Free The Perfect Blend by Allie Pleiter

this bad.
    Still, some guilty part of me enjoys watching William Grey III squirm though the most frilly, girlie-girl tea service Seattle has to offer. It shouldn’t amuse me that his hand can’t even fit through the teacup handle. This probably violates the Geneva Convention on the treatment of loan officers. He looks like he’s going to tumble off that prissy little chair any minute now.
    â€œHave you a slightly larger cup?” Will’s making a heroic effort and getting through this with his dignity intact. The snickering pack of grandmothers to our left aren’t helping. And I did wince (if only inwardly) when the lace-covered eight-year-old pointed at Will and asked in a delightfully loud voice “Mommy, why is he here? He’s a boy!” I planned on taking Will Grey to tea, not taking him down a peg with his own weapon…ahem…beverage of choice.
    Okay, okay, I know you want to know how we got here. Believe it or not, it was Will’s own class homework. The one he assigned after the infamous three-word list. He told us to come up with a list of things we’d never do with our business. Sort of the anti-Higher Grounds. Which, after class, got us into a discussion of whether or not my coffeehouse would serve tea. Which got us into a discussion of the merits of coffee vs. tea. Which, despite our calm and mature adult natures, regressed into an argument about how tea is for sissies (granted, my words, not his). He got under my skin—again. He was making it sound like grunting lowlifes go for coffee and the world’s finer intellects understand the complex nature of tea. I can get into an argument with this guy at the drop of a hat.
    He told us that we’d get extra points for using vivid descriptions in our assignments. Sign me up for that extra credit, because how much more vivid can you get than to actually take the teacher there? I looked for the highest high tea I could find a booked and table for two. Who knew I would find the fluffiest, stuffiest, girliest, lace-and-doily-coated high tea in town?
    So, it’s not completely my fault that he’s sitting in a tiny chair, surrounded by chintz and ruffles, attempting to get his large hand around a teacup the size of a plum. His knees barely fit under the table. Still, it meets the assignment: there’s nothing fun or funky or hip about this place. There’s potpourri oozing out of every crevice. Harp music lilts out of a corner filled with stuffed cats and baby dolls. We’re surrounded by violets and baby’s breath. This is everything I don’t want Higher Grounds to be. In dainty stereo sensaround. It looks like we stumbled into a nineteenth-century girl’s dollhouse.
    I’m not even sure the tea they serve here qualifies as caffeine. I can still see the china pattern at the bottom of my cup and I’ve let this brew steep for twice the normal time.
    I was just starting to feel really guilty when the waitress started staring at him. Ogling, actually. It only took three words of his British accent to start the wait staff falling over him as though he were some kind of celebrity.
    â€œWould this do?” A waitress appears with—and I don’t know how they pulled this off—a masculine teacup. Not quite a mug, but a hefty cup with a hefty saucer. Hey, if I have to endure this itty-bitty cup for my faint brown liquid, everybody does!
    â€œSplendid!” he says, sounding like the king of England. Our waitress coos. “And might you have anything along the lines of roast beef? Something with meat in it.”
    â€œOh,” she says, “we’ve just the thing.” With a giggle, she darts off behind the kitchen curtains.
    â€œRoast beef is not part of high tea,” I point out, trying to keep an upper hand on the situation. “We’re supposed to be having high tea. We’re on assignment.”
    â€œI cannot believe I let you goad me into this,”