I exhale and tilt my head as I smile at my friend.
“You’re enabling me, you know.”
She grins. “You say that like I’m ashamed.”
I reach in and pick one up, turning it over in my hands. The crack doesn’t go all the way through. It’s been repaired at least once though, poorly. I suppose someone cared enough to try.
“Twenty percent off for emotional damage,” Mari says.
“I didn’t say anything about damage.”
She arches a brow. “You didn’t have to.”
I snort and set the cup aside, then immediately pick it back up because I am nothing if not predictable.
We make tea in mismatched mugs—hers chipped, mine worse—and settle into the two chairs behind the counter that have definitely outlived their original purpose. I turn mine just enough to see the door and then sip my drink like I’m British royalty.
“So,” Mari says, blowing on her tea, “you came in early. That usually means one of three things.”
“Please don’t list them,” I beg.
She smiles sweetly. “Man trouble, money trouble, or you’re about to pretend you don’t care about something you very much care about.”
I take a sip. “I hate that you know me.”
“You keep coming back, though,” she responds. “So, that’s on you.”
I stare into my cup longer than necessary before letting out a frustrated sigh. “My life is one giant money problem so no change there.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?”
“But…there was a guy at the bar last night.”
Mari doesn’t react. She’s good like that.
“Let me guess,” she says calmly. “He had opinions.”
I laugh despite myself. “God, yes. Don’t they all?”
I tell her the story, not theatrically, not dramatically. Only the facts.
My rant.
The customers.
The line that crossed from annoying into something colder and sharper. The way my chest locked up before I even realized what was happening.
“And then,” I say, “this guy steps in.”
Mari hums. “Uh-oh.”
“That’s what I said. Internally.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I admit with a shrug. “That’s the problem.”
She tilts her head, her brows furrowing. “Explain.”
