Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Maybe I really can do this.
The newfound confidence lifts me as I slip behind the mahogany bar and fill a pitcher of water.
“Please tell me you haven’t been giving them that water.” Katherine’s brittle tone stiffens me, and her horrified face comes into view.
Shit . . .
I frown. “It’s purified.” There’s a purifier on the faucet.
“Fiji water only,” she whispers under her breath, careful not to cause a scene, but luckily, the bar is situated farther away from the guests. “Chelsea should have told you this. Did she tell you?” Katherine is already whipping her head left and right, searching for Chelsea like a predator seeking its next meal.
I see Chelsea first. She’s dealing with a crotchety woman who keeps sending back her coffee. Too weak. Too hot. Not the right milk. I’ve heard it all in passing.
Katherine catches Chelsea’s attention, and while she beelines for us, I say quickly, “She did tell me.”
“She did?”
No.
“Yeah, I just must’ve forgotten. Sorry.”
Katherine glares at me like I’m a complete idiot. And I stifle the glower I’d love to send in return. It dies inside my burning lungs as I breathe.
“Tell her what?” Chelsea asks our boss, coming in late to the conversation.
“Fiji water stuff,” I mention. “I forgot you already told me.”
Chelsea’s lips part, and her fearful side-glance to Katherine is thankfully only noticed by me. I try to enlarge my eyes to tell her not to say the truth.
Lies can be good.
Lies can be helpful.
Right?
“You are exceedingly slow,” Katherine says to me.
Well, fuck you, too.
I drop my head like a battered employee and stare at my boots.
“She’s learning,” Chelsea interjects hastily. “I promise she has what it takes, Katherine. Just give her a week.”
Katherine purses her lips, taking the longest second to ponder my fate. She wants me roasting over a bonfire, and it is slightly uncomfortable knowing Katherine could eat me for dinner like a cooked hog.
Being on the bottom of the food chain sucks. People like Katherine thrive off making others feel inferior and small. And that sort of power is gross to me. It deserves some pushback or a big ugly consequence. Like being swindled out of a grand or two.
But no, I will never mention this to Rocky. I don’t need to hear him say, Told you so, like a kindergartener. Over my dead and charred body.
I’m quiet behind the mahogany bar. Submissive. Shrinking into myself, and Katherine seems satisfied enough.
Finally, she opens the fridge beneath the bar, revealing the middle shelves filled to the brim with Fiji bottles. “Do better,” she snaps at me.
I just nod.
With one last glare, she struts away.
“So no pitcher?” I ask Chelsea.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes in a whisper.
“It’s fine. I probably would’ve forgotten even if you told me.” I wouldn’t have. But I don’t want her to feel worse.
She’s already clutching her chest like her heart skipped several beats back there. “Thank you for covering for me with Katherine. She can be such a B-I-T-C-H.” She hands me water bottles out of the fridge.
“Is there a no-cursing policy, too? Because I’m going to fuck that rule in the asshole.” It’s a joke, but Chelsea lets out a wheezy laugh.
My face falls.
Okay, she’s anti-cursing.
“I just . . . don’t really like it, is all. It sounds . . .” She crinkles her nose.
“Right . . .” Unladylike. “I have brothers, so . . . habit.”
Oliver doesn’t even swear that much. It’s dumb that I’m blaming this on my brothers. It’s also dumb that Nova barely gets told to stop cursing like a drunken sailor, and yet, when I say fuck there might as well be fireworks and air horns alerting the world that PHOEBE GRAVES CURSED!
Truth about my adolescent-turned-adulthood foulmouthed behavior: Nova, Rocky, and I all rubbed off on each other.
Really, that’s what I like to believe. Some truths aren’t truths at all, but just what we let ourselves believe is real.
Chelsea motions to the water bottles in my clutch. “You fill the pitcher with the Fiji. The water purifier is used to wash produce.”
Good to know. I prepare Mr. Burke’s Cognac and then finish refilling the pitcher with only the best Fiji water.
“I need you to take table 6,” Chelsea says quietly.
“Okay,” I agree without looking up.
Chelsea zips away as the old lady flags her down for more coffee. I already know table 6 is in the sunroom. Details like that are easy to remember.
Cognac and pitcher on my tray, I push through a set of French doors and into a bright, marbled sunroom with chess sets, rattan couches, and bistro seating for couples. The air smells like lemongrass and honeysuckle.
When I see who’s seated at table 6, my feet glue to the floor.
Twelve
Phoebe
Rocky . . . with a girl.
The iron bistro table is intimate and tiny. Her long legs are crossed, ankle brushing against Rocky’s knee. Her yellow floral sundress is provocative yet classy, and I’d think it’s cute if I didn’t have this involuntary desire to burn it.