s something I was hoping to talk to you about, though.”
She pats my hand. “Good. Let’s go do that, dear.”
“Go?” I repeat, my mind working slowly. Barely working at all, to be honest.
But the idea of going doesn’t seem so good. Briar will be here soon, probably. I shouldn’t miss Briar. Maybe when I see her, the words that will make it all better will magically come to me.
“Oh, indeed,” Dottie says, with another hand pat. “You don’t want her to see you looking like this.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Your boss, dear. No one wants their boss to see them while they’re red-eyed and smelling of beer at ten in the morning.”
I manage a half-ass smile. “You think she’d fire me?”
“We’ll never know, because we’ll be at my tea shop enjoying a nice cup of tea and some deep conversation.”
You know what? Dottie’s a sweet little old lady who’s doing a shitload of free work to help Silver Star pick itself up and dust off its boots. She’s also been good to Briar and Hannah. I won’t deny her the joy of getting her own way.
Half an hour later,I’m sitting across from Dottie at one of the little tables in her tea shop, a white metal chair groaning beneath my weight.
The server, who seemed a little in awe to be waiting ontheDottie Hendrickson, has already filled our cups with tea.
Dottie, who usually has a lot to say, has been surprisingly quiet.
“So, you’re probably wondering what I wanted to talk to you about,” I start, but she’s already shaking her head, throwing me off.
“Oh no, Iknowyou want advice about Briar. That much is obvious.”
I consider her words. “What kind of advice?”
She points to the steaming teacup waiting in front of me. “Drink up, dear boy. The caffeine will do you good. Green tea only has about a fourth as much caffeine as coffee, so you’ll need plenty of it.”
I eye the spindly handle. When you’re a big man, you get used to breaking things without meaning to. But breaking this cup in my big mitt would be a pretty shitty cherry on top of my bad day.
“No, thanks. I didn’t come for advice. I was hoping you might be willing to include Briar in your Christmas plans.”
“She asked you to make plans for her?” she questions. “How extraordinary.” Her expression is full of an innocence I’m starting to question.
“Not exactly, but I didn’t think she would. She’d probably spend the day alone or go to her parents’ house out of duty.”
Her gaze drills into me. “And how willyoube spending the day, my dear?”
“I’ll be at the brewery, where I need to be. Doing my job.”
“Everyone needs a day off.”
“And yet, here you are, two days before Christmas.”
She smiles at me. “I’m mostly retired, dear. I’m here because it’s where I choose to be.”
“And the brewery is where I choose to be. But Briar needs to be around people.”
“Weallneed to be around people.”
