Chapter 19
nineteen
no coffee for you
Liam
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.” Sierra’s voice carried from across the street, stopping me as I reached for the door to Bishop’s.
After the worst night’s sleep on the lumpiest mattress known to man, I woke up to an inbox full of rejection emails from recruiters, all claiming the positions they’d been considering me for were no longer available.
At the last second, I decided risking Maya’s wrath was better than drinking the brown sadness water the Pattersons tried to pass of as coffee, so I made my way to the shop.
“Maya is in a mood,” Sierra added, as if that explained everything.
Maybe I should have risked drinking the lousy coffee at the B&B after all. Maya had just finally started to tolerate me rather than blatantly disliking me, but a bad mood would probably change that. I took my hand off the door and stepped away. “Define mood,” I yelled back.
“Oh, you know. The kind of mood where your entire belief system implodes, you alienate your best friends, and now one of those friends is too afraid to check on you, so she’s stuck drinking shitty instant coffee like a chump. That kind of mood.”
I chuckled, taking in Sierra’s frizzy red hair, haggard features, and purple-tinged under-eye circles as I crossed the street. “Are you sure you’re not the one in a mood? I hear that drinking instant coffee after a sleepless night can do that to a person.”
She gasped, clutching her chest. “Who, me? I’m a ray of sunshine, same as every other day.” She gestured to the door. “But you might as well come in here. I doubt she’ll have coffee for you today, either.”
I followed her into the pet store. “What happened?”
“Well,” she said, smirking, “that’s the funny thing. And I hope you’re ready to take responsibility, because it’s all your fault.”
“My fault? What did I do?”
Other than when she’d abruptly shoved me out of her apartment yesterday, Maya and I had almost been getting along lately. Besides the never-ending barrage of death threats, of course.
“You didn’t visit your Nana.”
Sierra disappeared around the corner, reappearing moments later with a cup full of ice and a bottle of water. She emptied a packet into the cup, poured the water over it, and stirred the contents before passing it to me.
The chunks of unmixed powder clinging to the ice cubes were unappetizing as hell, leaving me wishing I’d had some coffee at the B&B after all.
“Wait. What?” I blurted when her words finally registered.
She heaved a sigh. “You didn’t visit your Nana for three years, and Maya has some strict ideas about how a person should treat their family.”
“Okay,” I drawled, making a mental note to examine that more another time. “So why is she mad at you?”
“Because we pointed out that we haven’t visited our out-of-town families once in the two years she’s lived here.”
“Why on earth would you do that? You had to know how she’d react.”
“Because, Liam”—her tone was thick with what-a-frigging-idiot—“we were trying to make things easier for you. She’s a fantastic person who deserves the best things in life. And right now, we think your dick might be one of those things.”
I sucked in a shocked gasp, a glob of my instant coffee went down the wrong way, and I choked hard. My life flashed before my eyes as Sierra smacked a palm against my back until finally, I stopped coughing.
“What did you say?”
“Oh, come on. You can’t be that dense. You think she walked in on you naked and was totally unaffected by your”—her gaze very deliberately flicked to the front of my jeans—“charms?”
The sound of Maya’s voice murmuring “oh, wow” when she walked in on me flashed through my mind, but I’d assumed it was embarrassment that turned her face so red.
Now, though, Sierra’s confession confirmed that Maya had liked what she’d seen after all.
I couldn’t have stopped myself from grinning even if I’d wanted to.
“I think I should go over there,” I said, already turning to leave. “Thanks for the heads-up. And for the coffee.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. She might still decide to rip your face off.”
I laughed and waved away her warning. Maya wasn't going to rip my face off.
Probably.
Maybe.
Regardless, it was a risk I was willing to take.
I jogged across the street in time to follow Kai into the bookstore.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” I said as we walked into the unlit store. “What’s going on?”
“No idea,” Kai replied. “I was walking by on my way to the hardware store and noticed the lights were off. I checked the door, and it was unlocked.”
“Maya?” I called out, peering around the empty store. “You in here? Did you forget to turn on the lights again?”
A despondent yowl echoed from the entrance to the stockroom, where we found Harold pacing in and out of the door.
“Harold, buddy. Where’s Maya?” I crouched down to pet him, wishing he was a helpful dog named Lassie instead of an overweight, somewhat antisocial feline. “Come on, boy. Show us where she is.”
“Holy shit,” Kai muttered when the giant cat turned to lead us away. “He’s really doing it.”
Harold apparently had some Lassie in him after all because, with zero hesitation, he led us upstairs to the apartments. The door to Maya’s place was ajar.
Panic gripped me, and I ran for the door. I didn’t stop moving until I found Maya in her living room. She was curled up on her tiny loveseat, fast asleep. The entire room reeked of liquor, and … something else.
“What is that smell?” Kai asked, holding his nose. A disgruntled meow distracted him, and he turned away. “I’ll feed Harold, but then I have to get to work. Will you be okay if I leave?”
Maya stirred and rolled to face the back of the loveseat, knees held tight to her chest. It was a miracle she didn’t fall off the little thing.
