Page 15 of Pin My Alpha
“Yeah, I can tell. You look like a haunted coat rack.”
A rough sound that’s almost a laugh gets stuck in my throat.
Tessa settles onto a stool across from me and pulls the letter closer. Her coffee steams in the quiet. The only sound is the hum of the fridge compressor kicking on.
She reads. Her face doesn’t change much, just goes still. The dry amusement she usually has drains right out of her eyes, and my gut clenches.
“Jesus,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“This is the new rate?”
“Starts in three months.”
She taps the clipped offer. “And this is the buyout.”
“End of the month to decide.”
Tessa leans back, staring at the page. “They’re trying to scare you into selling.”
“They don’t have to try that hard.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “Don’t.”
“I’m being realistic, Tess.”
“You’re being dramatic in a very boring way.”
I scrub both hands over my face. “The numbers aren’t dramatic.”
“No, the numbers are shit. You deciding it’s over before we’ve even had our coffee is the dramatic part.”
I look past her at the booths, at the cracked leather and the little dents in the tables from years of sweating glasses. The back booth still has a napkin jammed under one leg to keep it from wobbling. One of Benji’s, probably, covered in those weird little doodles of his.
This place is built out of second chances. Mine. The cracked vinyl on the booth seats, the dent in the wall by the pool table, the layers of varnish on the bar top—it’s all scar tissue. My first bar went down so fast I barely knew what hit me. One day I had my name over the door, the next I was selling the coolers for parts and dodging my dad’s calls because I couldn’t stomach the quiet disappointment in his voice. Byrne’s was supposed to be different. It is different. But it’s not paid for, and it’s not safe.
The back door slams open, rattling in its frame.
“Morning,” Diego calls out. He sounds about a hundred times more cheerful than the day deserves. “Got the produce. Also, they sent two crates of limes by mistake. I think they’re trying to tell us to make more margaritas.”
He comes out of the kitchen with a box in his arms, his Byrne’s t-shirt straining across his shoulders. He’s got that easy grin he wears, the one that says he’s never had a problem he couldn’t out-lift. Then he sees Tessa’s face. Then mine. His smile fades when his eyes catch on the letter.
“Oh,” he says.
“Just put it down,” Tessa tells him.
Diego sets the box on a table like it’s fragile. “Is everything… okay?”
“No,” I say.
He drifts closer anyway. Diego’s never been good at respecting the perimeter of a bad mood. He reads the letter over Tessa’s shoulder, his brow furrowing.
“That’s fucked up.”
“Eloquent,” Tessa says.
He looks at me, his gaze full of a sympathy that makes my skin crawl. Then his eyes drop to my arm. His whole face changes.
