Page 18 of Extra Grumpy
A delivery guy is holding out a tablet for me to sign, but I’m still not convinced he’s at the right address.
“What’s the name on the label?” I ask, keeping my weight against the front door of the bar.
The delivery guy tilts his head to check. “Emily Coleman. Care of Blackbear Bar.”
What the hell did Emily order? I sigh and grab the tablet from the delivery guy. I scrawl my signature and thrust it back to him.
I’m annoyed as I haul the large box into the bar. Emily’s not here yet, so I carry it into the back office to keep it out of the way. While I’m in there, I hear the front door of the bar open and Emily’s footsteps come in.
My chest tightens as I hear her walking in my direction. Things have been really weird since she kissed me. She’s been avoiding me like the plague. I thought it was bad enough when she jerked back from our kiss, but to be so blatantly avoided like this ever since has been hell. Every time I try to talk to her she has somewhere to run off to.
“Oh, hi,” she says, looking a little startled when she comes into the office and sees me. Then her eyes flick to the box and she inhales an excited breath. “Oh! It arrived!”
“Whatisthis?”
“Our new sign,” she says, as if that should be more than obvious.
What? Our new sign? I think back to the conversation we had when she showed me images on her phone of the neon signs she liked. I never agreed to getting one. Did I? Am I going mad?
I watch Emily as she grabs a box cutter and slices into the packing tape on the top of the box. As she works, my eyes catch on her lips.
Her perfect lips.
“I didn’t agree to this,” I say.
She glances at me strangely as she opens the top of the box and starts removing styrofoam padding. “Yes, you did. You said ‘sure, whatever.’”
“That’s not agreeing.”
“How is saying ‘sure’ not agreeing?”
I exhale through my nose. “Jesus, Em. I don’t want a neon sign.”
Now there’s a mix of confusion and irritation and guilt on her face. Tightly, she says, “Well, I’m sorry I messed up. But I ordered it, and it’s here now.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
I look down into the box. The sign isn’t even fully uncovered yet and I can already tell I’m going to hate it. “Is it returnable?”
“It’s custom. No.”
I curse under my breath. “How much did you spend on it?”
She tells me. It’s not an outrageous amount, but it still bothers me. Shaking my head, I help her get the damn sign out of the box.
I carry it over and set it against the wall. Emily plugs it in and the wordsDRINK UP BUTTERCUPblare at us in bright pink neon.
“Oh,wow,” she says.
It’s even worse than I thought. I turn my head and stare at her. I can’t believe she actually likes this. No, ofcourseshe likes it. This is completely her. Bright and pink and cheery all the time. The polar opposite of me.
“We’re not hanging that up,” I snarl.
She looks hurt. “Rock. We run this bar together. You don’t get to bulldoze every decision.”
“It doesn’t go with anything.”
“I think the contrast is nice, personally.” She gives me puppy dog eyes. “How about a trial run? We can put it up and see if we get any feedback—goodorbad—from customers. If you still hate it at the end of the trial run, we’ll take it down. Please?”
