AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When my sister saw me, she straightened, moving away from Wes. He lifted his chin at me in greeting. I must have imagined whatever I’d thought I just saw. Having Claire in town was screwing with my perception of reality.
Carmen put her hands on her hips. “Is everything okay?”
I sat next to Wes. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“It’s before noon, and you’re smiling.”
“Can’t I be happy in the a.m. hours?”
“No,” Wes and Carmen said in unison.
I scowled, earning a sigh of relief from Carmen. She pinched my cheek. “There’s the Bennett I know and love.”
I might have had a reputation for being an ornery asshole in the mornings. Working the evening shifts suited me. “What do you have today?”
“Cinnamon pecan muffins and lemon bars.”
“I’ll take a muffin. Coffee too.”
Wes grinned at me. “So, how did making nice with Claire go?”
My scowl deepened. “I can tell by the way you’re looking at me you already know the answer. You set me up to fail.”
He clapped me on the back. “No, I didn’t. I’m merely eternally optimistic you’ll develop some finesse one of these days.”
“What do I need that for?” I grumbled. Though I wondered how things might have gone with Claire if I’d used the finesse Wes spoke of.
Nah.That approach felt slimy and underhanded. I would rather be a punch in the face than a knife in the back.
The thought of doing either of those to Claire was discomforting. And the fact that my feelings were anything other than neutral unsettled me. This was her fault—she should have stayed in her fancy big-city job. It pissed me off that she’d put me in this position.
“Well, for starters,” Wes said, “youarein the service industry.”
“Eh, our beer speaks for itself. People will come for the brew regardless of whether my sour ass is serving it to them.” And honestly, the type of people who enjoyed my brew were my type of people. I generally got along with them. Everyone else could kindly fuck off.
“While that’s true,” Carmen chimed in as she set a steaming mug of coffee in front of me, “that’s not a great business model, and if Grandpa Charlie heard you say that—”
“Don’t you dare tell him,” I warned.
It was strange how well Grandpa Charlie and I got on, considering how different we were. He was a people person, always happy to welcome new friends into the fold. Meanwhile, the only person in my circle of trust who wasn’t related to me was Wes, and our nonrelation was a technicality. His parents were deadbeats, and he’d moved in with us during his high school years. I considered him a sibling as much as I did my stepsiblings.
“Tell who what?” Declan, the slacker, moseyed through the front door.
“Nothing,” I said.
He was still on my shit list for missing the delivery the other day. It was one of the few things I paid him for that I actually needed him to do. Most of the other stuff was busywork just so he’d earn a paycheck.
He yawned. “I finished mopping, so I’m out of here.”
“Did you remember the storeroom?”
I could tell by his expression he hadn’t. I sighed. Declan wasn’t a bad guy—he simply had no ambition and took no pride in his work. I didn’t get it. When I was twenty-three, Grandpa Charlie was already training me to take over the business.
“I’ll do it next time,” he said.
“I should deduct the square footage of the storeroom from your paycheck.”
“You already pay me shit as it is.”
