“I better pass,” I said, my eyes lingering on the bottle of Mountain Moonshine. “But ask me again later if my driver doesn’t show.”
“Suit yourself.” Brie shrugged, turning back to her espresso machine. “What’s your name?”
“Samantha,” I answered. “But my friends call me Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, Sam.” Brie hit a button and the espresso machine hissed like a river boat. A gurgling stream of scalding hot liquid pitter pattered into the paper cup. “First time in Aster Park?”
“Is it that obvious?” I asked, finally remembering to take my Prada sunglasses off, which I slipped inside my Louis Vuitton.
Brie smiled the kind of smile that suggested she’d seen my type before. Probably scraped off the side of a mountain. “Well, let’s see. You’re wearing fancy white shoes in an area where the sidewalks are optional. Your suitcase probably costs more than my car. And you didn’t immediately say yes to alcohol.” She poured oat milk into a stainless steel pitcher. “Around here, that’s practically hanging a sign around your neck that says, I’m from out of town, please tell me bear safety tips.”
“Bear safety tips?” I asked, my pitch rising.
“Rule number one. You don’t need to outrun the bear.” Brie dunked the steam wand into the oat milk. “You just need to outrun your hiking buddy.” Brie winked, nodding toward the card reader. “That’ll be $7.50.” I touched my American Express to the card reader, mentally calculating how much ofmy credit limit I would need to preserve for all the therapy I’d be needing.
While Brie finished steaming the oat milk, I watched a man in a “Buck Wild” shirt buy three sticks of jerky and a magazine calledExtreme Ice Fishingfrom the newsstand. Looking around, I still didn’t see any black-suited chauffeur with a little sign reading “Samantha.” The only sign I did see was the one advertising a BOGO deal on alpaca hair mittens.
“It’s okay,” I said to myself. LuxeLife was a luxury brand. Like Marcus said, it was in the name. Any minute now, some sleek town car would pull up outside, a uniformed driver would apologize profusely for the delay, and I’d be whisked away to a five-star mountain paradise with bottomless champagne.
Any minute now, civilization would arrive.
Any minute.
“You’re all set,” said Brie, sliding my drink across the counter. Lifting it toward my lips, I stared into the shapeless white mound of foam floating on top. No tulip. No rosette. Not even an artistically crafted swan that made you feel guilty about drinking it. Just a blob. Like a miniature avalanche. Perhaps inspired by the local geography.
“Just be careful when you take a sip,” said Brie. “We just got our espresso machine serviced and everything has been coming out super hot.”
I appreciated the warning. I would have appreciated it even more if she had told me two seconds earlier, before I took a giant sip.
It was like one of those scenes in a cartoon when billows of steam shoot out of the character’s ears. The liquid hit my tongue with the thermal impact of molten lava. Now I’d never personally consumed anything from an active volcano, but it had to be a close approximation.
My eyes watered.
My nostrils flared.
My tongue blistered.
My mouth wasn’t just on fire, it was experiencing its own personal supernova. Time slowed down as my taste buds screamed in unison, each one writing its own individual last will and testament. Sucker punched with pain, my short-circuited brain could only form one functioning command.
GET. IT. OUT.
Mouth full of coffee and body acting on the survival instinct of a cornered animal, I spun to my right, desperate to spit the boiling liquid anywhere that wasn’t inside my mouth.
I didn’t see the person standing beside me.
I didn’t see anything until I sprayed a mouthful of scalding hot cappuccino across what appeared to be another flannel shirt.
Stretched over a set of impressively defined pectoral muscles.
Beneath a sharply lined beard-stubbled chin.
“What the fuh …” a deep voice started.
But I wasn’t done making a first impression. Mouth still burning with the intensity of a thousand suns, I snatched the nearest drink I could find, downing the entire thing in one gulp.
It took point two seconds for my taste buds to send the message to my brain. A message that went something like, “Hey dumbass, that stuff you just chugged wasn’t water.”
Moonshine hit my scorched mouth like a chemical weapon, burning in a completely different but equally apocalyptic way. I did a 180 to my left and ejected the drink with the force and trajectory of a pressurized fire hose.
