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She disappeared again, talking to herself. Which sucked, because I hadn’t even broken the news to her about needing a few days off.
“Ummm… HELLO?”
I whirled in surprise, to find a customer standing at the counter. Before I could say anything, my mouth dropped open in shock.
“Could somebody help me please? Because I’ve been waiting here like forever.”
The person standing at the counter with a hand on her hip was none other than Lexus, Tyler’s girlfriend. She was sharply-dressed for such a rainy day, with flawless makeup and gold rings on every finger. She also wore her standard perma-frown, which looked even more downturned than usual.
“What is it that I can—“
“My espresso macchiato is all wrong,” she announced, completely cutting me off. With one bejeweled hand she shoved her extra-large coffee forward, as if it were a cup of poison. All without even looking up at me.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I asked for milk foam,” Lexus huffed. “This is steamed milk.”
“SORRY!” Katie called again from the back room. Her bionic hearing really was ridiculous. “I was in a rush, and the timer went off while I was icing the lemon loaf, and then—“
“No problem at all,” I said, as Katie’s voice trailed off again. “I’ll just remake it for you.”
“Well I’m not going to drink this one,” Lexus answered snottily.
My mouth was still open as I took the cup back and poured it into the sink. Not only did Tyler’s girlfriend not recognize me, she hadn’t even looked up. Right now she’d already turned her attention back to her phone, where her well-manicured thumbs were deftly hammering away at the screen.
Unfuckingreal.
I couldn’t help but shake my head as I went about remaking her drink. In truth, Lexus probably forgot I even worked here. But that was how she always operated; anything outside of her own closed little world didn’t matter. If something didn’t affect her directly, she had total disregard for it. Even the people closest to her, Tyler included, generally seemed to annoy her, unless they happened to be doing her bidding at any given moment.
“Here you go.”
By the time I handed the espresso back I was thoroughly disgusted. Lexus reached out for it, still clueless, still thankless, still punching buttons on her phone with her free hand. And that’s when I noticed the name scrawled on the side of the cup:
Malcolm
I blinked.
Wait… what?
The coffee wasn’t for Lexus, it was for someone else. In fact, she already had a coffee. I could see that now. A second cup stood on the counter beside her, this one with her own name written across it.
Who the hell is Malcolm?
Before I could ask or speak up or even think about what to do next, Lexus was already storming away. There wasn’t a ‘thank you’ or an acknowledgment, and there certainly wasn’t a tip. There was the jingle of bells as the door swung open and closed.
Malcolm…
“Katie?”
Her voice called distantly from somewhere in the kitchen. “What?”
“I’ll be right back!”
Whatever my boss said next fell on deaf ears; because I was already scrambling for the door. Luckily there was no one currently waiting on anything. Aside from a few customers sitting quietly at tables, Java Queen was practically empty.
The rain was still falling as I slipped outside, looking left and right for signs of my quarry. I didn’t know why I was even chasing Lexus. Or what I would say if I caught up with her, or she saw me, or—
I stopped dead at the next corner. Lexus was getting into a steel-grey truck; one with an obnoxious lift kit and big knobby tires that put it several feet off the ground. She handed up both coffees, where a man in tinted sunglasses accepted them quickly, then hopped up using the step bar with the help of the man’s extended hand.
