Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

Small, strange things have been going wrong all week. The CEO of a small midweek corporate retreat got booked into a room on the third floor after requesting a room on the fourth. A car service that we’d scheduled to pick someone up at the airport in Roanoke showed up fifteen minutes late.

In the kitchen, a hundred tortillas went missing.

Also, on Tuesday night Eli and I kissed after making a bet that means we have to see each other every morning for the rest of the summer, so even though I’m kind of trying to avoid him right now, it’s not working great.

I still haven’t worked up the courage to ask about the maid of honor. I know I should. I know I’m not being an adult, but every time I come close there’s a tiny voice that whispers yeah, but what if he did, do you really want to know? and then I don’t ask.

It’s been a hell of a week, is what I’m saying.

“Right,” I say, still staring at the sheet of paper. “Yup. Five hundred. Says it right there. In ink.”

Oh God.

“We did think it was a smaller order than usual, but thought perhaps you were getting more cranes from elsewhere,” he says, still serene as fuck.

I want to scream why didn’t you call and double-check?!, but I don’t.

One, I know perfectly well it’s not his fault, and two, screaming at a Buddhist monk seems like it’s especially bad, even though I imagine he’d take it better than most people.

“The mistake is ours,” I say, my voice oddly formal as my mind starts racing, already a hundred miles away from this parking lot. “Thank you for the delivery.”

I need five hundred more cranes.

It’s six o’clock on Friday night.

I might be screwed. What if I’m screwed?

Where the hell can I get five hundred cranes?

With a sinking feeling, I realize the answer.

“Peace be with you,” the monk says, his shaved head shining dully in the fading sunlight.

He gets back into the monastery’s Subaru and drives off, leaving me standing outside a converted barn with five hundred less cranes than I need.* * *The answer to, “Where do I get five hundred cranes on a Friday night?” is pretty simple, at least on the surface. There’s only the one answer.

I make them myself, of course.

Have I ever made an origami crane before? No. Am I particularly crafty or good with my hands? Also no.

But do I have another choice, besides disappoint a bride and probably lose out on $20,000?

Nope!

I call up Betsy, the owner of Betsy’s Craft Emporium, and promise to buy her out of origami paper if she stays open an extra half-hour. Bless her heart, she does it, and by seven-thirty, I’m back at Bramblebush, set up in a conference room, armed with a giant stack of origami paper and a iPad loaded with origami tutorials.

By eight, I’ve made three janky cranes and two good ones. By nine, that number is six and fifteen, so I’ve only got four hundred and eighty-five left to go.

I take a break, put my head down on the table, and do some quick math. I need to get these done by nine a.m. Tomorrow, when I’m supposed to be here to set up for the final walkthrough with the couple and their wedding planner. That’s twelve hours.

Four hundred and eighty-five cranes in twelve hours is…

…slightly over ninety seconds per crane. I don’t need to do more math to know that I have not been achieving that goal, nor do I need math to tell me that taking a break with my forehead on the table isn’t getting anything done, either.

You know what gets things done? Coffee.

Coffee gets things done.

Lots of coffee.

I hop up, newly determined, and head to the employee break room, flipping the lights on as I head in. It’s deserted, obviously, because I’m the only one here at this time of night, the component pieces of the coffee maker drying in a dish rack by the sink.

It’s then that I realize I’ve never made coffee at work before. I don’t even know who does it, I just know that every time I’ve come in here, looking for a caffeine hit, I’ve gotten it.

I approach the machine, arms folded over my chest. It’s one of those big silver cylinders with a spout at the bottom, not the Mr. Coffee-type that I’ve got at home, and I have to admit that it’s a bit of a mystery.

I tackle it, obviously. It’s just a coffee maker, and I have a college degree. I graduated summa cum laude. I got this.

I fill it with water. I balance the basket-thing on top of the metal-tube-thing, because I’m pretty that’s how that goes. I locate the top and set it aside, then grab a new five-pound bag of coffee, and pull at the top.