Pentacle

Coffee Mugs and Chaos

Briar-Rose Everthorne slumped into the chair, surrounded by the dull walls of her cubicle. Her gaze fell on the cluttered desk, strewn with papers listing names of people she was supposed to call and inquire about their current life insurance plans. But, she couldn't find it in her to call and disrupt someone's perfectly fine morning with morbid scenarios in which their deaths would leave their loved ones unprotected. She groaned, sipping her coffee, then grimaced at its frigid, stale taste, trickling it back into the mug.

"Hideously cold, right?" a male voice chimed in.

"Well, it's not warm," Briar-Rose replied, eyeing the man leaning against her cubicle entrance with his own mug. "Hey, Grant."

"Seriously, it's like, which chick around here do we have to teach to make a decent cup of coffee?" Grant grinned, his gaze drifting from her eyes to resting comfortably on her chest.

"Did you need something?" Briar-Rose asked, ignoring his blatant lack of decency.

"Uh, yeah," Grant leaned in, brushing Briar-Rose's jet-black hair behind her ear to meet her deep blue eyes. "You still owe me a date."

"What?" Briar-Rose spat, oblivious to the coffee in her mug beginning to sway.

"Remember, last week, I covered for your big loss with Clifford, and you said you owed me one."

"Yeah, a favor," Briar-Rose insisted.

"But wouldn't dinner," Grant traced a heart shape with his finger on her leg just below her skirt line, "and a show be more fun?"

"I'm busy," Briar-Rose stated, redirecting his finger away before it ventured further up her thigh.

"I didn't give a date," Grant laughed.

"Consider me busy indefinitely for gross womanizing pigs." Briar turned back to her desk. "Is that it? Because I have work to catch up on."

"Fucking Amish tease," Grant huffed, striding across the aisle to his cubicle.

Briar-Rose sighed, struggling to regain her composure when her purse buzzed. She rummaged through it, quickly extracting her phone.

"No personal calls!" Grant shouted from his desk.

Briar-Rose rolled her eyes and hunched over her phone, her long hair concealing it as she pressed it to her ear.

"Hey, Aggie. Now's not a good time."

"I just wanted to remind you you're coming by tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah. I don't think—"

"Briar-Rose Everthorne, you better not be blowing me off... again," Aggie scolded. "When was the last time you actually made it over here?"

"I know it's been a while since my last visit, Aggie," she whispered.

"Two and a half months," Aggie replied, laden with disappointment. "Honestly, if I'd known both you and Nia were going to abandon me in my old age, I'd've found a proper boy thing to keep me company."

"You mean a husband?" Briar-Rose asked, unable to restrain the smile creeping up her face or the small giggle that slipped through her lips. She almost forgot she wasn't supposed to be on the phone.

"You and titles. You know I don't believe in such constraints," Aggie huffed. "So, will I be seeing you tomorrow?"

"Aggie, I'm swamped with work, and I have to do well here," Briar-Rose said. She glanced over her shoulder and caught Grant glowering at her. "I have to work late tonight and probably tomorrow too."