The Perfect Matcha (Honey Springs #1)

Chapter 1

Willow

Willow tried hard to stifle a yawn.

The meeting was another long and drawn out one. Willow was sitting in a stiff, uncomfortable chair, trying to ignore the numb feeling creeping up into her lower back. She stared down at her laptop. Usually, she would have lots of detailed notes, but today all she had was a blank page.

‘Ow!’

Willow turned to her colleague, Toby, and tried not to giggle. The kick he had planted into her right ankle stung a bit. She bent down and rubbed it carefully, trying not to draw too much attention to herself. If Kirk saw she wasn’t paying attention, he wouldn’t be pleased.

‘You need to focus,’ Toby muttered through closed lips. ‘Kirk is about to get to the main point.’

Willow blinked and then quickly straightened her body.

The meeting room was too hot and stuffy, and she had a mild headache building up behind her eyes.

She smiled at Toby and nodded discreetly, pushing an escaped lock of hair behind her ear and attempting to rearrange her face into one that looked attentive and keen.

She needed to pull herself together. After all, this meeting was a big deal.

In front of her, Kirk stood confident and in control.

All eyes were on him, as they always were – he was the type of man to command attention with his sharp designer suits, slicked-back hair and beaming white-toothed smile.

And usually, Willow would be like the rest, absorbed in his speech, taking notes on her laptop and nodding along eagerly.

But today her mind was elsewhere. She tried not to think about her phone, locked away in her desk drawer, and the stuff that she had just found out.

Above everything else, she tried not to think about Jake and their argument earlier that morning.

Kirk was building up his pace. In his hand, he clutched the prototype. The new coffee brand that they were going to test out with consumers. This had been top secret for months.

‘Noix Noir is our deepest, richest blend yet,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘This offers our customers the chance to experience quality smooth instant coffee for an affordable, competitive price.’

Toby nudged Willow. ‘This is a great opportunity for us,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘We can really get noticed.’

Willow nodded, even though she was trying to desperately hide her frown.

The jar Kirk was holding looked drab and brown, almost like it should contain instant gravy.

It didn’t scream luxury – more bargain basement.

She couldn’t even imagine it would have been a drink her grandma would have had in her cupboard, not that her grandma particularly liked coffee; she was more of a tea drinker.

Just thinking of her grandma made that hollow ache inside her open up again.

Willow bit her lip in an effort to refocus.

She couldn’t afford to let her thoughts drift again.

As Social Media Manager in the marketing team for Café Crème, Willow knew this was another opportunity for her to shine.

Without dwelling too much on her misgivings, she stuck up her hand.

Kirk turned to her and beamed. ‘Willow. I see you are as excited as we are with our new leading product.’

‘I know just the target audience for this,’ Willow replied brightly. ‘I can’t wait to get started on a new social media campaign. I think we can build excitement for this brand quickly.’

Toby flashed her a suspicious look, but Willow just ignored him.

It didn’t matter how she was feeling inside. She had to make this work. After all, wasn’t this what she had always wanted to do?

She just had to learn to fight her doubts.

Toby insisted they go to a coffee shop for lunch and Willow didn’t have the heart to tell him that it really was the last thing she wanted.

In her notepad, she had already sketched out a couple of vague ideas to build brand engagement.

Lunch would be the perfect opportunity to talk them through with Toby.

He was her ambitious, if not slightly too eager assistant, who she knew was desperate for recognition.

He reminded her a bit of a yappy dog, slightly irritating to be around but too cute to tell off.

Toby ordered his usual flat white and avocado toast, and Willow settled for a leafy green salad and one of the new matcha drinks on offer. As she sipped it, she wondered if she would ever have the heart to admit to Kirk that she really didn’t like coffee all that much. The matcha was much nicer.

‘You have to love our product to sell it,’ Kirk always enthused, handing out free samples regularly and frowning at anyone who wasn’t permanently on a caffeine high. Willow was getting very good at sipping milky equivalents and wondered if her love for it would ever grow.

She didn’t know much about matcha except there seemed to be ads for it everywhere and a lot of their influencers were suddenly imploring its benefits.

Even the barista was quick to point out how good the matcha was for her as she handed over the bright-green drink. ‘It’s a wonderful antioxidant,’ she gushed. ‘You may even find it helps with your brain functioning today.’

