“We should go for drinks later?”
“I just bought these new jeans, but I’m not sure they look good?”
She’s probably confused because there are only three items on the menu and she’s assuming everything else is just written in invisible ink. Or the NorthFace jacket, black leggings, and Uggs she wears year-round have officially turned her stupid.
Bettie leans across the counter on her stomach and looks down at the girl’s feet, then pulls herself back and turns around to face me when she speaks. “You are a disgrace to coffee. Go away before I yank off those stupid Uggs and beat you with them. IT’S ALMOST JUNE! NO ONE WEARS FUR-LINED BOOTS IN THE SUMMER!”
With her back to the confused college student, Bettie lifts her arm and points to the door.
I know you’re probably thinking that as her boss, and the owner of the shop, I should apologize profusely to the customer, offer her a free coffee and make Bettie apologize.
Well, you would be thinking wrong.
I mirror Bettie, holding my arm out and pointing to the door without saying a word. Miss Venti-Soy-Blah-Blah-I-Can’t-Read scurries away and out of the building, wisely realizing the chick with all the tats could easily vault over the counter and make good on her Ugg-beating promise.
Bettie and I share a high five when the bell rings above the door as she exits. As weird as this may seem, this is another reason why Liquid Crack became so popular. We taught an entire generation of college students and hipsters who live in this area how to appreciate a plain, simple cup of coffee. We aren’t complete assholes, though. After living in Chicago for twelve years, I can spot a tourist as soon as they walk through the door. Bettie was born and raised in Chicago and can smell them from a mile away. They get a free pass when they come in here and a warning not to pull that Starbucks shit again if they decide to come back. For everyone else, they better learn how to read or get the hell out.
“I don’t know if it’s safe for you to tell me what Benjamin thought you should change the name of this place to. I’m feeling very ragey this afternoon,” Bettie says, grabbing an empty Traverse City, Michigan mug a customer slides across the counter and taking it over to the sink.
“Brewlicious, Coffabulous, or Roastacular,” I mutter, cringing and scrunching up my face in disgust with each name I speak that Benjamin insisted would work much better for a franchise than Liquid Crack.
The coffee mug slips from Bettie’s hands and splashes into the sink of water when she whirls around and presses her hand over her heart.
“Was he abused as a child? First the coffee mugs, and now the Frankenstein-like mash-up of two perfectly good words to make new, horrible ones. Why does he insist on doing that? Every time he calls you fantabulous, an inch of his dick disappears,” she complains, crossing her arms in front of her.
Bettie’s outrage makes me feel much better about my decision to end things with Benjamin, even if he hasn’t gotten the memo yet. I haven’t even told her all the other things he suggested I change and argued with me about, going so far as to call the lawyers and investors on his own with the hopes that they’d agree with him. Lucky for me, they didn’t. They knew what made Liquid Crack special, and they weren’t about to change it.
“Forget Benjamin and his freaktastically disappearing dick. You are now the proud owner of a coffee franchise and you don’t need him,” Bettie reassures me as my cell phone rings from its shelf under the counter. “And better yet, you’ll be so rich and famous when Liquid Cracks start opening up all over the world that you’ll never have to set foot in that podunk town you grew up in ever again!”
I laugh as I grab my phone from under the counter and bring it up to my ear, my smile slowly falling when I hear the sharp, southern twang on the other end of the line. As the woman speaks and my mouth drops open in shock at what she says, I silently wonder if Bettie cursed me by mentioning that podunk town, when I realize I might be setting foot back in that place a lot sooner than “never again.”
CHAPTER 2
Recorded Interview
June 2, 2016
Bald Knob, KY Police Department
Deputy Lloyd: We have a witness who gave us a written statement that they heard you say, and I quote, “Let’s kill him. I know people who can make it look like an accident.” Are you telling me you never threatened someone’s life before?
Bettie Lake: I threaten people’s lives every day when they don’t know how to order a simple cup of coffee. That doesn’t mean I’d really kill anyone.
