Chapter 1
Val was battling a headache that had been brewing since she’d woken up that morning. It was just her luck that Americano Asshole handed her a refillable coffee cup. One that might hold traces of psychic energy. And one that he hadn’t rinsed out. Of course.
“The usual,” he said brusquely.
“Got it,” Val said under her breath. “Anything else?”
Scattered on the counter were baskets of fresh lemon scones, homemade energy bars, and decadent blueberry muffins that her baker, Honey, had made fresh that morning, but he ignored them all.
He was staring at his phone and fingering the zipper pull on his Patagonia vest. “Nothing. Just my usual.”
The usual for Americano Asshole was a café Americano diluted with so much milk and sugar that it would be impossible to detect the subtleties of flavor between espresso and the regular brewed coffee Val had sitting on the counter.
There was a valued place in the coffee world for the café Americano, but not when you drank it like Americano Asshole. That’s why he had his name.
“Café Americano, heavy cream, three sugars,” Val said, ringing up the customer. He had a name, it was Allan Anderson, but nobody at Misfit Mountain Coffee Shop used it. He was Americano Asshole or AA for a reason.
Val reached for the silver coffee mug on the counter. She didn’t notice the tiny hole in her glove until the flashing image of a woman pouring coffee into the mug filled her mind. The woman was wearing nothing but Americano Asshole’s button-down shirt. The woman was also not AA’s wife.
“Shit.” She sucked in a breath and AA looked up.
“Problem?”
Val knew the woman was not his wife because Americano Asshole was married to a genuinely lovely woman named Savannah who came into Misfit every other Tuesday night with her book club.
The unexpected vision hit her fast. It was as if Val had been plopped in the room with AA and his sidepiece for a split second, then yanked out.
“I said”—he spoke slowly—“is there a problem?”
She plastered on a smile and swallowed the ream of curses she wanted to throw at him. “It’s fine. Let me just rinse this out.”
She adjusted her glove to shift the hole to the back of her finger before she slipped up again. Then she turned to rinse out AA’s coffee mug so she could get back to the growing line.
It had been over a year since she’d experienced the car crash and near-death experience that had triggered her weird psychic abilities, and Val was still struggling.
Most days she was able to live normally. Thank God she only reacted to objects, not people. When she was home, her life was manageable.
She didn’t hear random voices or see ghosts like her friend Robin. She didn’t have scary premonitions or graphic dreams like her friend Monica. Val wore gloves at work and while doing chores around the house, and she could handle it.
Most of the time.
She handed the rinsed cup to her barista Eve and turned back to the register to get AA’s money for his Americano.
“Two seventy-five,” Val said, worrying the hole in her glove. She’d learned the hard way that touching money without gloves could be a nightmare.
AA noticed her glove and smirked. “You’d think with what you charge for coffee you could afford new gloves.”
Eve sucked in an audible breath, and behind AA, the next customer’s eyes went wide.
Val wasn’t bothered. They called him Americano Asshole for a reason. “I try to coast on the wealth I’ve built from twenty-five-cent tips like yours, but the struggle is real.”
Ramon, her cook, barked a laugh from the kitchen behind her, and AA’s eyes went cold.
“I’d give anything for a decent coffee shop in this shithole town.”
Eve handed her the Americano, and Val passed it over with a smile, along with the quarter AA usually left in the tip jar.
“But instead you’re stuck with us. Bite me! And have a nice day.”
He turned without dropping the quarter in the jar, and Val flipped off his back before she turned to the next customer.
“Hey, Mom.”
Marie Costa pursed her lips. “Honey, you really shouldn’t treat customers that way.”
“You worry too much. Where else is he going to go? There’s not another coffee shop until Bridger City.” She handed her mom a coffee cup. “Besides, that guy’s always in a bad mood. Dad coming in?”
“He’s parking the car.”
Val handed over another cup and pointed to the counter. “The counter is yours. You want your usual?”
“Please.”
Ramon yelled from the back, “You got it, Mama Marie!”
Val couldn’t hide her smile. “Grab some stools.”
“Thank you, Valerie.” She pulled out her wallet and took out twenty dollars even though Val never took her money. “Thank you, Ramon!”
Val refused to let her parents pay for their weekly coffee shop breakfast when they’d been the ones to loan her the start-up money to begin with. So Marie, knowing Val wouldn’t take her money, put it in the tip jar every week.
“And this is why my employees love you more than they love me.”
“They’re the ones cooking for me,” Marie said. “Not you.”
“And be grateful for that.”
Ramon shouted, “Marie, you better grab one of those lemon scones Honey made before they’re gone.”
“Oh, that sounds delicious.” Marie’s eyes lit up. “I do love Honey’s scones.”
“She’s trying to make me fat.” Ramon was thin and wiry, the kind of guy who ran marathons and couldn’t put on weight to save his life. He was married to Honey, who was as sweet as her name and carried all the curves in the family.
“Likely story,” Val said. “If Honey didn’t feed you sugar, you’d blow away in a breeze.”
“Bite me.” Ramon winked at her. “Get back to work, slacker.”
Val had grabbed three more coffee orders and passed them to Eve before there was a break in the line. Two more tables had seated themselves, and her server Max was already getting them set up with coffee.
Long before she’d been a mom or a psychic, Valerie Costa had dreamed of being a rock star. Having zero musical ability had made her realistic about her chances with that, so being a rock star turned into having a place where rock stars hung out.
Unfortunately, she’d never taken more than a few administration courses at the community college in Bridger City. She’d married her high school sweetheart and spent her twenties partying up and down California with Josh, living for the next concert or road trip. Josh fixed cars, and Val got jobs at whatever office was hiring and didn’t mind her multicolored hair and tattoos.
Val wasn’t a purist. She tried lots of jobs. She worked in restaurant kitchens and accountants’ offices. She worked as a landscaper for a while, then at a big coffee chain in her late twenties just to get medical benefits.
It was during Val’s coffee stint that she got pregnant with her oldest son, Jackson. Faced with the inevitability of raising a brand-new person, she started to realize that while punk rock life was fun, having a house and a retirement account might be kind of necessary.