Page 4 of Designed for Disaster

Okay, Ididfeel bad.

At least a little.

Not that I should. Not after the way she’d laughed at me getting coffee all over myself, not to mention trying to tell me off for the way I’d talked to my own father and accusing me of having a tantrum.

No, wait.

Amantrum.

The memory made my lip curl, and any guilt I might’ve felt shriveled up and died. Frankly, if this was the way she talked to other customers, I could see why the manager had made the call. She never should have been hired in the first place, not with her attitude. Her snark. Her rudeness.Her pretty green eyes, with those thick, dark lashes. Her perfect cupid’s bow of a mouth. And that lush, curvy body?—

“Sir, I am incredibly sorry,” the manager stammered, dragging me out of my thoughts that had wandered way the hell off course. “Please, let me get you a new coffee on the house.”

“That would be appreciated,” I said. “Thank you.”

Little Miss Diva glared at me, and I gave her what I knew was my most obnoxious smirk.See, I wanted to say.This is how you treat a customer.

She huffed and stormed off. I turned around to watch, appreciating curves I had no business staring at. The way her apron strings fastened around her waist, highlighting her ass in those ridiculously tight jeans, was some sort of delicious torture. I cleared my throat. The gorgeous ones were always complete hellcats. I should know better.

She disappeared behind the counter and through a swinging door, and my head finally cleared enough to remember why I was there. I’d come to meet one of my best friends, Aiden, so he could return the keys to my Aston Martin. He’d borrowed the car for a product shoot last week, and this was the first chance he’d had to meet up…and even now, he was running late. He’d texted while I was in line, saying he was fifteen minutes out. I’d told him not to rush since I was calling my dad.

“Trent!”

I whirled around at the sound of my name, spotting Aiden as he came in the door. He gestured to the counter, and I nodded, looking for a free table that actually functioned properly as he got his coffee order. I hadn’t realized The Blend would be this busy when Aiden had asked to meet, but I was able to swoop in and grab a table as a crowd of NYU students packed up and left. Living in Greenwich Village this close to campus, I was used to navigating around students.

I looked up, giving Aiden a wave, and he hurried over, two cups in his hands.

“I was told to give you this,” he said, placing a steaming cup down in front of me. “‘With sincere apologies from the manager.’ Though the guy behind the counter that made it kind of looked like he wanted to spit in the cup.”

I glanced past Aiden to the other barista behind the counter. He glared at me while plugging in another order. Probably one of the Hellcat’s posse. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”

“What the hell did you do before I got here?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I didn’t come here to dwell on grumpy waitresses, no matter how nice her ass might have been. “How’re things going over at Elixir?”

His beverage brand had been on a hot streak lately, with their new non-alcoholic product lines. And of course, things had been going even better in Aiden’s personal life, as he was now engaged to Cora, the woman who had helped design and launch the new products.

“Fantastic,” Aiden said. “Everything’s been going great lately, except…” He gave me a sympathetic look.

I let out a sigh. “Yeah. That’s why I was trying to talk to Dad.”

“I figured,” Aiden replied. “Lord knows you wouldn’t give him the time of day if it was for anyone but her.”

Her.Nana Dee. My grandmother, one of my favorite people in the world, whose recent diagnosis of congestive heart failure had me at my wits’ end. Not that my father could be bothered to give a damn. “He had absolutely no interest in talking to her. I just…” I swallowed down the anger. Unloading that on Aiden wouldn’t help anything. “He knows how time sensitive this is. Nana Dee can’t afford to wait very long.” I hated the thought that it might already be too late. “Sheneedsthis surgery, but she flat-out refuses to have it, and nothing I say is changing her mind.”

Aiden shook his head, looking as annoyed as I felt. “Can I do anything?” he asked. “You know she means the world to all her Lost Boys.” I managed a half smile at the reminder of her nickname for us, the one she’d used since part of our group washed up on her doorstep for Christmas break when we were college freshmen at Cornell. From the start, she’d basically adopted Aiden, along with our other friends Vincent, Paul, and Dominic.

For my part, she and Papa Davis—back before he passed—had been the only adults in my family I’d ever been able to count on. I wasnotwilling to give that up.

“I know,” I reassured Aiden. “I would have asked you already if there was. I just keep trying to reason with her, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She says she’s made her peace with the disease, but it feels more like she’s giving up.”

Aiden nodded. “She seemed so listless when I called the other day. I’m used to that sunny, pep-in-her-step, untouchable woman. I don’t like hearing her like that.”

“I’m just so…frustrated.” If I could throw money at the problem, I’d toss it with both fists. But I couldn’tbuya will to live for Nana Dee. She had to find that on her own. And I hated how powerless that made me. “I can’t wrap my head around needing to say goodbye to her yet.” I rubbed my forehead. “And I don’t even want to think about what it’ll do to Jimmy.”

Aiden winced. “The kid won’t take it well.”

That was the understatement of the century. My little brother was already floundering at Princeton. The last thing he needed was to lose the one stable parental figure we had.

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