PROLOGUE
Maeve
My wedding dress is on fire. Literally going down in flames—while I’m still wearing it. My husband-to-be is trying to put the flames out with no luck because this monstrosity has a trizillion layers glued together for dear life. The diamonds on my corset are heavy. It’s laced too tight. The air is sparse.
When my unfortunate groom sees he can’t do anything to help me, he grabs me by my waist and throws me into the ocean.
A second ago, I was a torch. And now, I’m a float. With a fluff of flaming tulle layers over my ass.
Yep, that’s me.
You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this place?Well, let’s see.
1
Maeve
“Watch out!” my coworker Ben cries out, smacking into me right when I’m rounding the corner with a venti iced coffee. Without a lid on. The whole thing topples backward. Right onto my chest, to be precise.
“Mae!” Ben groans, stepping aside and trying to save his white shoes from the puddle on the floor. “Be careful.”
“You ran into me. Literally ran, Ben.” I’m nearly growling from the unfairness of the situation.
“I need to grab oat milk. Sorry.” He rushes to the pantry at the back, leaving me soaked with the brown liquid. It was an iced latte with whole milk. In an hour, I’ll start smelling like a rotten fridge, and the shift just started.
“Mae!” my boss, Jerome, yells from the front. “Hurry up!”
It’s seven thirty in the morning, and the line of customers has already extended out the door. It’s only Ben and I here today. Well, plus our boss. Our very useless boss. He’s notreally helping other than yelling at us to hurry up. This crowd on business days is usually served by at least six people. Being located on the ground floor of a giant office building, our early mornings are hectic to say the least. So I don’t know how we ended up here with just the two of us and Jerome.
I grab a towel from the counter and start trying to dry myself the best I can under the circumstances.
“Mae!”
Cool your horses, I nearly yell back with an eye roll, walking up to the counter. “Here.”
“What happened to you?” My boss’s eyes drop to my drenched used-to-be-white shirt that I embroidered myself only last week and then go up to my hair, which is dyed a soft pink and pinned up tightly.
I have a job interview at twelve, so I don’t want my hair looking a mess when I burst into one of the offices of this very same building. I’m tired of being yelled at, so I’m ready to move on. Orupas one might say. I am that one.
“You can’t serve people like that,” Jerome announces in a squeak. “Get an apron and cover that mess.”
Igentlypush him away from the register because he’s just standing here without actually doing anything. You’d think he could take orders at least to make things move faster, but no. It’s not like it’s his business or something.
“Tough morning?” a smiling man with the most stylish outfit I’ve ever seen asks. He’s been here every morning, picking up two coffees, since the moment I started working here. He’s always been friendly. Not overly chatty, but also not a rude office rat like the majority of people here in the mornings.
“You could say that,” I sigh back, side-eyeing Jerome who’s now going after Ben. “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll take two black coffees and—” He pausesand tilts his head to the side, giggling a little. “You know what.” He snaps his fingers as if he just came up with a brilliant idea. “Today, I’ll take just one black coffee with two creams. Thank you, dear.”
I ring up his order and run to get his coffee. Under the watchful eye of our boss, of course. He’s here to make sure we don’t slack off.
The stylish man takes his coffee and whisks away, wishing me ‘Good luck.’
Fifteen minutes later, the line is not shorter. Not even by a person. My shirt is even wetter from running around like I’ve been bee-stung in my ass. A few strands of my sweaty hair have popped out from my strategically pinned updo, so I’m sure I won’t be looking good during my interview. Jerome is yelling even louder without offering any help. Ben is about to have a mental breakdown after fetching ten boxes of oat milk in the span of five minutes. The crowd grows aggravated. My hands shake more and more. Ben starts sniffling. Jerome yells louder. My eye starts twitching.
I’m moving on autopilot, taking orders, making coffee, trying to smile. Soon, my smile doesn’t dissolve because my facial muscles just get stuck in this position, and I’m sure I look like part of the cast of a horror movie.
“Coffee. Black.” Comes a low voice, gruff and raspy. It’s not loud per se but loud enough to drown the whole cacophony of sounds in the room. “Now,” he adds when I don’t react fast enough and jump to fulfill his order.
