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“Don’t say a word,” Deanna says bitterly. “Not one word.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
When the milk is finished steaming, Deanna pours it inside each cup then adds an extra shake of sea salt. Her jaw begins to twitch, thinking how sugary sweet these are going to taste.
Instead of calling Don’s name out, she makes her way over to the table he’s sitting at and plops the two cups down in front of him and the woman. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, I think we’re good.” Don cuts his eyes at her then shift his attention to the steaming cups in front of him.
“I take it you know him?” Marilyn asks and tosses a towel at her so she can dry her hands.
“Unfortunately.”
“I want to see the look on his face when he takes his first sip, but then again I don’t. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep from laughing.”
“Ms. Deanna?” Noah interrupts. “This milk smells funny. It was in the front of the cooler.”
Deanna takes the plastic jug from Noah and brings it to her nose. “Ugh, this is nasty,” she says and sets it down on the counter.
“Yeah, I didn’t think I should use it until I asked one of you about it.”
“Did you just pull this out of the cooler?” Deanna asks.
“It was right there in the front.”
Deanna slides the jug back so she can examine the label. Sure enough, it was expired. How the heck had expired milk ended up in the cooler? Had Gavin dropped it off without her knowing?
“Marilyn, did you see Gavin?”
Marilyn screws the cap back onto the bottle of chocolate syrup then looks over at her. “I thought you saw him.”
“I was…oh, never mind.” It had taken all she could not to lose her temper when Don was at the counter, so it made sense she’d missed seeing Gavin bring the milk to the front like he’d said he would do. But why had he put spoiled milk in the cooler and not fresh? Had he done it on purpose? Had he seen her talking to Don and assumed something was going on?
“This is awful!”
Deanna looks up just as Don slams the two cups of caramel hot chocolate down on the counter. Thank goodness Marilyn steps up to handle it. If she had to look at Don for a minute longer, she might pull her hair out.
“Let Marilyn know I’ll be in the back,” she tells Noah and slips from behind the counter.
In the meantime, she closes her office door and plops down in her chair. Lowering her head into her hands, she sighs. What a day!
When her heartrate is finally back to normal, she boots up her computer and checks for any new emails. Seeing that one from her corporate office is marked as urgent, she opens it and quickly scans through the message.
“Wait. What?” she says to herself. “Mix-up?” She thought they had worked things out with the local milk company, but apparently, she was mistaken. From the way things sound, it’s going to ship through corporate after all, like the way it was supposed to be done originally.
With her phone in her hand to call Gavin, she looks up when Marilyn barges into the office.
“Girl, we got problems.”
“What’s wrong? Please tell me we don’t have another complaint.” Deanna is almost afraid to hear what Marilyn has to say.
“The milk that we just got. It’s all bad.”
“Oh, no! All of it?” Deanna stands up from her computer the same time a notification alerts her that she has an incoming email.
“Well, there’s one crate with fresh dates, but the rest of it is bad. I’m sure it was delivered by accident, but—”
“I’m getting to the bottom of this right now!” she exclaims.
