CHAPTER 10
Harper
“This is unreal!” Maxine gushes as she barrels through door of the shop. She’s too loud for so early in the morning, and she’s much louder than the socially acceptable volume level for a coffee shop, but, as usual lately, it’s dead in here.
“What’s unreal?” Madison asks.
“At least we don’t have to worry about one last snow dat was gonna kill me and you and all the other old folk,” Tyrone, our only customer, says from his spot at the counter.
He’s not normally an early bird but he does love to chat. He always seems to be in the mood for coffee when the rumor factory is up spinning. Which it is, after the loafer incident.
I grin to myself. How unfortunate the Vanderbully has to buy new shoes.
“We are not old folk!” Maxine huffs.
The doorbell rings and Steven breezes in even more amped than usual. He does not need the large lattes he usually orders.
“But I heard the trucks got stuck a few times. Right, Harper?” Tyrone fishes.
“Yes,” I say.
“Heard it was quite the spectacle…” Maxine adds on.
I try to shrug it off but Steven is here.
“Oh, don’t try and deny it Harper Brown, you little liar! It was! Aiden and Ren both angry and flexing and grunting and those forearms! I cannot!”
“Heard you could not. You need to step up your workouts, pretty boy,” Maxine teases.
Steven laughs, “I tried! I was distracted.” He points at me. “We all were! Admit it.”
I just shake my head.
I’m not admitting anything.
Vanderbutt is not hot. His toned, veiny forearms are not that amazing. His angry eyes staring at me, trying to communicate that it was on like donkey king, not hot!
“You’re shrugging but you’re also blushing under that bandanna!”
I turn away from Steven but Maxine laughs and Tyrone piles on with the teasing, “You can run but you can’t hide. We can still see your ears, red as a rose!”
I wave a dismissive hand as I work on Steven’s usual latte.
When they stop their joking, Steven clears his throat.
“I also need a, uh, a large, black, special blend coffee, please.”
He did not just say that.
In what feels like slow motion, I turn, flatten my mouth, raise my eyebrows and cross my arms. I don’t have to say it out loud: you’ve never ordered a black coffee in your life Steven Mayweather!
“What? Miles is cutting back on his calories!” Steven tries.
Tyrone’s laugh fills the store again before he says, “You betta watch out before you get banned too, my boy!”
“She wouldn’t…” I hold my stare and he goes on, “You wouldn’t!”
I hold his latte—which he knows is made with the leftover maple espresso I’m about to run out of—over the trash.
“Fine! He’s waiting outside. He glared at me and you know how he glares! What was I supposed to do?”
I wordlessly move the latte from over the trash, but set it down beside me.
“I’m so glad I decided to come by this morning,” Maxine chuckles, watching.
“Come on! What am I supposed to tell him?”
At that moment the door dings and in walk the Newmans, their boots squishing.
I have an idea.
“Tell him to win the Mud Bog,” I answer simply.
“What!” Steven squeaks. Tyrone lets out a whistle and Maxine starts clapping. “Are you insane? He’ll never agree to that.”
I shrug, and pass him his usual. I look up at him over the register, I raise a brow, You heard me.
“You know you want him to like us, right? To be on our side?”
Tyrone replies to him, “Think she just wants him gone.”
I point and nod. Yes, that! Steven throws his hands up but pays for his muffin. He shakes his head and rants about how crazy I am as he leaves.
“I’m going out there with you, I gotta see this,” Maxine says.
“Yeah! Steve-o, wait! I want to see too,” Tyrone calls. He hops off his chair faster than I can believe. Maybe he’s not old folk after all.
I don’t follow. I know what will happen out there. I don’t need to see Steven get ripped to strips on the sidewalk.
But I’m curious if that fancypants man and his thousand dollar shoes will actually climb into a rig and enter the mudding race. I doubt my coffee blends are worth it to him, but if they are…well that, that I cannot wait to see.
_____
“You’re joking,” I hear Aiden say to Steven and Renaldo, even over the crowd. I fight the urge to jump up and down with joy. This is why I picked this spot right near the race, a booth that no one else wanted.
Past Aiden, under a partly cloudy sky, is what’s normally a lovely expanse of valley.
It’s a snowy wasteland in the winter and a flowering delight in late spring, but it’s currently mush.
A warm winter makes for a great bog race.
Hundreds of people are packed along the tree lines to watch.
So, it’s a great opportunity for more town sales.
The vendor tables are set up on either side of the abandoned parking lot that serves as the starting line today.
In front of me are what seems like a million lifted, modified trucks, though I know it’s less than one hundred.
But my table is the closest to the start, where trucks will splash into the course, tires will spin out.
