Page 24 of Best Kind of Trouble
“But I won’t mind having a new challenge,” I continue. “It’s felt stale around here for a while now.”
She plants a hand on her hip. “Stale? Howdareyou. Eugene just started a couple of months ago. How could it feel stale with me and Eugene as the main floor managers? This place is hopping.”
In the distance, I hear someone callingCode V, which means there’s more puke. I lift my eyebrows at her.
“Oh, come on. As if there won’t be puke there too.”
“I’m giving you what you want, Hannah, but what about you? Don’t you think the GM is going to get a little suspicious when I go to work for your best friend?”
She laughs. “You think Frodo knows who my best friend is? He barely knows which end of the bottle the beer comes out of.”
She has a point. We call the general manager Frodo because he spends the majority of the day anywhere but the brewery—Look yonder, Frodo left on another quest—and also because he loves to talk about the Super Bowl ring he bought off eBay. It’s a fake, but he’s a dick, so I’m content to let him make a fool of himself.
“Okay, but stop doing suspicious shit, just in case.”
“Like pulling you into storerooms in the middle of the day for private meetings?” she asks, clearly amused.
“That makes the list, sure.”
“Why’d you take Briar to the boxing gym?” she asks, her forehead creasing.
“I could tell she needed it,” I say, feeling the hair on the back of my neck prickle, as if sensing an electrical storm. “And we needed somewhere private to talk. I don’t want to be seen at Silver Star until everything is settled.”
She gives me a frosty-ass look. “You’re not going to hit on her.”
“We talked about this already, didn’t we?”
“Just make the promise again for my neuroses.”
“I’m not going to hit on her,” I agree. I snap the elastic around my wrist without really intending to.
I’mnotgoing to hit on Briar, obviously, but I wish Hannah would shut up about it. She’s as contrary as I am, so she should know she’s only planting ideas in my brain.
“Okay, great,” she says, patting me on the arm. Then her eyes brighten. “Hey, Travis told me Eugene’s son is going to practice with the band tomorrow.”
This makes me smile, because Cormac is an oddity I enjoy. “Yeah, he’s a bit strange.”
“You get the son, and I get the father.”
“You’re a bit strange too,” I say, shaking my head. God, it feels good to be on good terms with Hannah again. It was a dark time indeed when she was pissed at me.
“Come on…you know what I mean.” She waves a hand and nearly knocks over a broom propped against the wall. “Eugene’s my platonic soulmate, and setting him up with Mrs. Applebaum has basically been my life’s work.”
“Yep.” I reach for the door to leave, then pause and turn back. “You know I’m not staying in your boyfriend’s band, right? It was just a temporary thing. A favor to Travis for not being a dick.”
I also wanted to keep an eye on him in the beginning so I could make sure he was good enough for my sister, but I don’t need to tell her that. Odds are she knows.
“Yeah, I figured,” she says, sounding kind of sad about it. I’m probably supposed to ask her why—women love to be asked why they’re upset—but if she’s not gonna call it out, I’m not poking.
“Mick’s probably going to join, though. He said he’d come to Cormac’s audition with me tomorrow.”
She wrinkles her nose.
“Oh, come on. Mick’s a good guy.”
“If you say so. But you can never let him know that Travis accidentally glitter-bombed him.”
“How can youaccidentallyglitter-bomb someone?”
