WARNINGS: RATED E for mentions of domestic abuse, character death, mild language to include racial slurs, an obscene love affair with coffee, and explicit sexual content.
This piece was loving crafted for my dear friend and beta, PBJ, to celebrate her birthday. It's based on a book I recently read and immediately had to Everlark because...well you'll see. The book is Jed Had to Die by Tara Sevic. I am neither Tara Sevic nor Suzanne Collins and thus technically do not own the basic storyline or the characters. This is pure fun. Also, it's multi-chapter but they will be significantly shorter that my chapters usually are. Enjoy! Love you, PBJ! 3
There are few things a woman wouldn't do for her one true love in this life. Maim, murder, wreck, and ruin. Because we all know that your one true love is reserved for that singular soul who inspires your heart and then protects it. Strong, dependable, forgiving, amazing. These are the qualities that garner affection. Especially at times when your love reliably comes through to rescue you from a horrible day. Enter Theo.
"I love you more than anything, my darling, my one true love. You've never let me down. I am hopeless without you." I tighten my arms and rub my cheek lovingly against him, ignoring the slam of the counter that alerts me to Johanna's arrival. I'm not ready to let Theo go just yet.
"What are things Katniss Everdeen would never say to something with red blood cells, Alex?" she says as she drops her bag behind the counter and tosses back what must be the last sip of her morning coffee in a tumbler. She unscrews the lid and thrusts the dark green mug towards me. "Hit me."
"You have terrible timing," I mutter. "Why do I put up with you again?"
"Because no one else understands your love affair with Theo. Now hit me before I murder Paul over there," she cants her head to the side towards one of our regulars as he sips his coffee.
"Don't mind me," he says in bliss. "If I go now, I go happy."
With a reluctant sigh, I uncurl my arms and hold Theo towards her to pour steaming, delicious French Press coffee from his belly into Johanna's mug. "You're just lucky that I'm willing to share him with you."
"And I will be forever loyal to you for it," she says as she cradles the mug under her nose and inhales deeply. "Ah, Theo never disappoints."
I roll my eyes at her and turn back towards our espresso machine to get the next batch started. The morning rush will start in a few minutes. Although I can't argue with her over Theo's magnificence. Theo would be my Stelton Theo French Press, my favorite that I own. Actually, I own two of him. One for home and one to keep at my business, Daily Fix, which is the result of one flight from a podunk town in West Virginia, four years of robotic dedication to college, and six more years of sweat and tears and kissing up to investors that I'd rather choke with my bare hands. It all paid off, though. I escaped the hell-hole existence of being someone's obedient old lady in my backwards hometown and instead am now living a good life peddling liquid stimulants to people as dependant on them as Johanna and myself.
I focus on brewing the espresso as Johanna converses with another one of our customers. The conversation is short and simple before she moves on to the next one. It's the heart of what Daily Fix is, not a swanky cafe where poor college kids who know next to nothing about coffee schmooze customers and burn the grounds just so they can afford their overpriced tuition while people pretend they have some sense of togetherness. Daily fix doesn't have eight person tables and outlets for every electronic device imaginable. It's a place for people who want their fix and five minutes of peace to enjoy it before they move on with their lives. We are not a lingering sort of joint, which suits me fine because I've never been sociable. I mean, I set the tone of my place with the names of our sizes. None of this fancy Italian stuff but something to get the point across on how bad it is. Morning Fix, Nervous Twitch, Pounding Cranium, and Heads Will Roll. Simple. Effective.
Our mutual love for Theo is one of the many things that just makes Johanna and I work. At first, I wasn't sure we'd click. When she entered my makeshift office while Daily Fix was still just a fledgling, and I was looking for a manager to help me get the first location off the ground, I didn't know what to make of her. She stomped around in scuffed up black combat boots, wore a blue plaid skirt short enough to make a matron sweat, and a huge gray sweater that almost made the skirt superfluous. Giant gold hoops in her ears and gold bangles clanking around her wrists. A pair of hot pink, heart shaped sunglasses hiding her eyes. While she sometimes oils her short hair into fierce spikes, that day she'd left it natural, and I had to remind myself it'd be rude to fluff it like she was some kind of sheep. Besides, I'm pretty sure she would've bitten me and proved herself to be a wolf had I even tried.