Deputy Lloyd: We’re not accusing you of killing anyone, Miss Lake, but it’s a little too coincidental that the day before the victim was murdered, you were overheard by a witness in Chicago talking to our prime suspect about knowing people who can kill someone and make it look like an accident.
Bettie Lake: It was a joke. And we weren’t even talking about killing this guy, we were talking about killing another one. Shit! I didn’t mean that. Strike that from the record!
Deputy Lloyd: Miss Lake, this isn’t a courtroom. You can’t strike things from the record. And I’ll remind you one last time, this interview is being recorded.
Bettie Lake: I just want to state on record that if Benjamin Montgomery winds up dead tomorrow, I had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, if anyone I know or have ever spoken to gets murdered, I had nothing to do with it.
Deputy Lloyd: According to our prime suspect-
Bettie Lake: Payton didn’t kill anyone either, stop calling her that. If she’s your prime suspect, maybe you people should stop rubbing the knob on that stone statue and get to work trying to find the real killer.
Deputy Lloyd: That’s the second time you’ve referenced a stone statue. Do you know anything about the murder weapon that was used?
Bettie Lake: I thought he was poisoned? Oh, my God. I can’t do this without coffee. Someone get me some coffee before I ki-ick this table over.
Deputy Lloyd: Were you going to say kill?
Bettie Lake: No. STRIKE THAT FROM THE RECORD! And get me some coffee.
*Recording stopped for ten minutes to get interviewee coffee*
Deputy Lloyd: Miss Lake, I’d like to talk a little bit more about-
*Coughing, choking, spitting*
Bettie Lake: Alright. I confess. I know who the killer is. IT’S THIS CRAP YOU CALL COFFEE AND WHOEVER MADE IT. YOU SHOULD ARREST THEM IMMEDIATELY!
Deputy Lloyd: Miss Lake, I need you to be serious about this.
Bettie Lake: I am ALWAYS serious about coffee. Do I need a lawyer?
CHAPTER 3
Instant human. Just add coffee.
—Coffee Mug
“Holy shit!” I shout, jerking awake with a start and jumping up ungracefully from my chair when I feel something touch my shoulder.
With my arms flailing to stop myself from face planting to the ground, they smack into something in the dimly lit room and warm liquid splashes against the front of me.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter, looking down at my wrinkled, and now soaked, silk blouse, then glancing quickly over my shoulder to make sure all the commotion didn’t wake the person in the hospital bed. When I see her eyes are still closed and her chest is moving up and down in the deep, steady rhythm of sleep, I wish I could say it calms me down, but it just makes me think about the phone call I got from the hospital yesterday.
“Your friend Emma Jo Jackson has you listed as her emergency contact and we need you to come to the hospital as soon as possible. She has a black eye, a shattered cheekbone, and a cracked rib.”
Rubbing the sleep and the memory of that phone call from my eyes with my fists, I try not to cringe when lifting my arms makes the wet blouse slide against my stomach and chest.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
At the sound of a deep, masculine voice speaking in a low whisper, I jump with a squeak of fear and remember that someone touching my shoulder is what woke me up in the first place. Turning my head away from the hospital bed, I come face-to-fa
ce with a chest. A very broad, muscular chest covered in a light blue t-shirt clinging to the muscles. It takes me a second to remember I’m in Kentucky and not Chicago, and a strange man waltzing into a hospital room before dawn and touching you doesn’t require you to pull a shiv out of your purse or scream for help.
“I hope I didn’t ruin your shirt.”
When he speaks again, the southern twang in his voice gives me another reminder that I’m indeed in Kentucky and I didn’t dream everything that happened since yesterday afternoon when I got that phone call.
Before my eyes can move up beyond the wall of chest and get a better look at who’s talking to me, my nose takes over. I catch a whiff of what spilled all down the front of my shirt and notice the chest also has arms and is holding a cup of coffee between us. It smells so delicious that I’m not sure if I should pull my shirt up and start sucking the liquid off the silk, or grab the cup out of the chest’s hand and guzzle it.
