But First, Coffee

by Sarah Darlington

  I untucked my shirt, flipping off the sound on my microphone box. Doug could go fuck himself. “I guess what I need to know . . . is that you didn’t hire me because you wanted to sleep with me.” I knew I was being blunt, but I had to just come out and say it.

  What was it about this woman? I couldn’t not be honest with her.

  “What?” she breathed into the phone.

  “I think that you’ve probably started to notice that I have deep issues with sex. Basically, I need to know that you hired me for me, and not for my dick.”

  God, I felt like such a fool saying all this.

  “Joe—” she said softly. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been attracted to you from the moment I met you. Hell, maybe even before that, when I only knew you on paper. But my business means the world to me. I wasn’t going to make a stupid decision based on some silly attraction. I meant what I said—I had a gut feeling about you and I went with it. I’m sorry, beyond that, when I let things go too far between us.”

  “No.” I left the construction site and started walking quickly toward my car. “Don’t be sorry about that. I’m not. I just needed to know there was more than attraction that motivated you to hire me. And I do now. Here’s what you need to do, Lana—are you outside?”

  “Yes . . ..”

  “Good. Don’t go back to your office. Go get in your car and start driving toward me.”

  “It’s a three-hour drive, Joe.” Her voice changed. It was a good change. One that let me know I could still physically affect her, even over the phone.

  “I know how far it is. I’m getting in my car now, too.” I yanked open my door as I spoke. “I’m heading in your direction. We’ll meet in the middle. Call Nancy—make something up. Say you forgot you had a hair appointment or whatever.”

  “Now you’re freaking me out just a little.”

  “Don’t be freaked out. You’re safe with me. I just need you to get to me first.”

  “Okay. Fine. I’ll come to you.”

  “Hey,” I said before she hung up. “Sorry I wasn’t myself on Friday. I’ll make up for that, I promise. See you soon.”

  I ended the call and tossed my phone into the cup holder. Then I clicked my microphone back on. “Please, I really do want this job. From now on I will run everything by you, I promise. If that’s what it takes to keep my job, I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever.” At this point I was making shit up, talking to no one but my empty car, hoping like hell Doug wouldn’t think too much of the two-minute break in the middle of the audio. If he questioned it, I’d blame it on sweat. I’d noticed if I got too sweaty, with the microphone right on my chest, it tended to have issues.

  “Thanks, Lana,” I still spoke. “Whatever you need from me you can have from me.”

  I was probably perpetuating the whole sexual harassment idea in Doug’s mind.

  Whatever. I stopped talking and starting driving. Trying to figure out what the hell I’d do with my microphone when I reached Lana in an hour and a half.

  Show her—I’d show her the microphone.

  That was what I planned to do.

  CHAPTER 19

  LANA

  Finally. I reached the exit and the motel Joe texted me to meet him at. A motel. I wasn’t sure how I felt about meeting at a motel. I wasn’t even sure what this was about. Sex? Something more? There had been an urgency in his voice that I felt I had to respond to. So I dropped everything and drove straight to him.

  I parked and stepped out of my car, leaning against it, waiting. My car was one of the only cars in the whole lot. I guess I’d beaten him here.

  A minute later another car pulled up next to mine. His car. My heart picked up speed as my heels crunched on the gravel. I walked around to meet him at his driver-side door, not sure what to expect. A dramatic embrace?

  Joe was slow to get out of his car, carefully opening his door. His eyes were wide, and he had his index finger pressed to his lips, telling me to be quiet.

  I looked around.

  We were completely alone. Nothing but the trees, the wind, and the hot summer sun.

  He started to immediately unbutton his shirt with one hand, while still holding a finger in place against his lips. I guess I wasn’t opposed to having another repeat of the garage sex, but I was still a little hurt by the way things went down last Friday.

  I was about to tell him to stop, when, as he exposed his chest, he exposed something else—a wire was taped in place. There was a small microphone on the top and the bottom went down into his pants.

