“I don’t care if he’s an alien or has the most boring kink on the planet. The snark will stop.” Skyler’s stern words ripped through the room, bringing everyone to a standstill.

I’d seen the explosion coming, but I’d thought it would take something worse than Loki ironically calling me riffraff to set Skyler off.

However, as his eyes narrowed and he leaned toward the counter, everyone in the store sucked in a breath. “The only one that gets to insult my customers is me.”

He was fucking serious.

This place got weirder and weirder.

Eventually, I was going to move out to the suburbs where everyone hid their kinks like they had when I’d been living in the country. But since it seemed like the city had to do everything differently, I waited to see what would happen.

“Um, yes, extra whipped cream, please? It’s been one of those days.” Hearing the frustration in my voice, I stood straighter and tried not to look ridiculously dramatic, even though it felt like I deserved it. “Do you have chocolate sprinkles?”
Yep, it’d been one of those days.

However, instead of answering my question and letting me pout, the barista turned and called out toward the back. “The lawyers are dicks. They got the cute twink, too.”

The low murmurs from the people in line behind me said they knew at least part of the story. Their anger made me feel a bit better, but I just wished someone had told me about them before I’d taken the job. It would’ve been helpful.

Before I could figure out how to respond, since she really hadn’t been talking to me, I heard high heels click on the concrete floor in an angry rhythm. “Goddamn it. Those assholes have gone too far.”

Oh, it was the other one.

Coffee and donuts. I had donuts, right?

“Oh, maybe leftover pizza?” It sounded so good, I almost looked away from the screen.

Almost.

But I was so close to being done, I just couldn’t walk away. The pizza could wait until everything in the video was perfect. I was so close.

“Shit.” My stomach might’ve lost the battle to get me away from the computer, but my phone won when the text notification had me nearly jumping out of my seat.

Corey.

He was funny in an odd kind of way and was probably my only friend, so I didn’t ignore his message like I would have with anyone else when I was working. Which was why he was the only person I knew that had their own personalized notification sound.

Maybe I shouldn’t have picked a fire engine, though.

“It’s been a rubber ducky kind of day, and I’m out of here. My bathtub is calling me. I may or may not be in tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I’ll go to Asia or Australia. A cruise around the world is calling my name.” The barista who was at least in his mid-twenties swept past me in a whirl of drama and almost-sheer fabric as his flowy shirt moved around him.

I’d been standing in the back of the line long enough to have seen several customers get a little snippy with him, but nothing that was probably out of the ordinary. The woman with the bright purple hair he’d been speaking with just rolled her eyes and hollered after him.

“Drama queen! You’d better be here tomorrow. If you take that cruise without me, you’re a dead drama queen.” No one else in the room seemed to think the interaction was odd, so I tried not to react.

But it was…difficult.

I was starting to get the feeling that moving to the city hadn’t been such a good idea.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been sitting here quite a while.”

Asking for a spanking and for him to find my binkie would’ve been a slightly inappropriate response, especially since the man coming through the backyard was my best friend’s father.

“No, Mr. Hammond. Just thinking.” He winced, making me grin and feel lighter than I had in days.

“Please, Elliot, you’re twenty-four. A real adult. No more Mr. Hammond nonsense.” On one hand, he was right. Even though I looked young, I was a full-fledged adult with adult problems…but I liked calling him Mr. Hammond.

It was the closest I would get to calling him Sir or something even more perfect…like Daddy.

“But it’s a respect thing. You’re Ryker’s father.” To say that falling for my best friend’s dad made things difficult would’ve been an understatement of truly epic proportions.

“I was nearly named Jean-Luc, so if you think a Number One joke is going to embarrass me, you’re sadly mistaken.” Some people needed better pickup lines.

Besides, it was spelled differently too.

My father had tried to save me; it just hadn’t worked.

I’d have been nicer if I hadn’t seen the dickhead brush off anyone who wasn’t up to his standard. The asshole who thought a clever put-down was a good pickup line rolled his eyes and walked away mumbling about how some people couldn’t take a joke.

“That’s so cool.” The quiet voice next to me was filled with alcohol-induced awe, and I had to fight the urge to smile as I turned on the stool.

“His pickup line, my put-down, or my name?”