Chapter 5
CHASE
Iducked down behind the counter pretending to look for something on one of the lower shelves.
In reality, I was hiding from the line of customers.
Why wasn’t it getting any shorter? There weren’t this many people in Goose Run, I was pretty sure.
I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans, and my fingertips brushed the little fluffy animal on a key chain.
It was maybe a cat, but who knew? It was a fuzzy black blob with green beads for eyes that one of the old ladies at Sunny Fields had made for Cash, and he’d decided it was his good luck charm.
He’d loaned it to me for today but it was defective, because not only were there six million people lined up to buy coffee and cupcakes, but my new boss was Brown Jacket Guy.
This was a nightmare.
I couldn’t even make coffee. Why the hell had I assumed this was a good idea? Oh, right. Because it got me off graveyard shifts and because I’d stupidly forgotten to take into account the fact that there would be actual customers.
I was so far out of my depth that I couldn’t even see the shore from here, and I was sinking faster with every second.
I tried not to let panic overtake me, but it was pretty clear that I’d fucked up.
Bobby was going to fire my ass as soon as Brown Jacket Guy—Lee Torres, apparently—told him I didn’t know what I was doing.
And with the way I’d treated Lee before now, there was zero chance that he wasn’t going to throw me under the bus, let’s be real.
Hell, I was surprised he hadn’t already sent me packing.
There was the sound of a throat clearing and I reluctantly stood and faced the customer standing there—a young woman with a toddler on her hip. “Hey,” I said and forced a smile that felt like a grimace.
“Two of the white macadamia cookies and a large Americano, please,” she said, smiling expectantly.
“Sure,” I said, writing down her coffee order.
I bagged her cookies—that part I could do—and then I offered her kid a mini cupcake.
His eyes widened, and he dug a chubby finger into the frosting and licked it, then beamed at me.
It was cute as shit, and I found myself grinning back despite the disaster unfolding around me.
“Will there be much of a wait?” the woman asked, eyeing the growing pile of order slips that refused to disappear no matter how hard I ignored them.
“I’m starting them now,” I lied, and I added the Americano order to the pile. That familiar ugly feeling I got when life fucked me over bubbled up in the pit of my stomach. Fuck Bobby and his fancy job offer. I should have known something this good wasn’t meant for me.
I took a shaky breath and stepped toward the machine and froze, staring at the array of settings. This was even bigger and more confusing than the machine at the gas station. I was so fucked.
A hand landed on my shoulder. I shrugged it off sharply and spun to find Lee behind me. I stared at him wide-eyed and waited for him to fire me in front of half the town.
Instead, he took a half step back and lifted his hands in the air. “Sorry.”
I barely bit back the Fuck you that was second nature to me, but I knew he could see it on my face.
His gaze flicked between me and the pile of orders, assessing, and then to Tyler, who was lurking in the doorway to the kitchen, and he said, “Okay. You stay on the counter and serve while Tyler mans the espresso machine.” He sounded kinda pissed, and I didn’t blame him.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, acting like I had a choice.
Tyler stepped past me and scooped up the first order and a moment later the grinder burst into life. Before I knew it he’d lined up the remaining orders and was working his way through them.
And sure, it was humiliating being told what to do like I was a little kid, but right now I didn’t even care because that crushing weight in my chest had lifted, and I could breathe again.
There was still a line at the register, but now that I was just taking orders and serving without the pressure of working the coffee machine, I found that it wasn’t as intimidating as it had been.
I even managed to remember to smile when I handed out the free cupcake samples, though I probably wasn’t very convincing.
And when I had a second in between the seemingly endless supply of customers, I tucked my hand in my pocket and rubbed a thumb over Cash’s good luck charm.
Maybe the dumb thing was working after all.
Tyler worked like a goddamn machine, and I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his forearm whenever he slid a coffee toward the register.
It was some sort of Army tattoo, with numbers and letters underneath that I couldn’t understand.
No wonder he was cool under pressure. It was probably a lot easier to deal with a bunch of people who wanted coffee instead of a bunch of people who wanted to shoot you.