  Okay?

  Now I was confused. And more than a little freaked out.

  He winced slightly as he pulled the wire and the tape off his chest. He then took the battery box out of his pants. A small red light was on, telling me it was recording. He took it and set it on the seat of his car. Then he gently closed the car door.

  After, he grabbed my hand and tugged me along, leading me quickly away from the recording device as if it were a bomb that might explode. He only spoke once we were several yards away on the opposite side of the motel parking lot.

  “Let me explain.”

  “You’re an FBI agent!” I guessed. “Oh my God. Undercover. On some secret mission. What does that have to do with me?”

  “I wish. No, I don’t work for any sort of law enforcement. Lana,” he held my face in his hands, staring at me with those intense eyes of his, “Doug Maddox hired me to spy on you.”

  “What?” I sucked in a breath, stepping backward out of his grasp. “Doug Maddox? What!”

  “I’ve been in his debt a really long time, and—”

  “What!”

  “And he’s been blackmailing me—”

  “That psycho! I knew when I saw him the other day it wasn’t just a coincidence.” I couldn’t even look Joe in the eyes anymore. I pulled my hands through my hair turning in a full circle, feeling sick to my stomach. I bent over, trying to catch my breath because I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Black spots clouded my vision. I felt like everything was swirling in circles around me. That was the last thing I remembered before my face hit gravel.

  * * *

  Blinking my eyes open, I found myself in Joe’s arms. We were still in the same parking lot, but on the sidewalk. Right away, I knew I’d fainted. Everything he’d told me came back in a rush. “No,” I said, fighting him off, standing up, brushing off my skirt. “No, you don’t get to touch me. You, with your stories of ADHD, alcoholism, and sex issues. Telling me all these crazy lies to get me to feel something for you, to get me to care, to get me to sleep with you. Is your name even Joe Coffee?”

  “Yes. My name is Joe Coffee. I have ADHD. I’m an alcoholic. I’m two years sober. My issues with sex are very real. Ninety-nine percent of everything I told you was the truth. I’m trying to tell you the other one-percent. I didn’t sleep with you because Doug told me to or used sex to manipulate you. I slept with you because I wanted to be with you. I still want to be with you. Come sit beside me. Please, Lana. You need to sit, you just fainted.”

  He looked so innocent staring up at me from the ground. But he’d seemed innocent enough before, too, and look how that turned out. “I won’t sit.”

  “Can you at least let me share my side of the story?”

  Oh, this was going to be good. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s hear it.” I threw my hands into the air.

  He took a breath. “It started a long time ago, in high school, when I first met Doug through his cousin Leo . . ..”

  I had a hard time concentrating as he talked about Doug. As he told me about a night he was attested for public intoxication and Doug bailed him out. Then as he went on about some sex tapes Kitty’s ex-boyfriend made and sold, and how Doug now had them. Meanwhile, this gritty, nasty feeling settled deep into my stomach.

  I trusted him wholeheartedly, and he betrayed me. The worst part was that some part of me wanted to forgive him because I still cared for him. And I knew first-hand how manipulative Doug Maddox could be when
he wanted something. What if Joe was simply a victim of Doug’s as well?

  “I have to go,” I said cutting Joe off before he could go into any more detail about Kitty’s sex tapes. None of what he said was an excuse for what he’d done to me. I needed to think. And I couldn’t do that right next to him.

  He stood to his feet, dusting off his hands. “Lana—”

  “I have to go.”

  His eyes were begging me to stay. “I need to know what to do next. I need to know you don’t hate me for this.”

  I shook my head. “But I do hate you, Joe. All of this sounds like your fucking problem, not mine. Doug can kiss my ass. You can kiss my ass. And you can tell him I said that the next time you see him.”

