Page 3 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

Chapter2

Tristan

Not far fromwhere I stood behind the counter, Nikki sat on one of my benches. I could see her taking obvious enjoyment in her order and it made me smile. The way she sat forward, peeling back layer after layer of the pastry, was adorable.

These days, it was difficult to talk to her. At first, I didn’t think she could keep hating me the way she did, but here we were. It almost made me regret buying this place from Uncle Henry.

It’d been four months of this. Four months of her coming in and buying from me as if I was just any barista instead of her former workmate and best friend of nine years. After she blew up at me that day, things devolved, and everything became stilted. Awkward.

I wasn’t helping the situation either. I already put my foot in my mouth this afternoon, like I had the day before, and the day before that. These stiff conversations were becoming a regular thing, a thing I expected these days. I didn’t want that, but if she was determined to hate me, what else could I do?

When Uncle Henry waved me over to meet his favorite barista all those years ago, as soon as I caught sight of Nikki’s slight five-foot-eight frame, I was instantly drawn to her. She had tawny brown hair, highlighted with strands of blonde that cascaded in gentle waves down her shoulders. As I stepped toward her, she turned her head, and her tanned olive skin highlighted those hazel, almond-shaped eyes.

She was stunning.

And when she smiled… all the noise in the coffee shop faded to a dull roar. From that day on, I did anything I could to see that smile.

Working side-by-side at Henry’s as baristas in New York became one of the best things I could’ve done with my life. Even if being her best friend and workmate meant I had to settle for small touches that hissed under my skin. It meant resisting the urge to push her against the wall of our backroom and run my hands along her curves. It meant choosing to flex my fingers and put all the tension between us into kneading dough for our shop pastries. It meant I had to wrench my eyes away from her lips before she caught me staring.

I survived years of working with her, never once letting her know how I felt because I knew her sole focus was passing the bar exam and becoming a lawyer. I kept telling myself I was lucky to get the pieces of her that I had, and one day the right time would come.

Then she graduated from law school and left us to work in a criminal defense firm, and my days at Henry’s turned gray by comparison, even with Uncle Henry for company.

Uncle Henry was everyone’s uncle; the kind of person who treated those he knew like family. A friend of my first-generation immigrant parents, Uncle Henry was half Lebanese, half Greek. His coffee shop reflected that. Once called Henry’s, stepping into his shop was like stepping into Athens.

It was homey. Authentic. Orange paneled walls and crimson benches with worn wooden tables. Surfaces lined with books, Lebanese tapestries, and replica ancient Greek earthenware. It was a kitsch museum of my own upbringing, so close to my Emi’s Lebanese dining room that it brought a bone-deep ache to my chest.

So after Nikki yelled at me, I questioned whether she was right. Was her initial reaction to what I did proof of a huge mistake?

Or was she just mad that I changed our favorite place into something she couldn’t recognize?

What Nikki said or thought shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. I bought this shop from Uncle Henry and turned it into Extra Shot for a reason. I bought it so I could financially support myself while making headway into my art career, and that’s what I should’ve been focusing on.

But the day Nikki came into my newly renovated shop, she found more than the black paint and gray benches offensive. She attacked my paintings. As soon as her tirade sank in that day, I was hit with a wave of doubt unlike any I’d felt before.

Were they bad? Was I a terrible artist? Was this a waste of my time? Were my paintings generic, like she said they were?

She had to know those paintings were mine, and we were friends. How could she have said those things unless they were true?

Was all of this, and this deal I made with Uncle Henry, a huge mistake?

On its own, this place was barely making enough to stay in the black. Lower Manhattan was expensive, and Uncle Henry’s regulars weren’t quite my regulars yet. Except Nikki, of course.

Despite how she felt about me and the changes I made, she came in every afternoon, sullen and moody, in her incredibly sexy array of tight pencil skirts and button-up blouses, and ordered her usual coffee and pastry. Then she would sit and devour the flaky treat with the kind of enjoyment that made my chest swell until it hurt.

I wish she didn’t hate me. I wish she’d tease and talk to me like she used to. I wish she’d let me touch her the way I needed to.

Lilly nudged me with her elbow as I handed over another cappuccino. I looked down at her and took in the smirk lifting her freckled cheeks, her green eyes shining.

“What?”

“You’re staring at Nikki again.” Her tone was teasing, and loud enough that my gaze shot up and flicked to her, then back at Lilly’s widening grin. Nikki hadn’t heard.

“Yeah, so?”

“You think she looks cute today, don’t you?”

I shook my head as she turned away and picked a blueberry muffin to warm up in our microwave.