Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I grimace and reach down to pull the comforter over my face. “This has to be the worst wake-up call I’ve ever experienced.”
“Yeah, well, I tried to be gentle, but since you still sleep harder than a bear during hibernation, I had to take a different approach,” my sister rebukes without guilt and yanks the comforter away from my face. “Rise and shine, buttercup. You have fifteen minutes to get dressed.”
“Dressed for what? A midnight thrill? Even the sun is still sleeping.”
“Camille called off this morning. I need a barista.”
I blink several times. “What are you even saying?”
“I’m saying it’s a little after five, and since I have to get the shop opened by six, you need to get your ass in gear.”
“You want me to come work at your coffee shop this morning?” My jaw nearly unhinges. “You tried almost impossibly hard to turn me away three days ago, and now you need me?”
“I need a body. And you need a bed to continue whining about waking up in. Seems like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it?”
CAFFEINE is Josie’s life’s biggest accomplishment. Which begs the question, why would she want me anywhere near it? I always got my coffee from someone other than myself in New York, and let me tell you, there was a reason.
“Josie, I know nothing about being a barista.”
“And I know nothing about having a squatter in my house. Looks like we’re both dealing with some challenges.”
“I can’t be a squatter when you invited me in.”
“Invited you?” She cackles. “You showed up unannounced at my front door with your designer suitcase that’s worth more than my car, looking like some vagabond fashionista and begging for a place to stay.”
Technically, Lillian’s suitcase is worth more than her car. I don’t have a suitcase. I don’t really own anything anymore, truth be told. But I have a feeling now is not the time to get into that.
“You owe me. Big-time. And that starts today, with you being my barista.”
I’ve only been here a few days, and besides her showing me the guest bedroom and handing me a bowl of leftover fettuccini for dinner on the first night I was here, we’ve barely spoken two words to each other. She’s even left the house multiple times without mentioning it to me. But before Josie’s and my great divide, she was there for me more than anyone I’ve ever known—Jezzy, my mom, my dad, and my grandmother included.
She’s right. I owe her. But taking this as payment is not in her best interest.
“Josie. Seriously.” I sit up enough to rest my back against the headboard. “I’m all for helping you out since you’re helping me out, but unless you have a Keurig at your coffee shop, I am not barista material. I don’t even drink coffee that often. I’ve always been more of a hot tea or cocoa kind of gal.”
“You were always a straight A student. You’ll figure it out. Especially since your current place to stay is counting on it.” She flashes the kind of fake, overly sweet grin that could serve as a sugar-free substitute for the supposed coffee I’m going to be making and heads back out of the guest bedroom and into the hallway.
I run a hand over my face and groan as I snag my phone off the nightstand. It lights up with one tap of my index finger and text notifications that must have come in last night while I was asleep clutter the screen.
Thomas: We are going to talk, Norah. You can’t avoid it.
The first one I see is more than enough to ruin a mood, and there are at least twenty more where that came from. But I’m not much for being a masochist at five in the morning or wasting my time on horrible human beings, so I ignore them and focus on the one message that’s from a sender I like.
Lillian: I have GREAT news! I am in possession of ALL of your belongings and currently trying to make arrangements to get them to Red Bridge. Thomas is on some kind of business trip, and Donna let me inside.
Donna is Thomas’s housekeeper-who-used-to-be-my-housekeeper until everything turned to shit and I left town.
After I walked out on my wedding, but before I left New York, I had to play a shell game of sorts to keep my distance from Thomas and my mother and pretty much everyone other than Lil.
Obviously, that made it impossible for me to go back to my—Thomas’s—apartment and get my stuff, so Lillian has been working on it ever since.
Lil sent the original message last night, but she gets up before dawn every morning so she can hit the gym before work, so I don’t hesitate to reply.
Me: I could kiss you right now. THANK YOU.