1
Arlo
It wasn’t that the teacup in my hand was scalding hot or that I had forgotten to eat breakfast and lunch that gave me the burgeoning headache pulsating behind my right eye—no, the rapidly crumpling envelope in my hand was to blame.
Carefully, I forced myself to open the envelope and read the letter, even though I knew what it would say.
This was the third letter sent to try and buy out my property—just mere months after I opened a second TeaMuse on that property. Not the business, just the location itself. The corporation didn’t seem to think TeaMuse itself had any value.
Someone, somewhere, was twirling a mustache and typing semi-aggressive letters about my credit score to try and get me to panic and sell my business.
It wasn’t that someone was just trying to buy the property—it was a good location, I got the impulse. It was the wording used inside the letter. It suggested that they knew I was under financial strain and—it was just bullying tactics. They were trying to scare me into selling.
It didn’t help that the corporation behind the letters was a massive tea empire that owned the building behind my shop.
I tightened my fist around the paper, listening to the sound of it crinkling together, and tried to ignore the fury in my chest—the dull ache of heartburn was almost enough to take my mind off of the headache.
“This is outrageous,” I said, shaking the papers at my only customer, Jeremy. He was also my best customer and friend, so I didn’t feel quite as bad for shouting at the only paying patron in TeaMuse.
“What’s outrageous?” Jeremy glanced up from his phone. When he caught sight of me, something on my face must have shown that I wasn’t kidding. He set his phone down and grimaced. “Uh oh.”
“This,” I shook the letter again. “This damned company keeps sending fear-mongering letters to try and get me to sell TeaMuse Two.”
“But TeaMuse Two,” he repeated the nickname I’d given the second location of my tea shop, “is new. It’s closer to my house. I don’t want you to sell it.”
I huffed out a breath. “I know. It’s outrageous. I’m outraged.”
“I can tell,” Jeremy nodded solemnly. He grabbed his chia and took a long sip. “Why are you so irate about this? Just turn it down, shred the letter, and forget about it.”
“I can’t.” I shoved the letter into the drawer under the register. I downed the rest of my tea and slammed the cup down. “I feel bullied.”
Jeremy cocked his head.
The spot behind my eye pulsed again. I rubbed at my temple, thumb and middle finger rotating in small circles on either side of my eyes. Oh, God. I was going to blow an aneurysm. “I hate bullies. They want the location but I have the location. I have it. It’s not my fault they want what I have. And now they’re bullying me and I just—don’t have time to be bullied.”
Jeremy whistled. “You taking that on tour?”
“Shut up.”
“No, no,” he laughed. “I just mean, it’s not like you to be so angry.”
I groaned, head falling into my hands. I stayed there a second, breathing deeply, and letting my eyes adjust to the tight darkness of eyelids squeezed shut. Breathing out deeply, I dropped my hands and stood up straighter. I glanced around carefully to make sure we were alone.
“I—might be stressed.”
“Might?”
“Definitely,” I corrected. “Things are—tight right now, budget-wise. My loans are due soon and, you know, with how busy I’ve been with the new location, I haven’t been here as much, but I haven’t really been marketing or doing anything to drive anyone to the new location yet, just—stretched a little thin. And getting corporate asshole letters reminding me of my ‘financial strain’ isn’t really helping anything.”
The loans weren’t supposed to be coming in this fast—or, well, they were but things weren’t supposed to be so complicated when they did come.
When I first opened, TeaMuse wasn’t this hard. Three years ago, I had just graduated college and everything had felt so—limitless.
Back then, I hadn’t been alone, though. Granddad and I had built this place from the ground up—or, well, the trailer up. It wasn’t just our passion and time and energy, but blood, sweat, and tears that built this building and business.
I’d never loved anything more than I loved TeaMuse.
Granddad had stayed well enough to see the opening of the first shop, but not much longer.
When Granddad died, it had only seemed natural to use the inheritance to open a second location. Business had been good, booming even, and it was too much for the small tiny-built location to handle. Then the perfect sliver of a vacant lot opened in my exact target area and, though it scraped the roof, stayed right in my budget. It was—fate.
I didn’t know how in the hell the land had been available, vacant in a city this commercialized. It was nearly impossible to find a vacant lot. Maybe a fire had taken out the previous building, or it had been a part of the big building next door. I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that the land had been vacant and available and now I was being backed into a corner to sell my fated lot.
“I thought the probate was coming in soon,” Jeremy interrupted my spiral.
I sighed. “It was, but Ned is challenging it and now things are all held up.”
As angry as the letters made me, it had nothing on my asshole cousin.
It wasn’t my fault he ignored Granddad for the majority of his life. I wasn’t going to feel badly that he was getting a smaller inheritance.
“Ned’s a dick,” Jeremy grumbled.
For the sake of family, I didn’t outright agree. “Things are just—tied up now.”
“And that’s bad.”
“Very. It’s—I was sort of counting on that.”
“Could you lose the new location?”
“Shit, I could lose both.” I groaned. “If things don’t shape up soon, I could lose it all. I—I’m mad at myself. I’m thinking about taking this dumb, rude offer because then, at least, I could save this place.” I pressed my hands down on the counter. It was a slate gray piece of wood that Granddad and I had sanded, stained, and painted ourselves. I’d held it steady while he screwed in the support beams.
I couldn’t lose this place—couldn’t throw away his dream, and mine, because I got over my head with ambition and bad planning.
Jeremy hummed out a low, considering hum before falling quiet. I sighed, pinching again at the bridge of my nose to try and gain a handle on the headache still vibrating beneath my skull.
I grabbed a rag and cleaned off the counter, rewashing the machines and other countertops. I had washed it all down when the last customer left, but still, it was nice to have something to do with my hands, something to occupy my mind for a few minutes, even if it was just the slow, methodical wiping of a counter.
The playlist that had been quietly humming in the background switched off. I slipped past the opened gate behind the counter and went to the sound system, fiddling with my phone until I found a new one that was within TeaMuse’s brand, but a little quieter to accommodate the pounding of my head and veins.