IMPERFECT Things That Shine Paperback

Brew Ha Ha barista, Emily Tavest, hasn’t had it easy. But that doesn’t stop her from believing the best about everything—except guys. Guys should just stay over there… in that corner …away from her relationship-free zone. Everything will be fine if Love does not come to town.

Guitar tech, Sage McNabb, has spent the last year on the road with Double Blind Study. Now, learning how to live in the same place every day, Sage has gotten addicted to more than just the coffee at The Brew.

Emily’s walls are more electric than stage pyrotechnics, but Sage is a guy who knows a battle worth fighting.

Over the last three hours, it had become disgustingly clear not only why this job was available, but also why it paid so well.
And when I say disgusting, I mean that literally.
There was nothing like being trapped inside a ginormous burrito to make you want to be sick—except being stuck inside a ginormous burrito that smelled like body odor.
Yup. I was living the dream.
As my shift as the Dancing Burrito came to an end, I struggled to reach behind me to get the prison of a suit off. I had exactly twenty minutes to make it across town to the Brew Ha Ha, and I was cutting it pretty darn close.
“Hello?” I called out as I pushed the door to the garage open. “Can someone get me out of this thing?”
The only sound was my muffled voice echoing back at me.
Well, that wasn’t good.
I wobbled into the center of the empty warehouse-turned-garage and glanced around.
Every single food truck was gone.
Even Mama’s Pork-Fried Bananas, which had seemed oddly specific and gastronomically questionable at best.
“Hello?”
This could not be happening.
My job was to get the people coming down the street to buy early-morning coffee, donuts, and breakfast burritos from the trucks before they could legally be on the street.
Apparently it was no one’s job to get me out of the suit before they hit the road.
Which left me with two options.
Option One: Get across town to the Village while dressed as an insane burrito, then live through however long Abby’s mocking would be…if she even helped me out of the suit.
Option Two: Lose my place at The Brew.
The sad thing was, I didn’t even have the luxury of that really being a decision.
I grabbed my backpack, tried to pull it up my faux-salsa-covered arm, and trudged down the alley to catch the green line. This downtown stop luckily had an escalator, since bending my knees wasn’t an option.
I managed to make it across the street without getting hit…which was great, because I could just imagine the headlines. Things were going as smooth as salsa. I was pretty sure everything would right itself in the world fairly soon, when I reached the turnstile.
Luckily I was a pro at this city girl thing, so my T-pass was in the mesh pocket I could just sweep over the scanner…annnnnndddddd.
Yeah. I was dressed as a burrito. A human-size one.
No matter which way I turned, I couldn’t get through the turnstile.
I glanced at the clock in the attendant’s glass booth and knew something had to change. I went over and pounded on the glass, trying to get the girl’s attention.
Now that was a job I wish I had: sitting and reading while ignoring people all day. I wondered what it paid.
“Hey!”
She finally glanced up, and I had a deep feeling that if I were dressed as a human and not a high-calorie food product, she would have just glanced away.
“Can you let me through the gate?”
She just kept staring, and I wondered if she could hear me.
I leaned sideways, since I couldn’t really bend, to shout through my mesh mouthpiece into the booth mic. “Can you let me in through the gate?”
Hopefully she got the main points, at least.
A static sound buzzed before she said, “The gate is for people in wheelchairs.”
“I don’t fit through the stile.”
“But you’re not in a wheelchair.”
This was true. I was pretty rule-abiding, but this seemed special-case worthy.
“What if I were just too heavy to fit?” I shouted back.
She looked really confused by this. With the obesity level of today’s society, I found it likely there were people who came in who were too large to fit through…but maybe all of them had a disability, so they used a special pass.
“Listen, I already paid.” I glanced toward the track as I heard a train coming and saw everyone on my platform start to push forward. “Please? My train is coming.”
The girl just kept looking at me.
I get that a walking, talking, oversized burrito is weird, but not so weird that you can’t help a girl out.