“Coffee,” I mumble in a daze, staring as the chest with arms brings the cup up to his mouth and takes a sip.
I lick my lips, not entirely sure if it’s because of the coffee tease happening a few inches in front of me or the freshly-shaven chiseled jaw, full lips, and dimples that are attached to the chest with arms. He’s got dark blonde hair, cut close on the sides with a messy spike on top, and my eyes lock onto the bluest set of eyes I’ve ever seen as they stare down at me in amusement when he pulls the cup away from those perfect lips that I’m sure now taste like coffee.
“Hey, how are you?”
The raspy, baritone question pulls my head out of my coffee daze and I stare up at him in confusion for a few seconds. If I was still in Chicago, this question would make me think I know this guy, but that’s not possible. He’s too hot and manly and…muscly. I’m pretty sure I’d remember a guy like this if I’d met him before. Thankfully, even with my lack of coffee for what feels like ten thousand hours, I remember again that I’m in Kentucky and people are actually nice here. They say hello to strangers and make polite conversation.
Either I’ve forgotten how to make polite conversation after living away for so long, or I’ve become one of those women who gets all weird and giggly around a good-looking guy.
“I’m great! I haven’t showered in twenty-four-hours or looked in a mirror since I got here, and I’m thinking about licking my shirt because I need coffee to live,” I ramble.
With a giggle.
So, option two it is.
Even without a mirror I can feel a trail of dried drool on my cheek from sleeping while sitting up in a hospital chair for the last four hours. Glancing down at my hands I see my knuckles are now covered in black smudges of mascara from rubbing my eyes, which means there’s even more of that shit smeared on my face. My twenty-four-hour lip stain is only covering my top lip since I worriedly nibbled it off the bottom one during my travels, and the long, blonde beach waves of my hair now resemble something in the Medusa family going by the frizzy, fly-away strands I can see out of the corner of my eye. The tailored black dress pants and sleeveless pink silk blouse I wore to work yesterday were wrinkled and stained long before he spilled coffee on me, so I can’t even blame him for that part of my appearance. The only good thing about any of this right now is that Emma Jo decided to check herself into Baptist Health Hospital in Louisville, an hour away from Bald Knob. It’s bad enough I’m so close to my hometown, running into someone I might actually know when I look like road kill would be worse.
“You look like you’ve had a long night,” he tells me with a soft smile.
Okay, so having my horrible appearance confirmed by the hottest guy I’ve ever been in the same room with is right up there with running into someone I know.
“Still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, though.”
I giggle. AGAIN. Not only do I giggle, I reach up and smack his chest playfully.
“Oh, stop!”
The girly giggling continues as my palm flattens against his pectoral muscles and the lack of caffeine in my system is evident when I have to stop myself from asking him if he’s some sort of super hero or something.
I mean, Jesus, it’s like he’s carved from stone.
“So, um, are you here visiting someone? I mean, um, you’re not wearing a hospital gown? So I guess you’re not a patient? Do you live around here?” I ask stupidly with another giggle, my voice rising a few octaves with each question like one of those idiot DePaul college girls I hate.
The smile on his face quickly falls and the dimples in his cheeks disappear, probably because I’m still standing here with my hand pressed to his chest like some sort of touchy stalker, giggling and sputtering like a twelve-year old.
Honestly, what is wrong with me? I just broke up with my boyfriend of five years and one of my oldest friends I haven’t seen since high school is lying a few feet away in a hospital bed after getting the shit kicked out of her. Am I seriously getting googly-eyed over a stranger in the middle of this chaos? It’s the lack of coffee, that’s got to be it. I now have blood running through my veins instead of the usual Kona beans, and I’ve clearly lost my mind.
“I’m a friend of Emma Jo’s. Just wanted to check on her before I went to work,” he tells me, his eyes searching my face for a few seconds before he lets out a sigh and moves away from me.
