Chapter 4 #2
I spent the first twenty or so years of my life as the problem child of Snaggletooth Creek before I found where I fit and what I love.
Now, when I hit a bar with the triplets, I know they’re with me because they like hanging with me, not because they’re hoping I’ll pick up the tab on some high-end whiskey.
When I’m on a job with the construction crew I’ve worked with for about five years now, my coworkers aren’t nice to me because they’re hoping I’ll drop off random sacks of money outside their house at Christmas, and the boss doesn’t ask my opinion because he’s hoping I’ll buy out the owner or give him tips on how he can get himself a side hustle to make him some dough too.
I don’t keep my day job as a cover. I keep it because I like it . It makes a difference in the community.
I make a difference in the community.
Having something physical to do where I’m improving something around town matters to me. Makes me feel good.
And I do care that Bean & Nugget is in trouble.
It affects Emma. It affects her friends. It affects the whole town.
“Why didn’t you ask Laney?” I repeat.
Sabrina sighs and rubs her palms into her eye sockets. “Already did.”
“You know your lip does this funny thing every time you lie?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
It doesn’t. But I’m not telling her what her actual tell is. And she is definitely lying. “Can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
“You’re not going to help me anyway. Even though it would be helping Emma too.”
“If Emma wanted my help, she’d ask for it herself.”
Sabrina pulls another face and looks off toward the lights of the other bungalows glowing in the darkness down the way.
I bite my tongue to keep from asking if Emma knows.
She knows Chandler.
She knows what she’s getting herself into. Says all the time that they don’t keep secrets. Which means she probably doesn’t want to tell me because she knows I don’t like him, no matter how much I try to hide it. Or, if he’s keeping secrets from her, I’m still the bad guy if I let it slip.
Just when I think Sabrina’s gonna mutter something about finding someone else to loan her the money to get Bean & Nugget back in the black, she makes eye contact with me and scowls.
“I can’t ask Laney because my family won’t take things from her family.
That’s all you need to know. But if I have the cash to save the company, I can buy it off of Chandler and fix this . ”
My dad runs a taxidermy empire that’s grown in the digital age, much to Emma’s credit for getting Dad on the internet and managing his sales and advertising. But it doesn’t have the same impact in the community as Bean & Nugget.
If Rocky Roadkill went under, no one would care. They’ve never really cared. Why would they?
But if Bean & Nugget goes under, the Tooth loses one of its primary hangouts. A bunch of people lose their jobs. Em would deal with the stress since Chandler would be dealing with it, even if she can support herself with her own accounting business.
She can support him too.
But she can’t dig the café out from its debt. She doesn’t have that kind of cash.
“We have maybe two months, Theo,” Sabrina says. “Think of the wedding gift this would be to Emma.”
And the gift it would be for Sabrina too.
It’s her life, even though her mom sold her share in the café to Chandler’s parents so she could send Sabrina to college.
The triplets’ parents sold their share to Chandler’s parents too.
And they handed the reins to him not long after Grandma Sullivan passed away.
“If Emma wanted my help—” I start.
“She wouldn’t ask you for it, because she knows you don’t want anyone to know you can afford it, she knows you don’t want people knowing why you can afford it, and she knows how much Chandler would hate knowing you’re the reason he’s no longer in debt.”
I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my skin.
If Bean & Nugget’s time came to an end, some other enterprising person in Snaggletooth Creek would open a new shop.
We wouldn’t be without coffee. People would get jobs back. There’d be a new kind of hangout.
Some people hate change.
I love it. It has a scent of possibility. Of surprises. Of fun.
But I don’t like knowing that change hurts in the middle of it. Especially when it could hurt my sister.
And I don’t like feeling trapped and blackmailed.
One more checkmark in why I don’t want people knowing my bank account—the one not kept at the Tooth’s local bank—is as large as it is.
“You gonna sit out here all night?” I ask Sabrina.
“For Emma and Laney? Yep. Also, I scattered broken glass on the ground under your porch on the other side, so if you’re thinking of going out the back way, I’d advise you to reconsider.”
I know she knows that I know she’s lying, but I also know if I leave here and run into Chandler and anything goes wrong again, she’ll probably do worse. I grunt a noncommittal noise and turn back to my bungalow door.
I can handle being trapped inside for one night, even if it makes me testy as hell.
Chandler will get his head out of his ass for Emma’s sake—much as I don’t like him, I can admit that he treats my sister right and gets along with me for her sake too—and tomorrow will be fine.
“And go easy on Laney,” she adds softly. “She will fix anything to make sure Emma has the wedding of her dreams. It’ll be easier on everyone if you just avoid Chandler until after the wedding. No matter how unfair it is that you don’t get to enjoy this week the way you should.”
Hell. Does she know I paid for the wedding too?
“Do not tell Emma,” I say.
She scowls, but she doesn’t tell me I can buy her silence by saving her family’s café.
Two points to Sabrina. We might stay friends beyond this week after all. And not because she’s borderline blackmailing me for money.
“And I’ll think about it,” I mutter.
Two months.
I don’t have to decide today.
The café has two months. Emma can get back from her honeymoon. We can sit down and talk. Clear the air. I can ask her what she wants me to do.
How to do whatever she wants me to do.
Or if she wants me to do nothing at all.
I tell Sabrina goodnight and let myself back into the bungalow. Both bedroom doors are still closed. The balcony doors off the living room are open though, letting in the sound of the surf and the scent of the ocean through the screens.
Not a bad way to sleep.
And I’m honestly ready for sleep.
Run hard during the day.
Crash hard at night.
It’s crash time.
I head to the couch and toss the cushions aside to pull out the hide-a-bed.
Or try to.
I get the thing halfway out, and it sticks.
Totally, completely frozen.
I tug.
It doesn’t move.
Tug again.
Still doesn’t move.
It’s just hanging out, sticking out of the couch at a forty-five-degree angle.
So I push it back in, except that doesn’t work either.
Try unfolding the lower half of the bed.
No dice.
No matter how I push, pull, tug, lift, or do anything else, the damn thing will not move .
“Are you kidding me?” I mutter to it.
I don’t go looking for trouble.
I don’t.
Not anymore.
But it’s apparently finding me this week in all kinds of inconvenient places.
Mama cat meows loudly inside the primary bedroom.
“You’re right, Miss Doodles,” I answer, knowing it’s not an invitation from the cats to join them.
They’d scratch me all to hell, Emma would notice, Laney would notice, Laney would turn me in for the cats, and then everything will go to hell.
Better to let them decide they like me before risking them eating my face off in the middle of the night. “I am paying for this place.”
Mind made up.
I have three beds in this suite, and I’m sleeping in one of them.
No matter how much it’s going to suck.