Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
“Pulling an all-nighter?” I asked.
“Fucking work never lets up these days,” he admitted, walking to the side to check out the pastry display. “I’ll take all the donuts, too,” he said, waving at them.
The other pastries would last another day. The donuts got too stale. He was doing me a huge favor by having such a sweet tooth.
“You good?” he asked, keen blue eyes watching me as I poured his coffee. There was no mistaking the tremble I had in my hand.
“Yeah, fine,” I lied.
I was either a shitty liar, or he was just good at reading people, because his brows pinched at that.
“Hey,” he said as I shoved his drinks into a tray, his huge hand coming down over mine, making a shock of electricity course up my arm. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. Too quick. Voice squeaky. “I’ve just had too much coffee today, I guess,” I lied, pulling my hand out from under his, and curling it into a fist until the shaking subsided.
“Hazard of the job, I guess,” he said, letting it drop, and allowing me to gather his donuts before ringing him up.
Junior reached into his pocket, pulling out cash in a clip, then handing me a hundred. One I totally couldn’t break. But before I could even say anything, he was grabbing his box and tray. “Keep the change.”
I couldn’t even object before he was turning and striding out of the shop, leaving me alone with nothing to distract me from my nerves as I closed up, dumped the coffee, then put the pots in the sink to soak.
I’d have to come back to the shop after the shipment anyway. I could handle them then. Before going home to maybe throw up a little, and go to bed with the hope of putting this all behind me in the morning.
Until next month.
I grabbed my purse and went out the back door, not even really registering any danger as I climbed in my truck, then pulled out of the poorly lit lot.
Because getting mugged behind my place of business paled in comparison to what I was about to do. What I’d been doing since I’d opened the shop.
My fingers tapped on the wheel as I cranked up the music, hoping to drown out the spinning thoughts in my head. At a light, I popped another antacid tablet. One from the bottle in my cup holder.
That’s something they never told us about getting older.
You would start to have medications all over the place. I not only had apron antacids, but truck ones, bedside table ones, and even a smaller bottle in my kitchen.
I chewed them like friggin candy.
To be fair, though, before all this crap started, I never had an issue with my stomach. It was all the stress and uncertainty. And I had no way out.
So I made a mental note that my car antacids were running low as I turned my truck into the lot at the docks, feeling my shoulders and neck tense with each rotation of my tires as I made my way toward the freight station.
I sat there for a moment, engine idling, my head tipped back, trying to remind myself that acting nervous was going to be the very thing that made all of this unravel. If I kept it together, everything was going to be fine.
“Five minutes and this is all over,” I reminded myself as I cut the engine, climbed out of my truck, then lowered the bed door.
I was cutting it kind of close for pick-up, so I rushed over to the little shed-like office, finding the window still open, and offering the attendant a smile he didn’t return.
I was distracting him from something on his phone. He wasn’t shy about making it clear.
“What do you want, hon?” he asked, giving me a quick once-over. I’d never seen him before, so he was probably thinking that I wasn’t the usual person showing up to pick up a freight order.
“Hey, I’m Shale Warner. I have a pick-up,” I told him, reaching into my pocket for the shipping receipt. My usual guy wouldn’t even need to see it.
Was that why I was so sick all day? Some part of me knew that my normal guy wouldn’t be around, and I’d have to deal with someone new, someone who might be more suspicious about me.
“Deja Brew, huh?” he asked, rolling his eyes at the name.
“Not a coffee fan?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I felt.
“Like coffee just fine,” he said, looking at something on his computer. “Don’t like spending seven dollars on a cup of it,” he added. “Fucking criminal is what that is.”
“Well, our large drip coffee is just three-fifty, if you ever feel like treating yourself. It’s the good stuff, too,” I added. Because that was something I truly believed in. That was what got me into this clusterfuck of a situation every month. Because I insisted that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.