Thankfully, his movement forces my hand to drop from his chest and I don’t have to suffer through any further mortification by him asking me to remove it and stop touching him. What he says finally catches up to my slow-working brain, but before I can ask him how he knows Emma Jo, he steps a few feet away, grabs something from a side table, and holds it out to me.
“I brought an extra coffee. You could probably use some liquid crack right about now.”
My laughter comes out in a high-pitch, nervous twitter when he uses my favorite words for coffee and the reason why I chose them as the name of my shop. I snatch the travel mug out of his hands as fast as I can and bring it to my lips before I start rambling about my shop like an idiot.
As soon as the warm liquid hits my tongue, I moan against the plastic lid and the pounding headache I’ve had since my plane touched down in Kentucky quickly fades away.
“See you around,” he mutters with a nod, looking back over his shoulder at Emma Jo one last time before moving around me.
With the mug still attached to my lips, my eyes follow him as he walks toward the door, and I’m thankful he doesn’t look back at me as he goes. Otherwise, he’d see that I can’t stop looking at his great ass in those faded and tattered jeans he’s wearing, or how coffee dribbles out of my mouth and down my chin while I continue ass-gawking until he disappears around the corner.
“Farewell, Hot Guy. Sorry for molesting your chest muscles. Here’s to hoping we don’t meet again, because I can never come back from that pathetic display,” I whisper into the room as I hug the travel mug of coffee to me and go back to my chair next to Emma Jo’s bed, flopping down to finish my liquid crack and wait for her to wake up.
* * *
“Oh, my God, I look like an extra on a horror movie!” I complain, closing the small-mirrored compact in disgust and shoving it back into my bag on the floor. “I can’t believe I stood here talking to Hot Guy looking like this. And you didn’t even have the decency to wake up and save me.”
Emma Jo laughs softly and shakes her head at me.
“You look beautiful, Payton, stop it now. I still think you were dreaming and none of that actually happened. I don’t have any male friends, and certainly none I’d refer to as Hot Guy,” she informs me with a smile.
“I’m telling you, he was here a few hours ago, scared the hell out of me, spilled coffee all down my shirt, said he was a friend of yours, and then left,” I explain to her again, having gone through all of this with her when she first woke up a little bit ago. “I don’t know when they started making men like that in Kentucky. He must be a transplant from somewhere else. Like heaven. Hot guy heaven.”
&nb
sp; Emma Jo laughs again and seeing the smile on her face just makes my eyes move around to the mess that it is right now. The bruising around her eye that is more black than purple, the popped blood vessels in that eye from the force of the punch she took, and the red, angry mark on her cheek where that same fist shattered her bones.
Our eyes meet and I see hers fill up with tears, mine quickly doing the same. When Emma Jo woke up and saw me sitting next to her bed, she turned her face away from me quickly in embarrassment and softly cried. Instead of starting right in on her with a hundred questions and kicking her when she was down, I diffused the tense situation by yammering on and on about Hot Guy until she pressed a button on her bed to lift herself upright. Sharing my humiliating morning got her to smile and laugh and that made me feel good. But fun time is over and we both know she needs to start explaining things.
“I just can’t believe you’re really here. I can’t believe you came,” Emma Jo whispers, swiping away at a tear on her cheek and wincing when her fingers brush over a bruise.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I did either. I realize that makes me sound like a shitty person, but I haven’t talked to you in years, Emma Jo. What in the world made you put me down as your emergency contact?”
She looks away from me and stares down at her hands folded together in her lap. Even with a battered face and twelve years of time that has passed since I’ve seen it last, she still looks just like she did the last time I saw her, on her wedding day, a week after we graduated. Even looking like she went ten rounds with Mike Tyson, I can see she still has a flawless completion. No wrinkles or crow’s feet around her eyes and her long, thick auburn hair doesn’t have one strand of gray in it. She’s still just as slim as she was back then, and though we’ve only been sitting here talking for a few minutes, her voice is the same quiet, timid one it was when we were eighteen.