Music poured out of the speakers and I tucked the phone back out of sight.
I should try the new ginger vanilla peach tea. It was a loose-leaf concoction that I hadn’t tried since the first time I accidentally whipped it together—if I was going to introduce it as next month’s signature flavor, I needed to figure out the exact portions and how it would taste best.
Maybe if I used a little less ginger this time—but then it would be so sweet. Too sweet, maybe. Those who had a sweet tooth normally didn’t even go for the straight teas. Maybe this would be a chance to get them on my side—or was I barking up the wrong tree?
“Arlo, have you been dating anyone?”
I sighed, tossing the empty leaf pouch down. “With my supple free time and disposable income? Nope.”
Jeremy let out that same, considering hum. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I might have a solution for your problem.” He held his hands out, stopping me before I could say anything. “Stop. Hold on, I don’t want to get your hopes up. I just—I need to check on a few things first.”
“What things?”
Jeremy hopped off his booth seat, grinning at me. “Nope, can’t say anything. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Jeremy—” I complained.
The bell above the door rang out, a string of teenagers piling inside. Already their loud and considering reading of the menu was distracting.
“Customers,” Jeremy pointed, as if I hadn’t seen them. He waved and slipped out of the door before I could catch him.
“Jerk,” I grumbled.
There was a small tendril of hope running its way through my body now. I didn’t know what Jeremy was talking about—why being single was even a factor to what was going on. Maybe he had a very rich brother that he never talked about who needed a husband—I imagined Cary Grant sweeping me off of my feet with his rugged jaw and thick checkbook.
Not that I could ever marry someone for money—but hell if I wasn’t getting close to considering.
I turned to the customers and plastered a smile on my face. “Hi, welcome to TeaMuse. What can I do for you?”
———
By the time I dragged myself back to my apartment, my feet felt swollen from standing up on them for twelve hours, my headache was a full-on migraine, and my stomach was sloshing from the amount of tea I had stress drunk.
My apartment was cold, the heat having been off all day, and exhaustion was seeping into my bones.
I fell to the couch, groaning. I held a pillow over my head, the cool dark a nice reprieve. I toed my shoes off and considered the pros and cons of falling asleep right here.
The bent neck was probably going to be killer by morning and I’d spend the whole day in pain. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have to move right now. Seemed worth it to me.
Riiinnnggg.
My cell phone sang out loudly in my pocket, the vibrations running down my leg.
I cursed, fishing it out of my pocket. It redirected the pulsing of my migraine to match the tune.
Eventually, I managed to get my hand around it. I answered the call mid-ring.
“Ugh, yes. Hello.”
“Ugh, yes, hello?” Jeremy’s voice came through, clipped and full of static. “That’s a terrible way to answer your phone.”
“I’m out here doing my best. Can’t you support me?”
He laughed.
I was too tired to laugh with him, but I huffed out a few amused puffs of air. “Why are you calling me? I’m about to pass out.”
“I told you I’d call you,” he reminded me.
Oh, right. “The suspicious no-hope hope.”
“Right,” there was the sound of cars in the background, a long car horn honking and then Jeremy cursing.
“Don’t talk and drive,” I said.
He scoffed and ignored me. “Someone is going to get into contact with you over the next few days about an exclusive opportunity.”
“An exclusive opportunity?”
“An exclusive opportunity.”
I waited a minute for him to elaborate, explain a little bit what he was actually talking about, but there was only the sound of tires and breathing. I sighed. “Can’t you be, I don’t know, a little bit more specific?”
“Honestly, I can’t.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to sell me on cruise ship tickets.”
He laughed. “Listen, I really am not allowed to explain. But if you want it—this could be your ticket to get by until the probate goes through. TeaMuse would be fine.”
TeaMuse would be fine.
My heart was still pounding and I hadn’t managed to reply when Jeremy quickly cursed and said, “Ah! Merging now. Gotta go.”
He hung up with a click. I held the phone still up to my ear, in a bit of a daze.
TeaMuse would be fine—by some surprise, suspicious exclusive opportunity.
What had I gotten myself into?
2
Walter
The big white clock kept ticking.
It was a large piece, minimalist in design and hung above my door. According to my assistant, it completed the room. I was fairly certain that she just wanted to see how much I was willing to spend on a clock, considering the thing cost me a few hundred dollars.
A few hundred dollars to simply listen to it tick, tick, tick.
I didn’t get bored.
I didn’t. There were too many things to do—meetings to run and businesses to build and fires to put out, constantly. I was always an Excel sheet behind and there was seemingly no reason for me to ever stop working. If I stopped working for even a moment, things would fall apart.
But then, the business wasn’t a crumbling tower of paper cards anymore. It was—fine. It was good. Business was better than ever and suddenly, though I was busy and there was always something I could be doing—there was nothing inspiring. I wanted the crushing pressure of a deadline, the white-hot spark of an idea that looks too big but really is the perfect size, the carelessly arrogant feeling in my chest when someone questions my ability to make a product, a profit, a concept reality.
But there wasn’t even the inkling of any of those things—there wasn’t anything I could lose myself in, could narrow my focus onto. There was nothing that could keep my attention.
Nothing besides the ticking of a too big, too expensive clock, that was.
I balled up a blank piece of stationary—my name Walter Rogue in big letters emblazoned at the top—and threw the small ball at the wastebasket on the other side of the room.
I missed.
I threw a second ball, then a third.
None of them went in.
It was frustrating. I was frustrated that the balls wouldn’t go into the wastebasket and I was frustrated that I was bored and I was frustrated that I was frustrated.
I threw ball after ball, watching as they scattered around my otherwise pristine office. The crumpled mess mocked me.
I managed to leave the paper scattered on the floor for a good two minutes before the mess started to itch at my skin. My office—and home—was methodically clean, always set up to my exact specifications. Even my umbrellas had an order in the linen closet, always standing straight up.
I liked neatness, liked order. The fact that the current state of my emotions was leading me to create a needless mess was just icing