Yeah. We might get sprayed. Not great for sales.
Don’t care.
Worth it to see how pale Aiden’s face has gone, up close.
“This is a bad idea,” Renaldo says calmly.
“You’re damn right it’s a bad idea! Where is the road, I don’t see any lanes and—” he stops gesturing to the open field of nothing but puddles before him and gapes down. Steven just handed him a helmet. “A helmet? Is there risk of a head injury?”
“Yes,” Renaldo says.
“Not really,” Steven says at the same time, his voice tight with nerves.
Aiden looks around like a pissed hornet and observes, “Carl isn’t wearing a helmet.”
Steven laughs, “Carl was practically born in one of these rigs.”
“Do you even know how to drive, sweet cheeks?” Someone calls from the crowd behind the caution tape.
Aiden glares in their direction. For a moment I also wonder if he does know how to drive. I’ve never seen him drive.
“Doesn’t look like it will matter,” he mutters, gesturing again to the field.
I can’t help it. I laugh out loud.
Big mistake. His eyes find mine, then narrow.
I look away, pretending to assemble an order.
We’ve got all chocolate everything today, as per the theme.
But I may have added stronger beans to the grinder a few minutes before the participants arrived for the race.
You can smell my coffee over the bog, and that’s really saying something.
I keep pretending to not watch as the drivers climb up into their lifted trucks. Aiden’s in a rig from Cedar Point, filling in for someone who got sick at the last minute. Or something like that. I glance over as Assistant Mayor Chappell starts his countdown from the podium.
Aiden isn’t wearing the helmet.
My stomach flips with worry. You should really put on the helmet, you could get a concussion.
Wait, what?
I don’t care if he gets a concussion! Then maybe he’ll be so angry he’ll finally leave town already!
The gun goes off and I startle, since I was staring so hard at his head of thick, black hair that I zoned out. The trucks take off in a blaze of sound and cheers and mud. Everywhere. Aiden seems shocked, frozen and…already sporting some mud on his face! Amazing.
He opens his truck door and climbs out, much to the disappointment of the crowd.
He’s working his jaw, little bits of mud across his forehead and on his black shirt.
And he…he’s stalking here. To me. I gulp and brace myself.
He stops only when his thighs touch the front of my table.
He looms, seeming about nine feet tall even though Google says he’s only six foot three.
“I get in that thing and try to drive it and you give me coffee,” he says, hands on his hips.
I…I don’t know what to say.
He inhales, exhales, then extends a hand, “I can’t win and I might actually injure myself but I’ll get in there and cross the field and you remove the ban.”
Slow and shaky, panting just as much as he is, I raise my hand to his. He clasps his fingers around mine and energy runs up my arm like a shock. My eyes go wide a bit, and his do too.
“Say you agree. Out loud,” He says, looking into my eyes with unnerving intensity.
It’s just coffee, man, geez.
“Yes,” I say, but I choke on the word.
He frowns, “Say you agree.”
“I agree!” I growl and pull my hand away. Bossy jerk.
But he closes his eyes for a beat, nods, and heads back to the lifted truck.
He gets in and yanks the helmet on. The motor is still running so he just has to put it in gear. He does, then tentatively tries to drive forward. He slides. The crowd goes wild. I can’t hear his voice but I can see his head shaking and bobbing like he’s yelling every curse word he knows.
Renaldo and Carl call out instructions from the sidelines. People start to chant Van-dy, Van-dy, thanks to Steven, I’m sure, and eventually, slowly, his truck moves. I kind of wish I could see his face. I bet he’s so relieved to have moved forward about…one foot.
Carl is gesturing wildly and Aiden seems to nod at him before he starts to make progress. But the rig is open and progress means getting drenched. All those fancy clothes, once again covered in good ol’ New Jersey bog.
I smile.
He makes it across the field after an eternity. The townies, from here and Cedar Point and even Pine Bluff have laughed their faces off. I have too. He honked the horn. Threw his helmet off, at one point he went backwards.
You’re welcome for the entertainment, everyone.
“What’d you do to that man?” Tyrone startles me with his big booming voice suddenly in my booth.
I frown up at him. He dips his chin and says, “Come on, Harper. Enough putting on. Dat man can fly in hot coffee from the city. Probably straight from Ethiopia if he wants! We both know this is not just about your coffee, eh?”
I stare out at the edge of the field where Aiden has climbed down, triumphant like he won the whole thing. He barely made it to the first race marker. Out of ten.
He waves at the crowd, not smiling. He looks even more angry than before when his black eyes scan down the side of the field then land on me. He fulfilled his end of the deal.
But if the deal isn’t actually about coffee, then what the heck is it about?!