AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Gregory
“Why can’t we just buy another damn coffeemaker?” I growled as I stared at the barren space on the counter in the small kitchenette of our office. “I’ll even pay for the damn thing.”
Trevor chuckled as Alex responded with a smirk. “You haven’t been here long enough to realize how things go.”
“Have you not figured out that Jake likes things a specific way, Blaire? He’d rather wait three extra weeks to get the coffeemaker that he wants than to replace it with something else.”
“It’s fucking coffee,” I groaned. “You add grounds and water, and it brews. What the fuck does Screamer need a special machine for?”
A hand slapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to find Jake behind me, a brow hiked. “I bet you are one of those guys who use tap water in your machine too and doesn’t care what kind of beans are in the machine, right?”
“That’s exactly the type of guy that I am. It’s fucking coffee, Screamer.”
“Yeah, and that’s why I’m not letting you buy the machine. God knows we drink enough of it around here, and if we are going to do that, the least we can do is have a good brew.”
“When did you become such a coffee snob?” I asked. “Last I knew, you’d drink all the swill you could get, and you didn’t care where it came from.”
“Yeah, well, some of us have grown up and acquired taste.”
“Acquired?” I laughed. “Next, you’ll be telling me that you go to wine tastings now too.”
He scrunched up his face. “I’m not quite that much of a dork.”
We all laughed. “When is this new machine supposed to be here?”
“I don’t know; the one I want is on backorder, so until then, you can schlep it down to the coffee shop on the corner and pick us up some for the meeting at nine.” Jake started to walk away.
“Me?”
Jake paused and glanced back. “Yes, you got a problem with that, Blaire?”
“Can’t—”
A woman’s voice called from down the hall, “Don’t even suggest it, Gregory Blaire. Go get your own damn coffee! I’m not the coffee girl.”
I rolled my eyes as everyone laughed again, and I called out my response a little louder so I would know she heard me. “I was not going to suggest that, Alice.”
Trevor leaned forward and whispered, “Yeah, you were.”
I shrugged as I began to walk down the hallway. “Fine, I’ll go. What does everyone want?”
“Ask Alice, she knows,” Alex said as he punched me in the arm and stepped around me.
“How does she know?”
Trevor grinned as he moved to my side. “Because she keeps track of those things for us.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered as Trevor and Alex walked away. She probably went to pick up coffee for them regularly. Why was I being sent out on this errand?
I paused by her desk, and she didn’t even glance up as she reached into a drawer and pulled out a three-by-five card that was laminated—laminated!—and handed it to me. Printed on the card in neat handwriting was a coffee order for everyone in the office. Well, everyone but me. I frowned. “How come my name is not on here?”
She lifted her warm brown eyes to mine. “Because you haven’t been in the office since the coffeemaker bit it.” She was right; I had been in training classes and traveling the last two weeks.
“What did happen to the machine?”
She glanced over her shoulder, leaned forward, and spoke softly. “Jake got pissed about something and took it out on Mr. Coffee. Picked the thing up and smashed it on the ground.”
