Look but Don't Choke

Chapter 3

           All next morning was a blur. And as much as I wanted to stay in bed, believe you me I was practically welded under the covers, I have a business to run so I pulled myself out of a beautifully dead sleep and into my shower.

            I half combed my hair, pulling it back into a careless ponytail, and threw on a pair of flats. Looking in the mirror, I groaned. My hair was lumpy in places I couldn’t be troubled to comb, and my face looked tired and I had zero intention of bothering with make-up today. I looked like hell, but fuck it, everybody has an off day.

            When I opened my empty fridge I was greeted by the brain zapping hum and an otherwise empty shelf. Not like I could eat anything anyway, but something is massively depressing about a bare refrigerator. I chugged about ten thousand gallons of water in a sorry attempt to cure my overly dry mouth, but it looked like I’d blow a kidney before I got any relief so I quit while I was ahead.

            I am never drinking again. I’m serious this time.

            I dumped all the stuff I’d put inside the cute clutch I was carrying at the wedding back into my usual purse. What the—where’d this fifty dollar bill come from? I didn’t have this yesterday…whatever.

            Business calls, so I pulled my shit together as best I could, trudged out of my apartment and into my blindingly yellow Mustang (aptly named Doulas), and drove the fifteen minutes it takes to get to my pride and joy (and pain), Taste Teas.

            The North side of the city was a ‘hip’ part of town that was known for its small friendly businesses that catered to the sentiments of the young and often pretentious. The three shop strip my tea shop sat nestled in was nicknamed ‘The Trendy Trifecta’ because our shops all conformed to fairly current ways of thinking. Complex coffees, new age fitness trends, and body modification art.

            And of course we owners were infamous for our shared love of alliteration.

            I pulled my car in the lot behind the building and dragged my weary body from behind the steering wheel. I stumbled forward a bit, cursing when I dropped my purse and scattered the contents on the concrete.

            Why on Earth did I go into the coffee business? I should have gone into something where the bulk of the customer base showed up in the afternoon. Then I could sleep in.

            Yuna rode up on her bike, her vegan lunch pack sticking out of the woven basket, and parked it at the bike rack. By the time I pulled myself together—again, she and Tadd were standing together near the dumpster at the back of Prick Pros.

            Yuna was wearing her usual attire; Florissant purple spandex pants and a black tank top that showed off her impressive abs; a gym bag was slung over her shoulder. Tadd’s most noticeable quality, of course, was the barbell piercing that went through the bridge of his nose and continued in a line of studs that forked into his brows. His body was littered with tattoos that covered almost every available area of skin, except for his face.

            “We should call animal services,” Tadd said. “That mangy thing probably has fleas.”

            “We are all creatures of Mother Earth, Tadd. This animal has as much a right to be here as we do.” Yuna said, exaggerating her words with animated hands movements.

            “Uh huh. If we leave it here, it’ll probably have kittens under the stoop. Then it’ll be an infestation!”

            “That’s quite impossible.”