Still, she was the only person I interviewed that day who didn't insist she wasn't addicted to coffee and focused solely on their credentials to manage a store. I'd been looking for someone who would at least be as passionate about the product as they were about the money. Johanna held up one finger, interrupting me as I asked my first question so she could chug down a massive tumbler of the dark brew. After she'd finished drinking, she smacked her lips in satisfaction, removed her sunglasses, smiled at me, and told me to proceed. She terrifies and annoys the hell out me and I would never have made it this far if it weren't for her.
"Kat!" she calls out, and I look over to see that she's currently serving a man who I'd rather punch than serve coffee to right now. Johanna smirks, though, and leaves me alone with him.
"Hey, Kat, babe. I'm gonna need two Nervous Twitch Cappuccinos and one Pounding Cranium dark roast to go. Oh and you never called me back."
"Hi, David. Must've slipped my mind," I say as I ring up his total and mark the cups so Jo can start making his order. She snorts and I toss a scowl at her that does nothing.
"Aw, babe. No need to play coy," he says. "I know it's been awhile for you. You wanna skip preliminaries and go right for the main event, I'm all for women's lib. Hold on."
I glance at Johanna as he starts talking loudly on his phone. She rolls her eyes in solidarity with me and I glare at him. What I really want to do is kick him in the nuts, but I behave myself and settle for grabbing my Anyone caught working will have their coffee confiscated. No refunds! sign and slam it on the counter in front of him. He shrugs sheepishly and ends his call, but not before several of our customers give him disgruntled looks.
"I'll see you Friday, 'cuz I've got a great night planned for us. Thanks for the coffee, gorgeous," he takes his carry out tray from Johanna and I fume. The nerve of him, and worse, the fact that I actually agreed to go out on a date with him in the first place.
"It's called harassment, jerkoff! Shove that coffee up your ass for assuming I'd ever sleep with you! And my name is not 'babe!'" I hurl at his back, but the door to the shop has already closed. I growl under my breath and slam my hands on the counter in frustration.
"Beautiful, babe. But maybe next time, say it to his face?" Johanna suggests. I grab the nearest dish towel and whip it towards her rear, but she scampers away in time to avoid the hit.
"You're not helping," I say, and Johanna raises her eyebrow.
"Oh now I know you're pissed. Your accent always rears it's hicksville head when you lose your cool," Johanna says. I groan and flop down on the counter. Johanna awkwardly rubs my back while I make disgruntled noises. "Why'd you even agree to the first date if you hate him so much?"
"Because I wanted him to leave me alone. I figured he'd lose interest after one shitty date," I moan. Johanna snorts again.
At first, David Marvel wasn't so bad. We talked business and numbers, while he got his coffee, even gave me a few decent tips for starting up other locations for Daily Fix that helped me put together a franchise proposal for my board of investors. We were fine as long we were just vague acquaintances.
Then he made a flippant comment that it was rare for him to meet an exotic beauty who also had business savvy. I wanted to punch him. Given my dad's heritage and my white as mayonnaise mother, comments like that aren't new to me, but they always piss me right the fuck off. For weeks after that, he dropped hints, attempted to flirt, and generally made me cringe. But clearly, my brilliant plan has backfired because he's too arrogant to realize that just because a woman is nice to him, it doesn't mean that she wants him.
Spoiler alert! That woman would be me.
"Is he the reason you were hugging Theo this morning?" Jo asks.
"No," I say, pulling myself together as another customer who is not David Marvel walks into our shop. "That was because the board didn't like my proposals for new locations. They want me to try a different model."
"What?" Jo asks and looks around at the worn, exposed brick walls, the windows with their chipped blue paint frames, the scuffed and repurposed barn wood floors, the mismatched armchairs and the rack of random coffee mugs. "Why mess with something that already works?"
