Page 13 of Average Joe

“Why’d you run out the other morning?”

Her left shoulder raised, then dropped. “I woke up in a strange bed, next to a man I just met. That’s not me. I can’t afford to be so careless.”

I couldn’t resist. “So our hookup was a one-time thing?”

Marley didn’t answer, just walked away. I watched her leave, silently begging her to stay, have coffee, have a good fuck, hell, just sit together in silence. She slammed the door behind her, but then, as I was about to head upstairs, the door cracked open, her arm poked through, and she dropped my towel on the floor.

Marley

I dropped the dirty towel in the sink, cracked open the window, and handed the customer his soy latte with an extra sweet smile. The blue hybrid rolled away, quiet and unassuming. Prius guy was my first customer every morning, never flirted or initiated a conversation, always ordered a grande soy milk latte. He said “please” and “thank you” and never stared at my chest. My favorite type of customer.

Ridiculous, I know, considering I owned three “bikini barista” stands. Pink Sweets was my baby—a chance I’d taken years ago that had paid off better than I’d ever imagined.

Lilly’s army green Charger pulled into the lot, the ever-presentboom, boom, boomvibrating the shop windows.

Moments later she bounced in the door, wearing combat boots, a leather bustier, and a tartan-plaid cheeky skirt. “Wassup, girlie?”

“Same ol’ same ol’,” I replied, readjusting my bikini top.

Lilly stood an inch taller than me. Blonde hair dyed black, heavy eyeliner, lips that put Angelina Jolie to shame, and a body so tight she looked like a CG rendering. The girl never stood still, ate like a horse, and brought in more tips than all of my employees put together.

The other girls suspected she offered more to the customers than sexy coffee, but they were wrong. Lilly just knew how to work a person. Any age, shape, sex, or size. Any proclivities.

She hung her handbag in the small closet and turned to face me. “You look like shit. Rough night?”

Rough week. “Yeah, didn’t sleep much.”

Her face softened. “How ya holding up?”

I bit my lip to hide the quiver. “Gonna miss that old coot.”

“She loved the shit outta you,” she whispered, pulling me into her arms, soothing me with a vanilla-scented embrace.

“God, I loved her, too. I still can’t believe she’s gone.” I broke the hug and turned to wipe down the nozzles on my espresso machine.

Lilly shrieked behind me. “Boss, what happened to you?”

Uh-oh. The evidence of my latest poor decision had mostly faded, but blemishes were hard to hide when you were nearly naked. “Nothing. Why?”

“Don’t you nothing me. I see those bruises. Was it that Jackson asshole?” She grabbed her handbag and rifled through. “Where’s my phone? I’m calling Marco. He’ll set that fucker straight.”

Bless Lilly’s heart; she always had my back. Marco, her boyfriend, a retired military badass, acted the overzealous big brother, threatening to take anyone down who wronged Lilly or any of her friends. I loved the guy to death.

“It wasn’t Jackson.” I plucked the cell from her fingers. “Ended things with him weeks ago—the day I discovered he was a dealer.” Our tiff had turned violent, but I smiled, remembering the black eye I’d given him in exchange for my fat lip. Hadn’t seen him since. Probably wasn’t used to girls who fought back. The only good thing I learned from my father was how to throw a punch, and that skill had come in handy more times than I cared to count.

“Oh.” She leaned closer, studying my face, probably for signs of deception, then turned to the mirror, Chanel lipstick tube in hand, seemingly appeased. “So? Spill it.”

“Nothing to spill. I had too much to drink the other night. Woke with bruises.” Not a lie. All the dirty bits that happened between drinking and waking were fresh in my mind, but those memories would stay locked up tight. “I’m really embarrassed, so if you could stop probing, that would be awesome.”

“Liar. You never drink alone, and none of your friends would’ve let you get sloshed enough to hurt yourself.” She turned around, perfect brow arched high, and capped her lipstick. “So, either you’re street fighting on the side, or you spent the evening being slammed into all manners of surfaces.” She grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. “Judging by the placement of those scratches, I’d say a couple walls and a hard floor—not wood, though, maybe tile. Oh, shit. You were pinned into a corner. Yep. That’s where those came from.” She brushed a finger over my shoulder blade, then palmed my left butt cheek. “And the fucker held your ass. Look at the size of those handprints. How big was he? Six-two, six-three?”

The time had come to retire my skimpy duds and concede to running the show from behind the scenes. Leave the flaunting and flirting to the younger girls with supple skin that didn’t take weeks to heal.

“Shut up.” I shrugged away and pretended to search for something in the cupboard.

“Was he hung?”

Cheeks unbearably hot, I whined, “Stop.”

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