She didn’t look up at my snarky comment. “That was just for fun. A joke mostly.”
“Hmm. So, let’s say I hadn’t been there to pick you up. What was the plan? Go out and have him buy you drinks and then what?” I stared at her, willing her to meet my gaze. “Alesha, guys like that would have expectations.”
She threw her hands up, dropping the bow she’d been working on. “Oh my God. Carly, I’m not ten, okay? I know what guys want and what they so-called expect. That doesn’t mean I have to give it to them.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, but sometimes, you poke the wrong bear and it’s gonna come after you.”
She rolled her eyes and then went back to working on the box in front of her. “I’m not stupid, okay? It’s not like you’re Miss Innocent or something. You seem to think I didn’t know what you were up to back when you were in high school.”
My pulse jumped at her statement. She was right. I certainly hadn’t set the bar very high in the role model department. At least not in high school…or the following years for that matter. “Alesha,” I sighed. “I’m not trying to be prudish. If you’re having sex, that’s your business. I’m not going to tell you what’s right and wrong. I’m just saying that you have to be careful or you could end up getting hurt. That’s all I care about, okay?”
She shrugged, not meeting my stare.
We worked in awkward, thick silence for another handful of minutes before the bell on the door called her away to the front of the store. She’d learned everything there is to know about operations the previous summer—in between binge watching TV on my couch, shopping sprees with Dad’s emergencies only credit card, and the time she ran off to Santa Monica—and was actually a very talented barista. A quick study and she could charm the customers with ease.
I finished the boxes, silently lecturing myself for ruining the moment of peace we’d come to by butting into her sex life. If someone had tried to give me the same talk at seventeen, I’d have reacted in the same way. But that was the exact reason I was so desperate to get through to her. I had to stop her from making the same mistakes I had.
“Carly? Do we have any more chocolate chip scones back there?” Alesha called back into the kitchen.
“Yeah. I have another tray. I’ll bring it right up.”
I dusted my hands off and went to the bakery rack of fresh goodies I’d made the night before. It had been another long night while Alesha had slept off what she called jet lag—but what I suspected was more of a hangover—since her trip from Phoenix to LA was hardly likely to screw with her internal clock enough to need a second full night off. I couldn’t watch her full time and wasn’t sure where she got the booze since she hadn’t left the house since arriving but figured that searching her luggage would provide the answers.
Not that I was going to search her stuff. I wasn’t that girl.
And she was on paper thin ice as it was. So I figured she’d get herself in enough trouble without my help.
The next morning, peace had returned to the coffee shop, and to my surprise, Alesha had actually shown up before the shop opened, dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt bearing the shop logo, and her bob pulled back into a tiny ponytail, ready to work.
“You look great,” I told her, pushing the keys into the lock on the back door. “Did I wake you this morning?”
My house was a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath bungalow that I rented from the man who owned the only grocery store in town. The two bedrooms were on the upper level, each with their own bathroom, which left little opportunity for the two of us to cross paths in the morning routine. I hadn’t heard her moving around, but she must have been getting ready at the same time as I was.
“No,” she answered, shaking her head slightly. “Just couldn’t sleep. Figured I might as well get up and get on with the day.”
I smiled. “Okay. Well, you don’t have to stay all day. Thursday’s are usually slower than most days. So, if you want to duck out at noon and go hang out on the beach or something, that’d be okay.”
She nodded, not looking too enthused about my offer. But then neither of us had taken our first dose of caffeine yet, so I blamed her lackluster energy on that and set about getting a French press brewing for us to split.
When it was ready, I poured a cup for her and then went to the back to pull the cash drawer from the metal safe in my small, makeshift office that was so overrun with supplies—it was more of a closet.