HOLLY
I slept like shit.
There was no other word for it.
I tossed and turned, thinking about what I was going to do, and got almost zero sleep because of it.
When I finally peeled my eyes open and admitted defeat around five, I decided that there was only one option.
Sugar.
I got up, took a shower, and headed to the coffee shop in town.
I wasn’t the first to arrive, but I was early enough that all of the good pastries were still available.
“Hi, Reyelle.” I smiled at her tiredly.
She took one look at me and started to make me a coffee.
I watched as she put not one, not two, not three, but four shots of coffee into my iced latte before adding the vanilla.
I sighed. “It’s like you know me.”
“I know you,” she agreed with a smile. “But I also can see. You look like crap.”
I felt like crap, too.
“Ma,” Shade, Reyelle’s son, called from the kitchen. “Do you want me to take these pastries out?”
“Yeah, son,” Reyelle called as she looked down at her feet. “Poncho, do you want to go say hi to your second-favorite person?”
Poncho didn’t rise, but I leaned over the counter to get a look at her dog.
He was an Alaskan Malamute and old as time. He was also curious as hell, and got himself into pickles when he should be enjoying himself sunning on the porch. Not getting poked by a porcupine.
Something he’d done last week.
Poncho looked up with a doggy smile.
“Hey there.”
His tongue lolled.
“Lookin’ good there, Ponch.”
“His wounds are healing nicely,” Shade said as he came into the room. “Pain in the ass.”
I smiled.
I liked Shade.
I also loved Reyelle.
They were two of my best clients and had been seeing me for months with their curious Poncho.
Someone should tell the old man that curiosity killed the cat.
“What kind of pastries do you want today?” Reyelle asked.