  “He doesn’t know I’m telling you anything. I want to keep him in the dark while we figure out how to get Kitty’s tapes back and how to keep your business safe. Because I think that’s what he really wants from you—he thinks you stole his idea for Java Beans.”

  I laughed, and then I started to walk toward my car. I was heated. That girl that cried over a boy last Friday—who the hell was she? I only saw red now. My blood boiled and burned. Of course, Joe turned out to be too good to be true. Some sexy, handsome, smart, funny guy with a cock like a Viking—and who happened to like me for me? Ha-freaking-ha. What a joke. My whole love-life was a joke. And this was just the latest stand-up comic.

  I yanked open my car door and jumped inside just as Joe came up beside my car. He stood there, watching me . . . letting me go.

  CHAPTER 20

  JOE

  She hated me.

  I stood in the empty motel parking lot and watched as Lana sped away like she couldn’t get away fast enough. With her gone, I couldn’t breathe.

  I stared up at the bright sky, running my hands through my hair, trying not to fall apart. But I knew I was moments away from collapsing.

  None of it mattered. I told her all the details about Doug. About Kitty. About the sex tapes. And it didn’t matter. It wasn’t even a matter of her not believing me—I think she believed every word I’d said, and still . . . she hated me for it.

  The walls were closing in and this familiar feeling started to creep over me. It started at my feet, rose through my body, covered my chest, then crawled up my neck—and it was fucking debilitating. It was a dangerous feeling, one I fought every day and managed to win. But there was no managing a pull of this magnitude. It was too damn strong.

  The motel I’d picked to meet her at—and, yes, I’d picked a motel in hopes that she’d fall into my arms after I told her the truth, letting me make sweet love to her gorgeous body for the rest of the afternoon while we devised a plan to get rid of Doug once and for all—had a bar across the street.

  The sign on the front said Joe’s Bar.

  What were the odds? It looked like a place I might get shot in, or jumped by a motorcycle gang at, but hell . . . a place with a name like that? It had to be a sign straight from God himself. Right? That, just this once, it was okay to have a drink.

  Really, I’d rather lose consciousness than continue to exist for another moment sober, feeling the full weight of Lana leaving me, and the pressure of still being under Doug’s control and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

  It was all too much.

  I guess, for me to hurt this much, it must mean that I loved Lana.

  I loved Lana.

  Imagine that. Imagine me, Joe Coffee, falling in love. It was crazy, stupid, and irrational. I’d barely known this woman a couple of weeks, and yet, I couldn’t deny it. So, before I did something really pathetic, like start trying to call her a half dozen times, or professing my love to her in a voicemail, I jogged across the street to Joe’s Bar.

  I went inside.

  One of the first rules for recovering alcoholics is to avoid the places or the settings where you know the temptation to drink will be the greatest. For example, a bar. I knew that and went inside the bar anyway.

  It would just be one drink.

  One night.

  I’d figure out Plan B in the morning.

  CHAPTER 21

  LANA

  “I haven’t heard from Joe,” Abe told me on Wednesday over the phone. “He left Monday around lunch time. Said he had to make a phone call. Then he never came back. He never showed yesterday. And now, today, his sister is here in Tacoma looking for him. She’s with me now. Says she wants to speak with you, if that’s okay.”

  “Jesus,” I breathed. “Okay.”

  The last two days since I left Joe hadn’t been easy. I’d bounced between anger and sadness. I’d also spent most of it working on submitting a Stalking Protection Order to the courts against Doug. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to submit one against Joe too. I was beyond mad at him, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that he too was a victim of Doug’s craziness.

  Abe must have given the phone to Kitty because the next thing I knew, she was shouting at me. “Do you know where he might be? Have you heard from him?”

  “Not since Monday.”

  “Monday! When on Monday?”

  “When he told me everything.”

  “Define everything.”

  “Like everything,” I gritted.

  “So all of this is your fault? Perfect. Thank you very much, Lana.”

