Page 13 of Stay Toxic

“Sorry, she’s not here,” she lied.

I knew, in fact, that her managerwashere.

I took the lid off and poured it onto her counter, watching as her mouth fell open.

“I overpaid for this coffee as it is,” I pointed out, not bothering to inform her that she’d overcharged me on purpose. My guess, to line her pockets, seeing as she was so bad I never tipped her. “Now, you can either get me a new one, clean that up, and not complain, or you can go find another job.”

“You can’t do that.” She rolled her eyes, not believing that I’d get her fired. “My boss will love me for not serving you again.”

“Actually, I can,” I said as quietly as I could. “Because my sister owns this place.”

She blinked.

“She does not.”

“Actually, she does.” My sister, Milena, came out of the back room. “Now, give him the good coffee, clean that up, or go find a different job.”

“I…he doesn’t tip!” she cried.

“Mariska, dear,” Milena said. “He co-owns this place with me. He doesn’t have to pay a tip because he literally pays you a full salary. And to be quite honest, a tip is something you get when you give good service. I’ve yet to see you give that to him since you started working here. He’s been very accommodating with you despite your lack of professionalism.”

She opened her mouth and closed it.

“Milena.” I lifted my coffee cup. “Please?”

She took my cup, walked to the coffee pot that did, indeed, have the good coffee, and filled it up.

She then walked it back over to me and said, “Why do you pay when you know that you don’t have to?”

“Because I want you to see that you have a shit employee, but you refuse to get rid of her because she’s ‘your best help,’” I pointed out.

“To be truthful, she is,” Milena muttered darkly. “It’s so hard to find good workers nowadays. All these young kids want high pay for little work. They don’t show up because they need a mental health day because their friend’s best friend’s dog died. Hell, one quit on me last week because I asked her to show up on time for her job, and she told me I didn’t respect her ‘time blindness.’”

“What the fuck is time blindness?” I blurted.

“According to her, she doesn’t realize what time it is.” She blew out a breath, causing her bangs at the top of her head to ruffle. “So she was consistently late for every shift. At the least, by fifteen minutes. And in the morning when there’s a rush before work, that fifteen minutes counts. She asked me if I couldmake accommodations for her when she started, and I said no. She chose to take the job anyway, assuring me that she was going to be able to make it on time. She was late for three weeks straight.”

“How do you find these people?” I asked.

“It’s the new age, bruh.” Milena rolled her eyes, mimicking her barista’s voice so completely that I nearly choked on my sip of coffee.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as the green-eyed blonde got up and started back toward the counter.

She’d missed the coffee incident, thanks to her brothers coming in.

She stood next to the register, patiently waiting for the barista to get off her phone.

“Excuse me?” the blonde, Brecken, said.

“Yeah, it’s my break right now,” the barista said.

“Your break doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes,” Milena countered, whipping around with fire in her eyes.

I grinned.

It took a lot for Milena to get mad.

She was, by far, the most even-tempered Semyonov.

---