Willow smiled. ‘I sure need some help with that.’

The barista nodded keenly. ‘Matcha really is taking the world by storm right now, but its history stretches back for thousands of years. You should read up on it. It’s more than just a tea. It’s linked to ancient dynasties!’

‘Really? I might have a read,’ Willow replied. ‘I admit I don’t know much about it.’

‘It will blow your mind! And then you drink the matcha and it will inspire and calm you. Like magic!’ The barista joked. ‘There really is nothing like it.’

‘That sounds like something else I would definitely benefit from!’

And she certainly would, especially if she was going to be able to drum up any enthusiasm for this new campaign. At least Toby was enthused by it.

‘This is going to be a great campaign to be involved in,’ Toby said, his small eyes suddenly wide. ‘This is such an exotic new product; I’m sure a lot of our guys will be all over it.’

By ‘our guys’ Toby meant their influencers and as the manager these people were Willow’s responsibility.

For the past few years, she had carefully built relationships with some of the top food-and-drink content creators out there and one of them, in particular, was very much on her mind at the moment. She glanced at her phone and frowned.

As if he had suddenly been granted the skill of perception, Toby leaned forward with enthusiasm and blurted her name. ‘Esmae Reed. Surely, this is perfect for her?’

Yes, with her reach, it really should be, but Willow shook her head sadly and pushed her phone towards him. The screen lit up, revealing a chain of social media posts. She watched as Toby’s ghostly skin seemed to whiten further. She didn’t even know that was possible.

‘These are—’

‘Totally damaging,’ she finished for him, with a sigh. ‘What was she thinking?’

‘These are years old though …’ Toby replied with desperate hope. ‘Surely, she can defend herself?’

‘It doesn’t matter. People need to remember if they’ve written something contentious in the past, it will be found.

’ Willow sighed. She had already worked out that Esmae had probably been sixteen or seventeen when she made this series of ill-advised posts about the singer, Nicole Marr.

They mainly mocked the celebrity’s weight at a time when it wasn’t known that she was battling an eating disorder.

The social media onslaught, which had just erupted, was heavy and Esmae was facing total cancelation.

‘So, what now?’

‘So now we can’t use her,’ Willow replied. ‘And neither will any other marketing department. Her brand is damaged. She is already losing followers by the thousands.’

‘But it was ages ago. She was young …’ Toby peered at the screen. ‘And according to her apology, she was struggling with her own mental health at the time.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Willow said quietly. ‘You know how it works. It’s brutal.’

Although, it did matter. In a small part of her brain, it really did.

Willow liked Esmae a lot. She was funny and kind and a great energy online.

She knew in her heart that the posts would have been badly thought out and not deliberately cruel.

She also knew that a lot of competitors had wanted to bring about Esmae’s downfall for a long time.

‘Oh well.’ Toby shrugged in that easy way of his. ‘We have plenty of other options. I’m thinking of Sapphire Hayes already.’

‘Yeah, probably …’ Willow sipped at her drink, knowing full well Sapphire had already been dining out on Esmae’s mistake.

‘Or what about Alex Rose?’ Toby suggested. ‘She’s up and coming.’

Willow sighed. That name seemed to be everywhere lately. ‘Maybe …’ she replied.

Around them, the coffee shop was already filling up.

Willow watched a group of friends huddled by the window opposite, laughing loudly.

The early Seattle spring sunshine was drifting in and drenching them in brightness.

Across from them, an old man clutched his espresso and stared down at an open puzzle book, his wizened face marked in concentration.

This place was full of so many different personalities – both strangers and friends, and the energy was strangely comforting.

Willow wished she could sit here a lot longer than their usual half an hour.

‘Don’t you find our job so toxic sometimes?’ she asked Toby quietly.

Toby looked like he might fall off his chair in alarm. ‘What do you mean? It’s a great industry. The opportunities are endless, and—’

Willow sighed. ‘That wasn’t a test, Toby. I was just wondering out loud. Esmae is the third influencer to be canceled this month. Not only that, it’s such a fight to stay on top, isn’t it? To be the best, to stay relevant …’

Toby laughed nervously. ‘That’s the nature of it. It keeps us on our toes.’

‘I guess …’

‘Are you OK, Willow? You’ve seemed distracted all morning.’