Page 29 of Brewbies
In the real-life version, the buck had bounded off, its white flag of a tail held up like a stiff middle finger, completely ignorant of the damage both Darby and her beloved bike had sustained.
Darby made herself focus on the heartbreaking image of twisted metal and the lingering throb of her wounds instead of the memory of Ethan’s deft and tender fingers on her knee as he’d dressed them.
Instead of the awkward, shearing kiss she’d planted on his stony jaw when he deliberately turned his head.
Her lips still stung with the ghost of his eight o’clock stubble, the sensitive skin imprinted with the memory of about 1000psi of tension in the muscles bunched beneath it.
The rejection stung as much as the paper spread out on the seashell-pink 1950s metallic-flecked Formica tabletop before her.
The official order allowing her exactly six days before the county intended to shut her down.
Six days until Sheriff Townsend would force her to close her service window and shut down her espresso grinder. Reaching for her mug, she took a sip of double espresso, a brew as black as her mood.
Knowing she had allies in Cady, Gemma, Myrtle, and Vee was a comfort, but not a cure.
Taking a deep breath, Darby smoothed out the creases in the copy of the order Gemma had sourced, since Darby had torn up the last one and tossed it at Townsend Harbor’s sheriff like so much confetti.
She’d stared at the text until her eyes were in imminent danger of going crossed, reading and rereading the legalese for even the tiniest of loopholes. As Tony Two Toes, dear friend of the infamous Kelly family whom she’d rented her coffee shop from, had taught her to do.
…sexually inappropriate business… shall refrain from selling…
Her gaze snagged on a word and doubled back.
Selling.
Selling.
Sheriff Townsend might be able to stop her from selling her coffee, but he couldn’t stop her from giving it away.
A deluge of ideas rushed into her mind on a tidal wave of caffeine-driven inspiration. Darby reached for a notebook and began furiously scratching them down.
Item one: Name??? Carnival for the Cure. Benefit for the Boobs.
Item two: Action Plan
Next six days: business as usual. Send strippergram to sheriff’s office?
Reach out to performer friends: Ben Dova(her hyperflexible contortionist/tax guy), Mary Anette(her former yoga teacher/body suspension artist), Gabe “the Babe” Kelly(kid next door/ex-con turned carnival worker who could erect a Ferris wheel faster than shit through a goose), Miss Malicious(sideshow stage manager and pet sitter extraordinaire), et al.
Mobilize Zoomers — Sex-positive TikTok? FetishTok? BookTok? CoffeeTok?
Raise shit-ton of cash
Fuck Ethan Townsend
Realizing this could be taken several ways, Darby scrawled in an addendum:in the strictly karmic sense.
Satisfied, she set down her pen and scooted out of the booth to rinse her coffee cup and fill her pale pink watering can at the sink in her kitchen cubby.
The hollow sound of the water climbing up the sides lowered her blood pressure by several points.
Let Ethan think he’d won.
Then, the morning after he’d triumphantly driven off into the sunset in his county-issued SUV, she’d wait for word of the circus to reach him.
Imagining the look on his face when that same SUV crunched back up the crushed-shell-lined circular drive before her camper sent a little flutter rippling through Darby’s middle.
Ethan would fix that icy glare on her through a windshield even bugs wouldn’t dare sully by dashing their tiny brains out mid-flight. His angular lips set in a scowl, the muscles of his stony jaw flexing as he clenched his teeth against words she knew him perfectly capable of saying, given the right provocation.
