1
Present Day
I inheritedmy intense love for rock n’ roll from my dad. He introduced me to classic rock at an early age and I still loved it, even if it was several decades older than I was. Right now,AC/DC’sBack in Blackwas blasting from my Bluetooth speaker as I organized and de-cluttered my office.
To be completely honest, I hated cleaning. No, more like despised it with every fiber of my being. The only thing that made the activity remotely tolerable was listening to some damn good music while I did it.
As it was, I had to get things organized because my silent partner, college roommate, and best friend, Sierra, was coming to town. When I’d asked her how long she'd be staying, her only reply had been, “A while.”
With Sierra, that time frame could mean a few weeks, a few months, or even a couple of years. She worked remotely for some computer firm and made beaucoup money. So much money that she asked me if she could invest in my small business. At the time, I’d needed every penny of capital possible because I was twenty-two years old and no bank in our hometown would give me the time of day when it came to a start-up loan. It hadn’t mattered that I had a five-year plan, cost and profit projections, marketing plans, and a million other details organized. I was just a kid, and a girl at that, therefore I couldn’t possibly be successful.
But I was.
While Farley was a small town, it was surrounded by other small towns. Places that didn’t have cute little ice cream shops that served homemade ice cream in fun flavors and delicious concoctions with crazy names like “Sundae Roadkill” or “Texas Ice Cream Massacre”.
When I’d opened Crave, I hadn’t just marketed to the people of Farley, I'd invested in advertising within a thirty-mile radius.
And it paid off.
Business wasn’t just good, it was great. I’d never be a millionaire but I was definitely comfortable and getting better every year. In another ten years, after I bought out Sierra, I could hire a full-time manager and not have to come into work almost every single day the shop was open, which was six days a week.
Even though it was a lot of hard work, I loved my job. I got to make ice cream in nearly any flavor I wanted. When people came to my shop, they left with a smile on their face and a delicious, frosty treat. As far as careers went, it was pretty damn good.
Oh, and I didn’t answer to anyone but myself. Or Sierra, but she didn’t hound me for information. I think that even if the shop wasn’t turning a profit, she wouldn’t have cared. In fact, I was almost certain she’d just invested so we could work together even when she wasn’t on the same continent.
Which was about to change for the first time in two years. Sierra was coming to visit. I was incredibly excited but also stressed. While I kept the front of the shop and the kitchen spotless to keep the health department off my back, my office was one step above a dumpster fire. I had stacks of paper everywhere; invoices, payroll, order lists. Basically, anything and everything a small business owner should really keep organized in a file rather than in haphazard piles that tended to crash to the ground with alarming regularity.
Then there was the dust. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a rag to the desktop computer and I knew it would be the first thing Sierra would look at when she came into the office. Hmmm, now that I was thinking about it, I hadn’t dusted the computer since Sierra installed it two years ago when my last system crashed. Lucky for me, she’d been visiting then as well.
Which lead me to my current situation. It was one in the afternoon and the shop wouldn’t open for a couple of hours. It gave me ample time to clean but not the motivation. Thus the rock n' roll turned up to window-rattling volumes. If rock couldn’t keep me moving, I had no hope of getting it done.
AC/DCchanged toDef Leppardand I danced around my office, tossing my hair and shaking my ass like an extra on an 80’s music video. In between wild gyrations, I put folders in the filing cabinet, put away bits and pieces required for clerical work like paper clips and sticky notes, and took a dusting cloth to every surface in the office.
I’d just completed one badass, complex turn followed by a dramatic pose that consisted of me arching backward over my desk when the sound of someone whooping and clapping pierced the sudden silence at the end ofPour Some Sugar on Me.
I jerked upright but the abrupt movement overbalanced me and I fell face first into what were admittedly a nice pair of boobs. At least that’s what Sierra insisted.
“Good to see you too, partner,” my friend said drily. “If I’d known you were so hard up I would have stopped at one of those sex shops in Dallas and bought you something special.”
I managed to disentangle myself from Sierra, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and pausedLed Zeppelin. My Bluetooth speaker fell silent.
“You know, you’ve got some pretty good moves. Or you did until that last one,” she commented.
“Hey, it was spot on if I wanted to motorboat someone but still make it seem like an accident.”
“Surely there are less dangerous ways to accomplish that goal.”
I grinned at Sierra then glared. “You’re early. You weren’t supposed to be here until after closing time.”
“I woke up at five and decided to head out,” she replied with a shrug.
That was Sierra. She went wherever her instincts took her. It was something I both loved and hated. Sometimes it meant we went on a spontaneous adventure and others it led to us not seeing each other for two years.
"Well, I'm glad you're here. I'll take you to the house, get you a spare key, and help you get settled in. I have to be back at the shop in two hours to open up, but we can have a late dinner together tonight if you want."
Sierra nodded. "Sounds great. I'll cook."
I stared at her.
