Revenge Brunch and Other Disasters (Disasters and Snacks Banterverse #1)

Chapter One The Day It All Went to Hell （and Stayed There）

Linda

IT WAS A Monday. That was the nicest thing Linda could say about it—and that should’ve been the first red flag.

Linda kicked open her apartment door like it had personally insulted her eyeliner.

She stood in the middle of her bedroom, glaring at the enemy: her brand-new, overpriced, allegedly “smart” alarm clock. The sleek, modern traitor sat there on her nightstand, smug and silent, as if it hadn’t just ruined her life.

Smirking in LED .

“Fifty dollars and you can sync to a satellite, track lunar phases, and monitor my heart rate—but you can’t do the one thing I bought you for?!”

She tried to drag a hand through her highlighted, brown hair, completely forgetting it was in a bun. Ended up with her hand half trapped and yanking the bun three-fourths out. She snarled with frustrated drama and stomped toward the alarm clock, finger raised like a righteous god of vengeance and let loose.

“Oh, you wanna play games? Fine.”

She jabbed it. “You. You , are on THIN. ICE. Your mother was a snow blower,” Linda growled. “Your father was so stupid they didn’t even use his processor in a toddler’s toy calculator.”

The clock blinked 6:33.

“Don’t you ‘6:33’ me.” Her voice rose to a dangerous pitch. “Your insides are so cheap, if I tried to sell them for parts, they’d ask me for money to cover disposal fees. ”

She crouched closer, face inches from the glowing screen. Brown eyes narrowed.

“One more chance. That’s it. One. Either you get it together, or I melt you down and turn you into a spoon rest. And not even a good one. One that lives in the back of the drawer with the dead batteries and sticky pennies. You hear me?!”

The clock remained still .

Too still.

Plotting.

Linda narrowed her eyes. “I’m watching you.” She sighed, flopped onto her bed, and groaned into the pillow. Maybe this is what happens when you try to build a life that runs on predictability. You get stabbed in the back by a piece of tech with a smug digital face.

The clock blinked.

Menacingly.

This wasn’t over.

Linda decided the thing was demonic. It had worked perfectly for a month, pretending to be helpful, getting her up on time, blinking its little digits like it wasn’t plotting betrayal. But today? Today it had slept in. Just like she had.

She woke to full sunlight and dread in her bones —the kind that whispered, “you’ve already screwed it up.” The numbers had glared back at her: 7:18 a.m.

Her interview for the promotion to Administrative Team Manager? A role she’d been working towards for 4 years, practically since she started there. A role that would give her a sense of accomplishment and put her in the next phase of her career—was at 8. Thus began the disaster spiral.

Jam on her only white silk blouse—of course. Locked out of her car at the gas station, because irony is a vindictive little gremlin. Tore her last pair of pantyhose, crawling under it like a raccoon with a briefcase to find the spare key. And just when she thought it couldn’t get worse?

Classic.

Meet.

Disaster.

She’d collided with the most infuriating man on Earth, Mr. Arrogant from Accounts.

Arrogant. Smug. Tall. Perfectly combed blond hair and intense blue eyes. Obnoxiously good-looking in a way that made her deeply suspicious. Probably thought irony was for poor people.

Coffee exploded.

Linda froze, mid-sprint toward the elevator, as lukewarm mocha splattered across her blouse, her face, and her hopes of ever being taken seriously again.

“Oh my God,” she hissed, clutching her cup like it might un-explode itself if she glared hard enough.

Opposite her stood a tall, unfairly attractive man in a navy button-down that was now wearing the coffee like it had offended him. He was holding the leash of the world’s smuggest corgi, who blinked up at her like, You were in our way.

The man looked down at his dog, then back at her. “He startled me. ”

Linda blinked. “The dog startled you.”

“He’s very sudden.”

“You’re blaming a corgi for your caffeine-based assault?”

The corgi sneezed in support.

Linda took in the full image: the tailored slacks, the perfect jawline, the loose blond hair that looked effortless in that infuriating “I didn’t try but I woke up on a romance novel cover” way.

The dog wore a tie.

A tie.

She was seconds from combusting. “Why do you even have your dog?”

He grinned. “Bring Your Dog to Work Day.”

Linda made a strangled noise. “Of course it is.”

She looked up at the ceiling like it might collapse and give her an excuse to leave her body. Then muttered, mostly to herself, “You’re in league with the alarm clock, aren’t you?”

He raised an eyebrow. Of course it was perfect. The kind of eyebrow that got compliments from strangers and probably had a modeling agent. “Excuse me?”

“The clock,” she said. “It betrayed me. Now you’re here. It’s a conspiracy. ”

He blinked. “I… see?”

She should have walked away. She should have shut up. Instead, she added, “You look like you’re the type who thinks Bluetooth is a personality trait.”

He laughed. Actually laughed. The corgi barked once, like it was egging him on.

Then he offered a hand. “Rhys.” Because of course he had a devastatingly handsome name like that.

She stared at it like it might bite her.

“Linda,” she said warily, not taking his hand.

“Pleasure.”

She snorted. “Doubtful.”

He grinned again. “We’ll see.”

And that was the final straw.

Linda spun on her heel, coffee-stained blouse clinging to her ribs, hair frizzing in protest, and stormed toward the elevator like she wasn’t one mild flirtation away from setting off the building’s sprinklers.

Behind her, the corgi barked again.

Rhys called, “He says he likes you!”

Linda flipped them both off over her shoulder. “I’ll send you the dry cleaning bill, Corgi Ken.”

Twelve hours, one ruined interview, and a questionable gas station sandwich later, she sprawled dramatically on her bed while her best friend Sara plunked down beside her with a pint of ice cream and zero judgment.

“I swear, Sara,” Linda huffed, stabbing her spoon into the pint, “if I hadn’t paid so much for that clock, I’d yeet it out the window. But my parents raised me not to waste money, so now I’m stuck with it. Like a toxic roommate who doesn’t pay rent and eats your time. ”

Sara cackled. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I threatened it earlier. Out loud.”

“Linda—”

“I told it if it misbehaved again, I’d melt it down and turn it into a spoon rest.”

Sara actually wheezed.

Linda threw an arm over her eyes. “I’ve lost it. It’s official. Time to call the men in white coats.”

“Only if they bring better snacks.”

They lay there in companionable silence for a moment.

Then Linda sighed. “Maybe the day wasn’t all bad. If I’m lucky, Mr. Arrogant will wake up tomorrow with a bruise the size of a Buick on his— ”

“Linda!” Sara gasped, mock-scandalized.

“ Arm ,” Linda finished sweetly. “Obviously. What kind of person do you think I am?”

Sara snorted. “Don’t try that look on me. I’ve known you since you bit your third-grade teacher.”

“She deserved it. She said ovens weren’t plotting world domination.”

“Still. You always were the dramatic one.”

Linda grinned. “See? I’ve been training for this my whole life.”

From the nightstand, the alarm clock blinked innocently. Too innocently.

Linda narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t over,” she muttered.

And somewhere in the shadows, fate laughed.

Because the alarm clock may have started it. But the chaos? Oh, the chaos was just getting started.