Finding Love in a Coffee Shop

Mochaccino

WARNING: This book was written in 2011, AKA, I have had eight more years of experience writing now, so this writing is quite subpar. Read at your own risk! But it is one of my favorite books I've written so please try it out!

If life has taught me one thing in the meager twenty-two years I've been alive, it was that fire is a savage beast, paying no heed to the lives it tears apart, nor the damage it inflicts both physically and mentally on its victims. Of course, that's to be expected, since fire is an inanimate element, and therefore has no reason to care, but that's beside the point. The point is, while fire might seem harmless when you light up a candle, or cigarette, there is always the chance of it spiraling out of control.

            Which is the exact reason why my sixteen-year-old brother and I were currently uprooting ourselves from our rundown apartment and relocating to a minute house across town that our recently deceased Grandma had left to us. At first I'd refused to inherit it, I had been doing fine on my own, thank you very much, but then, about a week prior to the move, my irresponsible neighbors had picked up booze, smoking, and crazy bonfires in our tiny backyard, so I'd determined the apartment wasn't safe enough for my measly family (that consisted of my brother, myself, and our cat, Sherlock) anymore. One idiotic party of theirs could equal the whole apartment burning down.

Besides, the mortgage had already been paid off on the house.

And I wouldn't have to worry about any dumbass neighbors setting it on fire.

            "Is that the last box, Dustin?" I called to my brother, wiping the sweat off my forehead. It was an unusually summery day for the tail end of August. The type of day I wished I was spending lounging poolside with a pair of sunglasses and my iPod cranked to maximum volume to block out life. Yeah, one of those days. Too bad I didn't own a pool... or sunglasses for that matter.

            "Yeah," he grunted back, plopping it into the back of my aging, black Jeep Cherokee. With his arms free, he crossed them over his chest, his hazel eyes narrowing down at me. "Not that we have that much to begin with..."

            I ignored his remark, unclipping my keys from my belt loop. So what if we didn't have much? At least we had something. Something is much better than nothing. "Sherlock's in the backseat?"

            "Can't you hear him crying? He doesn't want to be in that stupid carrier, Kate."

            Rolling my eyes, I slipped into the driver's side of the Jeep, shoving the key into the ignition. "Get in. I want to unpack and settle in before night falls."

            "I don't see why we can't just stay here," he muttered, ever feeling the need to complain about everything. It must be a teenager thing. "They're only smoking. Second hand smoke won't kill us."

            "No," I said agreeably, "it won't. However, the fire that could start if they leave a cigarette unattended though? Or the effects second-hand smoke would have on us? Yeah, that might."

            He snorted, pressing his forehead against the cool glass window. "You're so paranoid."

            "I think I have a right to be," I snapped at him, twisting the car key and starting the engine. The belt squealed a little bit and I winced, knowing I'd have to get that checked out soon. Which meant coughing up money to some mechanic that would probably only need three seconds to figure out the problem.

"Why's that?" Dustin drawled, and I knew he was just being bitchy because we're moving. And I couldn't blame him. I hate moving too, but there was nothing I could really do about it.