“Agreed. I don’t care how much he’s in the doghouse with everyone in town, it’s not enough.”
I stroll past her in the little kitchen to toss another log into the wood-burning stove. There’s more than a little guilt popping up over not helping Sabrina when she asked me to.
Telling myself it was probably already too late doesn’t help either.
Could’ve done it quietly. Not let myself get identified.
“And I’m not mad at you anymore,” Sabrina adds softly. “It wasn’t right of me to ask you to help. I apologize for putting you in that position.”
“Would’ve done the same in your shoes.”
Miss Doodles looks up at me from the rug in front of the stove, where she’s melted into the floor, her softly swishing tail the only other movement coming from her.
“Good kitty,” I tell her while I bend down to scratch her behind her ears.
She blinks at me, then heaves a loud, contented purr and melts even deeper into the floor.
“I’m going to buy him out,” Sabrina says, following me into the room with three kittens on her heels. “I want my café back. If you’re feeling like investing in something worthwhile in your own hometown in addition to throwing all of your money at interesting charities here and there, I’d be happy to negotiate very fair profit-sharing terms with you.”
I stare at her harder.
“I’m not gossiping. You’re just predictable. And I’m notaskingyou to help. I’m telling you that I’m gathering investors, and I’d be honored if you’d consider Bean & Nugget worthy of your time and money.”
I grunt and throw myself into my recliner, barely missing Snaggleclaw, who was hiding behind the quilt my mom made me when I was born. My recliner would be the only furniture I keep in the living room, except my dad stops by every now and then to visit. Uncle Owen too.
I’ll get more eventually.
But I haven’t lived here long—not easy to see a whole damn house and want it and know it’s okay to spend your money on it when you’ve never had money like this before—and it cracked me up the first time the Sullivan triplets stopped by and told me I needed more furniture.
Haven’t had a lot of other people out yet, but I want to.
And now that no one’s gonna ask how I could afford my dream cabin on fifteen acres in the mountains, it won’t be so awkward.
Might be when I invite some of my construction buddies. Got fired from my cover story job when the owner realized his wife had been watching my videos. First message I had when I landed in Denver the other day.
Sabrina doesn’t sit on a cat when she takes the extra recliner, but she does have those three kittens climb into her lap.
“I’ll think about it,” I grunt to her.
She grabs a knitted heart off the end table and teases the kittens with it. “I used a fraction of the ammunition I have against Chandler to get all of the books going back ten years. I know where they went wrong. I know how to fix it. I have a business plan. I know what I’m doing. I won’t fail. And I won’t ask again. You might have some of the deepest pockets in town, but I don’t care if I have five investors or a hundred. I’m getting the money together to buy this fucker out.”
“Asking Laney?”Dammit. Wasn’t going to ask. Wasnotgoing to ask.
She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me that the rest of my family’s being dicks and holding grudges because they think her dad’s the triplets’ biological father. Which isn’t gossip, again. I heard you heard. It’s only gossip if you don’t already know it.”
“Look, Sabrina, I like you, but not right now. It’s a me problem. Can you please go away?”
“I haven’t answered your question yet.”
“I take it back. I don’t want to know.”
“You want to know or you wouldn’t have asked.”
“Habit. I was being polite. You’re friends. I felt guilty for not helping you when you asked in the first place.”
“You’re never polite for the sake of being polite, and you only feel guilty because it’s residual guilt on top of the guilt you feel about how Emma’s wedding ended, the fact that Chandler secretly sold the café and blindsided all of us, and then what you did to Laney. Even though only what you did to Laney is your fault.”
She’s got me there. “Go away. Time to make more videos. I’m stripping and jerking off in three minutes whether you’re still here or not.”
