One Bossy Dare

“You think this is a science. It’s not,” she says softly. “Brewing these drinks is art, even if it’s happening in your shiny corporate lab. I can’t just download my brain and pass it on. With someone else working on a key part of my recipe, I can’t know what needs altering until I taste it and send the notes. That’s a lot of extra steps.”

“Do you know what enterprise is?” I ask with a sigh.

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to lecture me, professor,” she says.

From the corner, Destiny covers her laugh with a hand. Barely.

My eyes flick to her and she flashes me an apologetic smile.

“It’s where art meets science. There have to be rules to the process—boundaries—or you’ll never make the same batch twice,” I say. “Also, it’s rather inefficient for one person to juggle five jobs instead of excelling at one.”

“So, you want to turn what’s basically a culinary art into an assembly line? And you wonder why your drinks are described as reliable?”

Damn her, I walked right into that one.

She looks at Destiny again. “Wanna go make some reliable, boring coffee for your dad?”

“Sure! Why not?” Destiny hops off the armrest of the sofa against the wall.

“You’re sure she won’t be in the way while you’re trying to work?” I call after them.

“Oh, she can’t be worse than the older Lancaster. She’s not jaded enough yet.” Then, like the honey-eyed badger she is, Eliza turns on her heels and walks out the door.

Destiny follows close behind her. I hear their fading voices, already chattering away about the seals she saw during lunch.

Jaded? That last comment irks me because it cuts too deep, even if Eliza Angelo can’t know it.

That settles it then.

I’ll show them I’m not so jaded I’m walled off to new ideas.

Even if it means the damn Badger Lady stealing my daughter and corrupting her with that attitude.

Destiny doesn’t talk much when we get home.

She just scarfs down her internet famous 'hot girl salad'—goddamn, do I hate that name—and goes to bed, leaving behind a familiar silence.

This house is so big she could sneak right out and I’d never hear her.

Over an hour later, after studying every high-end graham cracker in existence, I climb the stairs to her room and nudge her door open an inch.

She’s sleeping like a kitten, curled up in her bed, still hugging the same oversized bumblebee she’s had for ages. I brought it home from a coffee conference in Vietnam when she was two years old. She’s kept it through several moves and at least two professional mendings to keep it clean and shapely.

I watch as she turns over, fighting with her orthodontic headgear for a minute before she shoves it off without ever fully waking up.

“Love you, little bee,” I whisper.

There’s no denying she’ll always be the baby in my heart, even when I’m walking her down the aisle someday, giving her up to whatever idiot decides he wants to deal with a lifetime of my shit.

Her teeth grind loudly. She remembered the headgear, but not the night guard.

I slip inside and walk to her bathroom, wash my hands, and grab the night guard. I try to lay it on her bottom teeth without waking her up.

Easier said than done when she bites me.

She jerks up, rubbing her eyes when I yelp at her like she’s a mouthing puppy nipping my hand.

“Dad? What are you doing?”

“I could hear you grinding your teeth a mile away. Wear your night guard, baby girl, or we’re going to have to go the dental implant route before you graduate high school.”

“Fiiine. I will, now go away.”

I hand her the night guard I couldn’t get in her mouth. She pops it in and falls back on the pillow like her head weighs a hundred pounds. She’s snoring before I even make it out of the room, gently shutting her door behind me.

All she said to me was go away. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment because it doesn’t make me love her any less.

In fact, I expect her crap. I relish it.

What the hell will I do when this kid moves away for the real world?

Maybe I agreed to let her go off with Eliza too soon.

I don’t know much about my mad scientist other than the fact that she frustrates me to the bone.

What would Aster do? Assuming she was in the right state of mind to do anything...

My late wife was creative, artsy, always leaping from one project to the next. First it was her own gallery, then a cosmetics’ line the next month.

You could never pin her down when she was all over the place, her mind going wild with half-finished projects she’d quickly tire of and abandon before the groundwork was done.

Aster probably would’ve encouraged Destiny to explore her options.