Page 13 of The Barista's Beloved

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“You working late tonight?” Ben swallowed the last of his iced tea and pushed his empty glass toward Max. It was only three o’clock, but he was bored; he didn’t know how he’d make it to bed time without going insane. He’d been hoping to persuade Max to turn the restaurant over to his sous chef so they could grab some beers down at The Hut, a dive bar at the edge of town on the river.

Without looking up from what he was writing on the specials board, Max chuckled. “You could say that. I’m doing an overnight brisket for tomorrow’s dinner service.”

Ben groaned.

“What?” Max asked, his eyebrows pinched in concentration as he put the finishing touches on the fancy calligraphy announcing the meal.

“You were my last hope.”

Max finally looked up. “For what?”

“I need to get out of that apartment, man. I’m going crazy.”

Max looked at him like he’d spoken in Swahili. “So call up one of your friends.”

“Dude. You are my only friend.”

Max’s chin jerked back. “Seriously? You’ve lived in River Hill for like six months. You should have friends crawling out of the woodwork by now. You’ve always been Mr. Popular.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I’ve lived here for three months. And that was the old me. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.”

“By not meeting people?”

“No,” Ben answered. “By not hanging out with assholes and douchebags.”

Max set down the marker and leaned back against the counter, his legs crossed at his ankles and his arms over his chest. “What about Noah?”

Ben shook his head. “He’s out of town at some big wine competition. And no way am I hanging out with Angelica by myself. She frightens me.”

“I get that.” Max rubbed the bristles of his short, dark beard. “And you can’t call up Sean to go with you to The Hut. Aside from the whole not drinking thing, Big Mitch banned him.”

“What happened there?” The couple of times Ben had met Sean, he’d been pretty open about his sobriety, but no one had ever mentioned him doing anything that would have caused him to be banned from any of the town’s drinking establishments, let alone a dive like The Hut. While Ben had been tossed from one or two bars in his lifetime, he couldn’t imagine what you’d have to do to actually be banned from one. He imagined it had to be pretty terrible.

“Nothing.” Max waved his hand in front of his face as if the incident wasn’t worth discussing.

Which Ben didn’t suppose it was. Lord knew he wouldn’t want Max and Sean to be sitting around gossiping about him.

With that thought, his shoulders hunched in on themselves. “I guess that means it’s Chinese takeout and reruns of Law & Order.”

“You have to stop watching that show,” Max said, setting to work arranging the bar for the coming dinner rush. “It only makes you depressed.”

“You’d be depressed too,” Ben countered, “if you went from running your own kick-ass restaurant to watching episodes of Master Chef to get your fix.”

“Which is exactly why you need to stop watching it. You’re not a lawyer anymore.”

Ouch. Ben knew he hadn’t meant to sound so callous, but the barb hurt just the same as if it had been intentional. He knew what he was—and what he wasn’t. He didn’t need his oldest friend reminding him of it.

“What about Maeve?” Max asked, apropos of nothing.

Or at least Ben assumed the question was issued out of the blue, but then he smelled her perfume. Or maybe it was the scents of the distillery clinging to her hair and clothes. Whatever it was, it made his mouth water.

She hopped up onto the stool next to him. “What about Maeve?”

Max smiled and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the low fridge below the counter and then reached for a glass. When it was three-quarters of the way full, he topped it with a sprig of mint, popped in a straw, and passed it to Maeve. “You got plans tonight?”

“Nope,” she said, tucking the straw between pursed lips. “Why? You wanna hang out?”

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