Page 21 of Amber: Deja Brew

Chapter 8

Julian

"Did you spill Mood Tea on a customer, Bean?” I turn in my seat to look at Amber... and quickly jump to my feet. Because instead of the chameleon I love, the person standing next to Wes is Liam, the troll cop who stopped by earlier this afternoon.

“Hello, Officer.” The words leave my mouth before I realize that the cop is Amber, and she shifted her clothes to include the uniform.

“It’s just me, Juli,” she confirms in the troll’s guttural voice, and my shoulders sag in relief.

It’s not like I’m not used to Amber’s shifting, since it’s been happening at least once or twice a day for the past six years. I’ve just never been comfortable with her shifting into teachers at the academy, and it looks like that feeling extends to cops. She’s also pranked me enough times—in so many different forms—that I’ve learned to question whether anyone I’m talking to might be Amber.

This time, though, I can somehow instinctively tell that it’s her, even though she still looks like a cop. It’s been happening since the mating bond kicked in, and it’s a huge relief. Sure, it might take a moment or two, especially if she catches me off guard, but I love looking at Amber and still being able to see her.

“What’d you say about a Mood Tea?” She frowns at me, her troll features contorting into a look that one might call menacing, if it really were the troll and not just my Bean.

“What? Oh, right! Did you spill tea on a customer? It’s no big deal if you did. Accidents happen. Especially when you shift! I’m just trying to figure out if—”

“I didn’t spill anything on anyone. Not since we opened.” The menacing look on Amber’s face turns furious. Which really makes me wish she’d shifted into someone other than the cop.

Would it be wrong of me to forget the sugar in Liam’s drink next time he’s here? Then, he might stop coming by. And if Amber doesn’t see him, she’ll stop shifting into a furious troll dead set on murder. “Bean?”

“What?” She takes a deep breath, and her eyes lose the murderous glint.

“I was just making sure,” I explain. “There’s always a chance it was Onyx, though she hasn’t been in all week.”

“Who’s Onyx?” Wes asks.

“She’s a high school student we hired to work here part-time,” I explain. “We gave her a few weeks off after we stopped getting customers. Couldn’t bring ourselves to fire her.”

“She’s really great,” Amber adds. “Definitely not the type to spill tea on customers. And now that Minerva and her pebble are gone, we can call her and ask her to come back to work.”

“Sounds like a plan, but...” I trail off and glance back over my shoulder at Chase’s computer screen.

We’ve pulled up Screech, a warded website where supes can leave reviews. If humans stumble on it, they see a message that says “This site can’t be reached”, so us witches, chameleons, shifters, and other supes can leave honest reviews about our experiences. The site is filled with talk about spelled drinks, magical shops, and supernatural accommodations. And I’ve always thought it was the best thing ever, until today.

“What’s going on?” Amber grabs my shoulder with one giant troll paw and physically moves me aside.

Then, she sees the screen, and the murderous rage is back. Because we’ve got Jewels Cafe loaded up on Screech, and our average rating is 2 stars.

“How could this happen?” Amber cries, moving closer to look at the reviews. There are a few five stars—all from customers who stopped by before Mini’s pebble. But the rest? All from yesterday and today, and are all one star. Every. Single. One!

When Chase first pulled up Screech, my heart plummeted, and for a few minutes, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe. I just kept reading the reviews, over and over again. Repeating those hurtful words. Feeling each one of them like a punch to the gut.

Because this is our cafe, our dream, and people hate it. Absolutely hate it. They hate our drinks, they hate the decor, and they really, really hate us.

"Our drinks don't taste like piss," Amber wails as she shifts from troll to angel. The word piss rings through the empty cafe, and some part of my brain wonders if an angel would say piss. Does it count as a swear word? “Juli, why would someone write that?”

Amber’s angelic eyes fill with tears, and the worst part is, there is nothing I can do. There are dozens of reviews, claiming all sorts of horrible things, and I can’t make them go away.

“Your drinks are amazing.” Wes tries to pull Amber into his arms. Except he’s not used to her having wings, so they just get in the way.

“Everything you make tastes awesome,” Chase agrees. “And I haven’t seen a single customer complain.”

To my surprise, Chase and Wes make me feel better. I’m no longer upset that they’re here. And it’s not just that I don’t mind having them around, or that I’m putting up with them for Amber. I like having them here. With us. On our side. So Bean and I are no longer alone.

And I like having the two shifters there to look out for us and help get us out of this mess, because we are definitely going to need it.

All the local supes use Screech to decide which business to frequent, and so do tourists passing through. If they stop coming to Jewels Cafe because of this, we might end up going out of business.

And suddenly, what I thought was a normal afternoon lull feels heavy. Unlike earlier today, when the place was packed, we can almost hear crickets now. If Amber had recently ran into a cricket shifter, we probably would—and it would be coming from her.

“Our chairs aren’t sticky,” she says, snapping me out of my panic. “We’re not rude. And there aren’t any roaches.”

Which rules out the possibility that she ran into a roach shifter and accidentally shifted while there were customers around.

“Do you think someone’s trolling us?” I finally ask. Amber instantly shifts back into the troll again, and I groan. “No offense.”

“None taken. And I think they are. Because none of this stuff happened on my watch.”

“Or when I was here.” Chase adds. “Plus, there are just too many for it to be a coincidence. And they all started popping up late last night.

"Right after—” Amber starts to say, but I beat her to it.

"Mini!" I growl, shoving my chair out of the way. When I find that witch, there will be hell to pay.