Page 1 of The Snowball Effect
prologue
TWO YEARS AGO
Liquid Burns Are No Joke
Would Regan Gallagher say working at a coffee shop was “her calling,” so-to-speak? Not exactly. Was it what she wanted to do for the rest of her life? Definitely not.
But it happened to be something she was really fucking good at. Maybe it was the frenetic pace during rush hours, never dipping into a boring lull or letting Regan get too distracted. Maybe it was the freedom she was granted during the slower hours – especially now that she was an assistant manager – that allowed her to get hands-on with multiple aspects of the cafe, indulging her curious nature. Maybe it was simply the scent of caffeine that fueled her coffee-addicted can-do spirit.
Whatever it was, Regan had been working at Topped Off for five years, and she was something of a one-woman show at the moment.
Topped Off rarely experiencedtrueemptiness – it was a 24-hour hipster shop in the heart of New York University’s Manhattan campus, serving some quality grounds. They had a revolving door nearly constantly, with students holing up attables and booths throughout the night. It was more likely to be busy than not.
Usually, though, Regan wasn’t the only person working during finals week. In fact, as the person who made the schedule, she made it a point never to putanyoneas the only barista manning the front of the store during this time.
Today, though, she was the ringleader and entertainment all-in-one, and she just mightkillRochelle and Pat for both calling out sick today. Regan was no dummy; she knew they’d gone out the night before and had gotten blasted. The “sickness” they were enduring today was undoubtedly alcohol-related.
“I deserve a medal for this,” she said, swiping her arm over her forehead to brush away any strands that had escaped her ponytail in the three hours since she’d had time to redo her hair. “Gold, too, because I fuckingkilledthat.”
Really, she did. She’d just handled the never-ending morning line of stress-addled nerds single-handedly. After she prepared this drink, she was going to call Jacklyn out from the kitchen and have her cover so Regan could take her well-deserved fifteen-minute break.
The drink in question that she was prepping was… questionable. Even to her own palette.
Regan considered herself a rather daring coffee drinker – whatever batshit-sounding specialty orders came down from corporate, Regan tried them all herself. It was somewhat of a special activity here. When the monthly specials list was received at the beginning of every month, everyone would gather around to try them. In particular, as the main event, Regan would assemble a small size of every single special, then go down the line and try them all. Even the one that had both lemonadeandpumpkin spice in it.
In Regan’s humble opinion, the taste testers – or whoever the hell came up with the flavors at their northeast-based chain –had no fear. Occasionally, when they sent down the recipes for some of those wild flavor combinations, she wondered if they even had taste buds.
She gave the final pump of liquid sugar before finishing with the caramel drizzle over the top, unable to hold back her grimace. But she worked quickly because the girl who’d placed this order of a “steaming hot extra-large dark roast, two shots of espresso, four shots of chai, five pumps of liquid sugar, finished with caramel – keep them coming” had preemptively tipped Regan a hundred bucks, before she’d made herself at home in one of the back booths next to the windows, two hours ago.
Topped Off didn’t typically provide table service, either, but when this woman had wordlessly flashed another hundred at Regan as a promise of an additional tip… well, Regan was going to provide table-side delivery.
As she hustled out from behind the counter, she frowned down at the cup as she tried to snap the lid on.
“This fucking thing,” she muttered. The most recent shipment of lids for their large hot cups weren’t snapping onto the cups quite right, and –
Regan gasped in surprise as she bumped into someone, hot coffee leading the way.
A cold terror slid through her veins, and she swore she watched the next few seconds play out in slow motion. As the shitty, malfunctioning lid popped right off, and the literally steaming hot liquid dumped from over the lip of the cup down the woman’s shirt.
“Shit!” She shouted in the middle of the packed café because she was a professional. “Oh, god! Fuck!”
While she was yelling, the other woman grit her jaw, grimacing deeply in pain. Which made a ton of sense.
That drink had been hot; the bit that had splattered on Regan’s fingers had hurt, even. So she could only imagine how it felt all over this woman’s chest.
Her very ample chest that was only a couple inches lower than eye level for Regan, who was level with this woman’s strong jaw.
And this woman’s pale blue long-sleeved button-up had already been form-fitting, but it was utterly soaked through, now, clinging to the woman like a second skin. Regan could clearly see her bra and how hard her nipples were.
Fuck,thosemust be burning, too! Regan’s own nipples were so sensitive that she’d have probably been in tears if hot coffee had been poured on them.
Out of pure reflex, she dropped the cup and reached out, grabbing both sides of the woman’s shirt so she could rip it open, trying to get some cool air on her.
Regan would be the first person to say that sometimes her… impulsivity got ahead of her. Butthiswas the right decision; she knew it was.
She could hear the scattering of buttons over the wooden floors, and she could feel the stares of most of the patrons. Which wasn’t shocking, first because Regan had dumped coffee on her, and now because, like,seriously, this woman had breasts to die for.
“What thefuckare you doing?” The woman finally spoke. Rather, growled.