Page 47 of I Can't Even

“And you like it?”

“Oh, yeah, Liam’s great about letting me work around my school schedule.”

“So, he’s a pretty good boss?” I asked.

“The best,” she said. “We get Christmas bonuses and everything. My dad says no one does that anymore.”

“Yeah, that is pretty cool,” I said.

Having never gotten a Christmas bonus from any of my clients, I had to agree. But now I wasn’t sure how to segue into talking about her boss’s personal life. I didn’t want to make it weird but I had no idea how else to find out if his girlfriend really existed.

“He even lets us study on the job during finals,” Rachel said. “How many bosses let you do that?”

“None that I know of.” Then I had an idea. It wasn’t nice of me to cause her a panic but I considered it collateral damage. “Do you think that will change after he gets married?”

“What? Married! Liam?” The barista gaped at me. “How do you know this?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” I asked. Truly, I can play dumb like nobody’s business. “Huh. Liam is my neighbor and when I bumped into him a few days ago, we got to talking.” Yes, this was the G-rated version of our encounter. “He was pretty stoked about this chick he’s seeing and how they’re getting married and all. He made it sound like she’s the love of his life.”

“What? No!” Rachel looked horrified.

I had a horrible moment of doubt where I thought maybe she had a crush on him, and I had just squashed her hopes and dreams. That would have made me feel awful but thankfully, no, that wasn’t it.

“Simone!” Rachel turned and yelled at the tall, thin girl with dark eyes and deep brown skin, who was half hidden behind the coffee machine, making my flat white. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Simone asked. I leaned over the counter to see her frowning at the machine which was making a loud hum.

“Liam is going to marry her!” Rachel’s eyes were huge and the look of repulsion on her face was one usually reserved for zombie movies.

Uh oh. My stomach clenched. The girlfriend was real and judging by Rachel’s reaction not well liked. My heart thumped like a deflated basketball in my chest. Somehow, I had convinced myself that the girlfriend wasn’t real. The realization that there really was someone else made me feel a bit hurly.

“No, way!” Simone glanced up from the machine and saw me. “Oh, hi, Julia. I’m almost done.”

“Take your time,” I said.

Simone turned back to Rachel. “Where did you hear this?”

“From Julia,” Rachel said.

I raised my hand. “Me.”

Simone gave me a stunned look and finished making the flat white and then joined us at the counter.

“When did he say that?” Simone pushed the coffee toward me.

“A few days ago, maybe last week? We’re neighbors and we got to talking and he said he had a serious girlfriend, and was going to propose soon.”

The two girls exchanged grim looks.

“Ugh, that explains so much,” Simone said. “He’s been so weird lately.”

“Weird?” I prompted. I took my coffee and handed my debit card to Rachel.

“Way weird,” Rachel confirmed as she totaled my order then swiped my card. “He’s constantly late, he’s always moody, he’s been forgetting stuff, totally not himself. I mean, I used to be able to set my watch by him and he was always smiling, now he’s just a hot mess and all kinds of cranky.”

“Totally,” Simone agreed. “He even got all aggro with Todd the other day. Liam is never aggro and how can you even with Todd? It’d be like kicking a puppy.”

“I can’t believe it,” Rachel said. “She’s so...and he’s...and...oh, man, this could ruin everything, like, what if she’s here all the time or tries to have input on the shop?”

---