Page 4 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
“You seem real sure of where I belong.”
“Well, I’m not confused about the concept of lining up and waiting my turn.”
All noise had ceased. The espresso machine wasn’t putting off puffs of steam, and the coffee grinder had stopped its whine. The baristas were openly staring, as were the customers.
But I wasright, damn it! He waswrong. You didn’t just cut in line when ten people were waiting. You justdidn’t. No matter how nice your jawline was.
To underscore that fact, I lifted my arm and pointed down the snaking line of people.
The person who’d been standing behind me, a silver-haired old man, cleared his throat and looked at the insufferable jerk trying to barge his way to the front of the line. The nice older man said, “You just go ahead of me here. I don’t mind.”
Scratch that. He wasn’t a nice old man at all! He was a noodle-spined enabler with no sense of right and wrong.
“Well, Idomind!” I planted my hands on my hips and glared at the two of them.
The line-cutter sidestepped neatly to block the older man from my gaze. He smiled at me, and it was pure challenge.
“I don’t have time for this,” I grumbled, and turned back to the counter. I took a deep breath and let it out in a gust, then said, “I’ll have a medium americano and a blueberry muffin. Please.”
Violet gave me a strained smile. “No problem. Um—” She gulped.
“Yes?”
“Well, our customers have been paying it forward for the past hour. Martha contributed five dollars to your order. You’ll be the hundred and eleventh person in the chain if you’d like to keep it going…”
I blinked at her, stiffening. I could practicallyfeelthe gaze of the jerk behind me boring into the back of my skull. Pulling out a twenty from my wallet, I smiled at the young lady currently looking at me like I might bite her head off.
“Tell you what, Violet, I’m going to put this in here,” I said, stuffing the twenty into the tip jar. “But it’ll be a cold day in hell before I pay for that guy’s coffee.” I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder. “I have this thing called principles.”
Violet looked at me. Then the tip jar. Then she glanced behind me. She nodded. “S-sure. Of course.” She lifted the takeout cup in one hand and a Sharpie in the other. Her smile must have been honed through years in customer service. “Your name?”
“Piper,” I said.
“Piper,” the man behind me mused. “Interesting.”
“Yeah?” I spat out as I whirled. “What’s so interesting about that?”
It wasn’t amusement in his gaze. It was pure condescension.Like I was such a silly little woman to stand up to him, a passing curiosity who’d had the audacity to annoy him this morning. He spread his hands and shrugged, and it only served to make my anger grow to unmanageable proportions.
“Say what you want to say, buddy,” I challenged.
“I don’t want to say anything.”
“Um, ma’am, would you like to buy a ticket to the Lovers Peak Charity Home Raffle? It’s?—”
“No,” I snapped, staring at the man, who arched his brows. A ripple went through the rest of the waiting customers, and I saw them begin to murmur to each other.
“You could win a house,” Violet said, her voice small. “It’s for the community center…”
One woman near the back of the line narrowed her eyes at me. Another woman frowned, pursing her lips.
Doubt began to trickle through me, piercing the veil of anger that had driven me so far.
Had I broken a social rule? I didn’t care about some raffle. But I’d been rude to the poor barista, who hadn’t deserved it.
“We believe in community in this town,” the jerk with the nice jaw said, disdain dripping from his words.
“I believe in community,” I insisted, my voice cracking.
