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Chapter Thirteen
Harper
I have a shipment coming this afternoon with a small order of negligées and warmer pajamas, but that doesn’t stop me from oversleeping on this hazy Monday morning. Even with my massive amount of work to accomplish, I still turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze.
There’s a small storm cell just off the coast, making everything dark and gloomy – just like my mood. I spent way too much time in my backyard yesterday, thinking about my Saturday, nonetheless. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. All of it. I painted my doghouse, stapled in a soft rug on the floor, and positioned it under the tree so Snuggles has shade all day long.
And yes, tried to eradicate all images of Latham getting me off just by sucking on my nipple ring.
Didn’t work. I spent the entire night wet, needy, and having to take care of it myself with the vibrator in my nightstand drawer.
Now, I’m five minutes late to open my shop and didn’t have time to grab a caffeinated drink from the café down the street. Thank goodness for my small four-cup coffeepot in the very back of the kitchen cabinet. Let’s just hope the creamer in the mini-fridge isn’t expired.
I’ll just worry about lunch later…
I quickly turn on the lights and flip the open sign, hoping my tardiness hasn’t cost me a sale. Though, if I’m being honest, my entire mojo is just off today, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I had a line of customers waiting that walked away the moment I didn’t open the door.
Yeah, probably not, but still…
I set my purse on the counter and fire up my laptop. While I wait for it to do its thing, I head to the kitchen area to find the coffeepot. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll stumble across some crackers or something to go with the brick of cheese I stashed in the mini-fridge. Just as I open the cabinet, music rings through the building. It’s a loud and twangy song I recall from my childhood. Tammy Wynette starts to sing about standing by her man.
The fuck?!
I race back to the front to locate the source of the obnoxious country song, only to find it blasting from the one thing I wasn’t expecting: my laptop. I click on the music icon, something I used for the first time last week. However, I know there was no country music in my library. So where the hell did this song come from?
I start to click frantically. “Zip it, Tammy,” I mumble to myself, desperate to get her to stop crying about her man, when finally the song stops. “Thank God.”
Except, it starts again.
“What the hell?” I yell to no one, moving the mouse and trying to click on the music app. Nothing works. After several frantic double-clicks, the app finally opens, displaying a lovely photo of the woman singing. I’m sure it’s a great song and all, I mean, who doesn’t love the fact she’s supporting her man through all his issues, but come on. Enough is enough. But when I click on the stop, nothing happens.
Nothing. Happens.
Tammy still belts out the lyrics to her iconic song, drowning my shop in her familiar twangy vocals.
“Son of a bitch,” I groan, trying everything.
Exit.
Control, Alt, Delete.
Escape.
Exit, exit, exit.
Slam laptop down on the counter.
Okay, I didn’t do that one. It’s new, after all, but I want to.
Just as I’m about to hurl the brand new laptop into the wall, the bell chimes over the door. “Oh, dear, why are you playing music so loud?” Mrs. Henderson asks, blanching as she tentatively steps inside.
“I’m not. Well, not really. I’m not sure why it’s playing this,” I tell her (well, I yell at her). “Come on in!”
“What?”
“I said come on in! Is there something I can help you with?”
She starts to glance around, but her attention is elsewhere. It only takes a couple moments before she starts to retreat back to the doorway. “You know, I’ll just come back. Another time…” she says as she hightails it out of my shop so fast, you’d think I told her the deli was offering free cheesecake.