“We’ll be fine. I’ll get her to drink some water and take some painkillers before she tries to sleep it off.”
“Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be working at the hardware store all day,” Kai said, already heading to the stairs.
Scooping Maya up and carrying her to bed, I inhaled her faint scent of sunshine and vanilla that lingered beneath the whiskey. I settled her on the bed, covered her with the blankets, and closed the curtains against the morning sun.
She was going to regret this when she woke up.
After getting Maya settled into bed, I set about cleaning her apartment. A nearly empty bottle of cheap whiskey, a carton of orange juice, and a bottle of root beer lay discarded on her coffee table, and sticky puddles lay scattered around the floor at random.
Whatever happened yesterday, she was serious about forgetting it last night.
By the time I’d straightened the living room, wiped the sticky remains of her disaster drink from the floor, and tackled the kitchen, a few muffled groans started up in the bedroom.
“Hurgh.” Maya stumbled from her room, pressing a palm to her head as she squeezed her eyes shut against the light. “What happened last night?” She mutters.
“Morning, sunshine.” I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and brought it to her. “How’s your head?”
Her eyes popped open wide, then slammed shut again when she spotted me, as if my presence was too much. She held out a shaky hand to take the water, but before she wrapped her fingers around it, she made another sound low in her throat.
“Oh … oh, crap,” she muttered, bolting for the bathroom with her hand covering her mouth.
After a few minutes of what sounded like an exorcism gone wrong, I tapped on the door. “Everything okay in there? You want that water now?”
“Go away,” she groaned, her voice muffled by the closed door. “Just let me die in peace.”
I chuckled and turned back to the living room to give her some privacy. I doubted she wanted me listening in as she vomited up the rest of last night’s terrible decisions.
Several minutes later she emerged looking a little sheepish and a lot pale. She crossed the room and dropped onto the loveseat, taking the water when I offered it again.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Take these, too,” I said, handing her another dose of painkillers. “I don’t even want to imagine how bad your head hurts after seeing the special cocktail you were drinking last night.”
“Ugh. Never speak of that again.” She tossed the pills into her mouth. “Why are you here?”
I laughed at her lack of artifice. Even sick as a dog, she wouldn’t let me forget how she felt about me. “That’s the thanks I get after taking care of you? Tough crowd.”
“My head hurts too much to stroke your ego right now.”
“Ouch. And after I cleaned your apartment, too. Next time you decide to get drunk, try keeping the drink in the glass or your mouth. It took me an hour to clean the sticky spots you dripped everywhere.”
“Gross.” She dropped her head against the cushion and squeezed her eyes shut. “You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”
“So, what happened last night? The front door was unlocked when I came by this morning.”
She groaned and slouched lower in her seat.
“Andie and Sierra dropped a bomb on me during our girls’ night, and I had to get out of there.
I was in such a hurry to get into my apartment, I must’ve forgotten to lock the door when I came in.
” She dragged a hand down her face. “I can’t believe I did that. ”
“I doubt a bookstore would be high on a criminal’s list of places to rob. Besides, this is Carlisle Creek.”
“You’re right. If anyone needed anything, they’d leave cash on the counter.” With a sigh, she added, “I love this town.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a few moments until finally, I could take it no longer. I needed to know. “Can I ask you a question?”
She cocked an eyebrow, a suspicious tilt to her lips, but still waved a hand for me to go ahead.
“All I found was whiskey, orange juice, and root beer. Did you honestly drink them all mixed together?” Her skin took on a greenish tint, telling me that is in fact what she did. “What was that like?” I grimaced, shuddering at the thought of drinking the disgusting concoction.
She chuckled, but quickly groaned and pushed her hand against her forehead.
“I wanted bubbles in my drink, and root beer was all I had. And you’re right.
It was nasty. It might not have been as disgusting if it had been just whiskey and root beer, but I’d added the orange juice first, and I was in no mood to be throwing away alcohol. ”
“Well, it smelled awful.” I laughed.
“It tasted awful, too.”
As another silence settled over us, I studied Maya, and Maya looked at anything but me.
“So, anyway—”
“I’m going to—”
With a chuckle, I rushed to speak first. “I’m going to head out now, if you’re alright? Do you need anything before I go?” Now that she was conscious, I doubted she’d want me hanging around.
“I’m good. I was about to say, I have some things to do.”
When we reached the front door, I turned to face her, a knot taking up residence in my belly as an idea formed in my brain.
Before I could change my mind, I blurted, “Can I get your phone number? You know, to check on you later?” I thrust my phone at her awkwardly. Why was I so nervous all of a sudden?
She blinked twice, taking a moment to process my request. “Sure, okay.” She took my phone and sent herself a message before handing it back. “Now I have your number, too.”
The knot in my stomach eased. “Good thinking. I’d hate it if you lumped me in with all the other guys who message you.”
She laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“Guess I’ll talk to you later, then,” I said, heading out onto the sidewalk. I gave her a quick wave and headed down the street as she locked up behind me.
That went well, all things considered. At least there was no sign of the mood Sierra had warned me about.