Page 12 of That Thing You Brew
“Stitch-es! Stitch-es!” chanted the crowd.
“You did that on purpose.” I lifted a brow.
“You pranked my brother.” She shrugged but mouthed silently,Keep doing it!
I laughed. “It’s all in good fun.”
Bailey grinned. “We all know how superstitious you are. Your fans want to know what’s going to happen with your toffee coffee when the Bevvie Bar officially changes their products over.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she didn’t give me a chance.
“I have a reliable source that claims your barista has personally ordered a substantial supply of the special light roast the Bevvie Bar served so that she can continue to make your coffee exactly the way she’s been doing it for the past three years.”
Now both my eyebrows were raised. Penny had done that for me?
If that was true, I owed her big.
Bailey asked me a few questions about my goal and partnering with ChaCha, then I headed back into the tunnel.
We didn’t have a game tomorrow, and I planned to go straight to the Bevvie Bar before practice, if Penny was working or able to meet. I wanted to make a date—er, time?—to help her with her speaking.
We won 5-3. I scored another goal, further proving to the fans that Penny’s coffee was magic.
But deep down, I knew it wasn’t the coffee.
It was the barista.Mybarista, Bailey had called her.
I liked the sound of that.
CHAPTER4
Penny
Ihad every intention of watching the Edge game when I got home from work, but the excitement of the day had drained me. After a long hot shower, I curled up under the covers to read with a microwaved mug of soup and my tablet. Tasha would be home late after coaching her cheer teams, and I hoped to be asleep before she walked in.
First, though, I needed to see if the Edge won. I tapped the Instagram icon and typed @denveredgehockey into the search bar. A reel popped up of a puck sailing through the air and hitting a player in the face. The player dropped, grabbing onto the ledge in front of the bench. It was captioned, “Puck stop of the night.”
I started to laugh, but then I realized it was Xavier. I scrolled in haste, looking for confirmation that he was okay, and let out a sigh of relief when I read that he not only was okay but that he’d scored two goals and the team won.
A headline from the sports channel caught my eye. “Schwann’s At-Home Goal Streak Continues as Barista Orders Years’ Worth of Special Coffee.”
What?How could they know that? I scanned the article and watched his interview with Bailey. She’d been in the Bevvie Bar Christmas Eve morning chatting with Tasha. But why would my sister tell her that?
I watched Adri Delicata’s interviews with Jason and Xavier and groaned at my own awkwardness. More headlines. “Is Swanny Sweet on His Barista?” and “Barista Is Schwann’s Lucky Penny.”
Oh, my.
And—if only.
I remembered wanting to message him earlier. Now I was glad I hadn’t. Who knew who had access to his phone or social media?
I pulled up his timeline. He’d taken a selfie of his bandaged face. “Hazard of the job,” he’d captioned it. “Six zips.”
Hockey lingo. It made me smile. They had their own word or nickname for everything. Warmups were warmies, the puck was an apple, a goal up high in the net was top shelf, helmets were buckets, gloves were mittens, their hair was lettuce, and the goalie’s pads were pillows. The list was endless.
A notification popped up over my message icon. I tapped it, and my eyes widened. It was from Xavier. He’d never messaged me before.
Hi. Sorry about today’s madness. Are you free tomorrow?
