That meant she was probably in debt from a mortgage on the place. If there was better cash flow, the decorations wouldn’t suck so much, which meant she probably had little money coming in. In fact, I doubted she’d even thought of the decorations, which meant she was desperate.
Behind the register was a half-opened door, spilling light into a back room. Limited storage space meant their inventory moved quickly. She likely ran across the street to the grocery store for supplies often enough.
Chalkboard menu.
Smudged pastry display case.
A cash register from the eighties. Old enough to certainly be a pain.
The place looked more like an old antique store than a coffee shop. The only thing it had going for it was a chair in the back corner and an impressive assortment of coffee mugs on the wall.
A thrill zipped through me. I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d researched for months.
She deftly avoided meeting my eyes, aided by the bill of the hat she wore to keep her black hair out of her face. She puttered around behind the counter, attempting to right whatever mayhem the guy that had stalked out of here had left behind. Every now and then her gaze flickered my way and she paused, but I always acted engrossed in my screen.
It wasn’t a total lie, but I also didn’t hate watching her work. Most people underestimated how much actions revealed personality. Her disorganization spoke worlds.
She had no idea what she was doing here.
I typed away, relieved to finally have access to the outside world again. A week getting started with renovations of Grandpa’s cabin, while hiding from Mallory and her team, had been enough to make my skin crawl. Getting my hands dirty again felt good, but nothing felt better than Wi-Fi.
One thousand unread emails populated on my screen. Not my problem right now. Might be later, of course. But for now, I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let the feeling of freedom crawl through me. I navigated away from the inbox.
A text dinged on my phone just as a chat box popped up on the screen from a sales manager in Florida. Questions, questions, questions. They likely didn’t get my memo. Sorry, I replied. I’m on sabbatical for eight weeks. Direct all sales questions to José Martinez.
Thirty other unread text messages awaited me as well. I ignored all of them. An email at the top of my inbox grabbed my eye. The subject said: You’re going down, Mav.
Right below was another email from Mallory that said: Burn in Dante’s fiery inferno.
With a grin, I clicked it.
Mav,
Leave like this again, pig-face, and I will fire you instead of asking you to be my Chief Revenue Officer.
Only because you’re my brother-in-law, have a mind like a whiz, and can guarantee my sales force won’t fail am I allowing this little escapade to . . . wherever you are. Figure your life out, then come back to your promotion and the luxury of a higher pay grade.
I’ll give you the company Bentley, but only if you haggle me for it.
And I plan on telling your mother what you’ve done, you hog. You’ll burn if you don’t come back.
—Mallory
All my considerable control was the only thing that kept me from laughing.
Swine references aside, Mallory usually had a great deal of tact. Things must have been sufficiently bad after my unexpected leave of absence from her multimillion-dollar company. The need to take eight weeks off to disappear into family history and uncover some skeletons—mostly my own—surprised even me. Skeletons named I’m tired of corporate culture and you can’t pay me enough to be your CRO.
Thanks to the Frolicking Moose Coffee Shop, I might never have to go back to corporate. Of course, I could just leave. Say sayonara and figure it out. But that felt worse. If I didn’t take her offer, I’d need to move to something else. Something better.
With a gem like the Frolicking Moose, and its regrettably attractive owner, Operation Maverick on the Loose had just commenced.
Still, I owed Mallory a response. With a roll of my neck, I typed my reply.
Hey Mal,
Sorry, can’t hear you from over here. The connection is bad, and you’re cutting out. Send my regards to Baxter, and tell Mom to save me some bacon.
Mav
Mallory could stew on that. My brother Baxter could deal with the fallout of his rage-filled CEO wife. In the meantime, I had planning to do.
Not only did I have emails to actively ignore, a house to tear apart from the inside out, and beautiful mountain vistas to stare at, but now there was a certain coffee shop owner to research, smooth over, and sweet-talk into changing her own life.
All while she changed mine.
3
Bethany
The sun was fading behind the mountains when I trudged upstairs. A watery palette rippled on the reservoir. The Frolicking Moose might be a collapsing shack, but it had killer views of the lake.
I collapsed onto my bed.
My eyes slammed shut, bloodshot and aching. Everything smelled like coffee, and I hated coffee. For several moments, I lay there, breathing in and out. Scenes from the day passed through my mind like ticker tape. Dad narrated in the background.
That espresso machine is killer sometimes.
Steamer is fickle.
Who doesn’t love a good frappuccino on a hot day?
“Me,” I whispered. “I don’t.”
Bad day? Just think it out. Think it through.
A smile twitched at the edges of my lips. Such a Dad thing to say. He said it about everything, whether I was stuck on homework, having a boy issue, or trying to figure out which college to attend.
Think it out. Think it through.
You could take the man out of the Army, but not the Army out of the man.
When my eyes opened, they stared at a picture of Dad and Pappa on the front porch, coffee cups in hand. Pappa saluted me with his usual three-finger greeting as I took the picture. He died the next day, never waking from his usual afternoon nap. That was five years ago.
Groggy with sleep, I pushed off the bed, kicked off my shoes, and stripped out of my clothes. I ditched them in a pile with the rest of the dirty clothes on the floor. A hot shower relaxed my tense muscles, allowing my thoughts to flow more freely.
Following Dad’s advice, I thought it through.
No employee, which meant more twelve-hour days.
Shorter hours meant less money coming in.
Lunch break shopping.
The next credit card statement would be coming through again soon.
Not a single soul that I really spoke to today.
Where had it all gone wrong?
By the time I finished, my postage stamp-sized bathroom had turned to steam. I emerged into my sticky-warm bedroom. It was always hot above the coffee shop. With my wet towel, I yanked my hair into a turban so it could dry and tried not to think about the unnerving quiet.
The sun sank beyond the distant mountains, coating the sky in burnt orange and carnation pink. I pulled the drapes, yanked on shorts and a tank top, and dragged a comb through my hair.
Signs of a messy life littered the room. Before Dad died eight months ago, it would have been immaculate. Dad always did military corners on his bed as soon as he woke up. Now necklaces, dirty clothes, and old magazines cluttered the space.