Shots of espresso instead of shots fired.
By the time the crowd had thinned out three hours later, my feet hurt, my strained smile had faded into a frown, and I was ready for a break.
But I hadn’t sworn at any customers or handed out the wrong change or threatened to punch anyone, so I was taking it as a win.
It was probably the only one I’d get today, though.
When I looked up, there were no customers, and I let out a long breath. “That was crazy.”
“Right?” Tyler said, casting me a sideways glance. I figured he was still trying to work out how he’d been saddled with a barista who couldn’t use a coffee machine. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Lee came out from the kitchen, and he shut it again.
Lee glowered at me, probably because he’d had to do both his and Tyler’s jobs in the back while Tyler did mine. “Tyler, take a break.”
Tyler nodded and headed to the back.
Lee looked around to check we were temporarily customer free and then said, “What the fuck was that?”
Time to lie my ass off. I gestured to the machine. “This is a different machine than I’m used to,” I said.
Not exactly an explanation but not an apology either. An apology would imply I’d done something wrong, and I wasn’t owning up to anything until I knew what Lee planned to do.
He reached out and grabbed a take-out cup off the top of the stack. He shoved it at me and nodded. “Make me a drink, Chase.”
“What?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Make me a drink.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, taking the cup like I was afraid it would explode. “What sort do you want?”
“I want a latte,” he said. “Large. With oat milk and an extra shot of espresso.”
“Uh,” I said again and stared at the machine. Then, hoping that maybe I’d learned how to work the machine by osmosis since I’d been standing beside Tyler all morning, I pressed a button.
The machine made a hissing, burbling sound, and a hot jet of air burst out of a tube at the end.
“That’s for steaming the milk,” Lee said.
“Am I… am I not supposed to be steaming the milk?”
Lee drew a breath. “Chase, can you actually use an espresso machine?”
“Technically, I—”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“No,” I said, my face hot with either anger or embarrassment or both of them together. I scrunched his cup up. “No, okay? Fuck you. I quit.”
I tried to barge past him, but he sidestepped and blocked me.
I glared and clenched my fists. “What?”
“You’re not walking out of here and leaving us short on our opening day,” Lee said, because he was an asshole.
“If Tyler has to man the counter for the rest of the shift, you can work in the back with me.” He held my gaze.
“Then you can either quit, or you can stay back and I can show you how to work the machine. Your choice.”
Fucking douchebag.
I hated that he didn’t just let me storm out. I hated that he was being all reasonable and bullshit. And I especially hated that he was giving me a second chance, because I knew I had to take it and then at some point he’d expect me to thank him for it.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said instead and glared at him.
He held my gaze for a moment longer and then nodded. “Then when Tyler gets back, I’ll see you in the kitchen.”
See me in hell, more like, because that was what it was going to be like working alongside Lee Torres.
I spent the rest of the shift putting trays in ovens, taking trays out of ovens, and running out front to help Tyler bag up cookies and work the register when it got busy or when Lee told me to.
I was pissed, and I couldn’t figure out if Lee was being an asshole or if he was giving me a break, and I didn’t know which one I hated the most. On one hand, I didn’t need his fucking charity.
On the other hand, I did need this fucking job, you know?
I hated not knowing where I stood, and I’d never been good at keeping my head down until I figured it out.
“Behind,” Lee said sharply, just as I hauled a tray of cookies out of the oven and stepped back.
I bumped against him, the tray tilted, and half the cookies slid onto the floor. “Shit!”
“Behind means I’m behind you,” he said, a divot digging into the space between his tugged-together brows. “Put the tray down before you drop the rest of them and go get the broom.”
After I swept up the ruined cookies, I escaped back out front to help Tyler for a bit.
“How’s it going back there?” he asked, sliding a cup over to a customer.
My face told the story.
“First day, man,” he said with a wry grin. “Give the boss a break, huh?”
“Seems like you know him pretty well,” I said.
“We worked together over in South Hill for the past year,” Tyler said. “He’s a good guy. You do your job, and he’ll have your back.”
Well, that was the problem, wasn’t it?