"They said it worked for Philly but wouldn't stand a chance in New York or L.A. That I'm aiming too high."
"Fuck them," Johanna states quite eloquently and I smile despite myself. "Look if you wanna start up in one of those snotty cities, I say all we gotta do is market it to them the right way. Or they can shove their overpriced Starbucks right up their asses next to the sticks they already got up there."
"Somehow, I don't think the board will take that as an acceptable business plan."
We continue our work and it isn't until mid-morning that Jo brings it up again. "When do you meet with them next? Maybe Atlanta or Charleston would be better choices."
"Ugh, no," I say. "I don't want to go anywhere near a Southern, everyone's always in your business city. I left Twelve Willows for that reason."
"Really? 'Cuz your accent just cropped up again. Also, who the fuck named your town? It makes me think of an antebellum plantation with giant hoop skirts and bless her heart on everyone's tongue."
"You're not far off," I joke, but she's actually not even close. I grew up in a coal mining town. Well, it used to be. When the mines closed down and half the population left for greener pastures, the town was left with a lake and a couple dozen dusty streets lined with boarded up shops. There was never any wealth or sense of gentility. Just a hick town with everyone bored out of their wits to the point that gossip and booze were the primary form of entertainment. I haven't been back there in ten years and I never plan to return.
We shift over to the sink, donning gloves and scrubbing cups. Johanna hands me a turquoise one with brown swirls etched into the surface, the bottom painted with the words Marie's Curiosities - Yorktown, Virginia. I smile and rinse before setting it on the rack.
"When I told David about the board's thoughts, his first suggestion was for me to listen to them. To pick a uniform theme and purchase matching mugs for the new locations," I tell her.
"What?!" She screeches, clasping one with a multicolored mosaic print to her chest.
I know them all by heart, each of them lovingly collected from a small boutique shop in every location Johanna or I have visited, the prices haggled down with the help of my special brand of crack - I'm talking about coffee here - and the shop's name and location painted on the bottom by the owner. I started collecting them when I was fourteen and my Dad took me to North Dakota for a summer. I collected mugs at each stop along the way. Not for kitschy slogans or to advertise the places, but for the artistry that went into making each mug beautiful and unique, as comforting as the drinks entrusted within their ceramic walls.
By the time I was eighteen and raring to get out of Twelve Willows, I had an impressive collection. Jo loved it when I shyly told her about it and immediately began adding to it. The first one she brought back, with blazing neon stripes on it, came from Pittsburgh when she had to go to her little sister's wedding. We've been painstakingly collecting enough for our new franchise locations since I told her I was considering expanding. The mug Johanna is currently gripping like it will save her from David's asinine suggestion says Route 66 Odds and Ends - Albuquerque NM on the bottom.
"I change my mind. For just a second there I felt a tiny speck of pity for the Marvel. Now I want to kill him. Something awful like garrotting him. You know I have people who could help us make it look like an accident."
"You felt sorry for him?" I ask. Yeah, I know I should focus on the fact that my manager just suggested murder as a viable option, but really, I can't feel for the prick. He might even deserve it. You know, because his brand of harassment should totally be a capital offense.
"Only because you actually went on a date with him, Babe," she smirks and I scowl at her use of his unwanted pet name, "Instead of kicking him in the nuts. Wait...does he even have enough of a dick to make a kick to the junk worthwhile? Maybe a nipple twister would be better."
"I wouldn't know," I say and blush, turning my back to her because I really, REALLY, do not want to get into a sex discussion with Johanna.
Thankfully, Paul has returned to the register to get a Pounding Cranium to go. The phone rings and I answer while Johanna takes care of him. As the harsh twang I am all too familiar with fills my ears, the smile I'd just managed to get back on my face falls.
"Katniss Everdeen? My name is Jenny Ray, I'm a nurse at Panem County Memorial. We've got a patient here who listed you as her emergency contact. A Miss Margaret Undersee. We're gonna need you to come here as soon as possible."