  “My fault! You’re the one with the sex tapes that started this whole mess!” Talking to Kitty was frustrating and if I wasn’t slightly worried about Joe, I’d have already hung up on her.

  “Oh,” she answered, realizing she was wrong, “I guess you do know everything. Where are you? In your office? Do you know that Doug had Joe bug your office? I think he said he planted three different microphones in there somewhere. So don’t say anything else stupid that Doug might hear if you’re in your office.”

  I was in my office.

  Okay, I guess I didn’t know everything.

  My mouth dropped open and I glanced around. Holy shit. This whole time, everything single thing that had been said in my office, Doug had been listening to! My mind immediately went back to the day Joe had my skirt around my waist. The Post-it notes he’d written me! I thought he was being sweet, now I knew he was just being careful so Doug wouldn’t hear us.

  I pulled open the top drawer of my desk, taking out some of those notes I’d saved. Despite everything, I’d found it impossible to throw them away. I read over some of them now.

  Don’t panic. You’re safe.

  You’re my good day.

  You’re so fucking beautiful. You glow.

  If you’re not careful, I might fall in love with you.

  It was that last one that always got to me. I pocketed my notes, knowing that I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away, finding that I still needed to keep them.

  I stood from my desk and walked into my adjacent bathroom. Once inside, I turned on the water in hopes that the noise would help stifle anything I said.

  “I’m going to send you a pin of the location I last saw Joe,” I told Kitty. “Beyond that, I don’t know where he might be. Have you been staying in Tacoma this week at his hotel there? Or are you back in Portland?”

  “Here in Tacoma.”

  “Well, has anyone been to his house?”

  “Yes, I had Larry go over and check today. He wasn’t home. Short of calling Doug and asking him what he knows, I’m all out of ideas. He’s not answering his phone. He probably left it somewhere. And I’m stranded here. I don’t have a car since he has the car with him. Would you go to where you saw him last? Ask around there?”

  I’d last seen him next to a motel. It was entirely possible that he never left the motel.

  “Lana,” Kitty begged, “will you go there?”

  “Yes.” Did I really have another choice? I was worried too.

  “He’s been using or drinking. I know it. I can feel it. He wouldn’t ignore my phone calls if he was sober. Go to wherever you saw him last and start looking in nearby bars. That’s my best guess. Still send me
that pin because I’ll work on finding a car rental place. If you find him, and he’s not sober, be prepared for a different Joe. A very promiscuous Joe. I know something has been going on between you two, a relationship or whatever, just try not to hate him too much if you find him in some slut’s bed. Because, seriously, he’s either fucking or drinking right now. And he can’t really control himself once he starts down that road.”

  Oh dear God.

  I hoped Kitty wasn’t still standing next to Abe as she said all this. And my stomach—it felt like I’d just drank a gallon of battery acid. Not to mention that my hands were shaking. He’s either fucking or drinking right now.

  I left the office, got my car out of the garage, and started the hour and a half drive toward the motel I’d left Joe at on Monday.

  Lord help me if I found him in another girl’s bed.

  Lord help me if I didn’t.

  ***

  The moment I arrived at the motel parking lot, I knew Joe had never left. His car still sat in the exact same spot. I texted Kitty immediately to let her know he was close. Then, walking over to the motel’s check-in desk in the front building, I found the manager.

  “Can you tell me if someone named Joe Coffee is staying in one of your rooms? He’s a friend. He’s been missing for a couple of days. I last saw him here.”

  The guy smacked his lips together. “Can’t give out personal information. You want a room?” He stared blankly at me.

  “No, I don’t want a room. Have you seen him? That car.” I pointed out to the parking lot through the front window. “That’s his car.” It was the only car in the lot other than mine. I knew he was here somewhere.

  “Can’t give out personal information,” he repeated.

  “Yes, I heard you. I guess I’m going to have to go knock on individual doors. But you really could make this easier for me.”

  “Have fun, miss. Can’t stop you from knocking.”