Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I glance over my shoulder to see Bennett’s sister Breezy jogging toward me, and the raw vulnerability of everything I’m leaking from my pores right now seizes my chest. “I’m fine!” I call out quickly, averting my tearstained face from hers as she closes the distance between us.
I try to get into my shop before she reaches me, but just before I can shut the door, she shoves her high-heel-covered foot over the threshold and stops it.
“Breezy, I’m fine.”
She raises an eyebrow, her knowing eyes just as telling as the mascara stains I know mar my cheeks.
“I know I don’t look fine, but I’ll be fine,” I insist, wanting nothing more than to curl up into a solitary ball and purge myself of years of pent-up pain.
“Yeah, I know. I’m fine too. We’re all fine. But how about you let me inside for a drink?” she requests, holding up two bottles of white wine and wiggling them in the air. “Just one drink together. We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything but put a dent in these. And after one glass, if you’re ready for me to leave, you can tell me to fuck right off, okay?”
The pressure of everything I’ve been carrying on my shoulders for the last five years and the changes that have come since Norah got to town suddenly feel like they weigh a million pounds. I’m not strong enough to stay standing and fend Breezy off. I’m just not.
“Okay,” I say on a sigh, opening the door enough to make room for her, scooting in, and then closing it and locking it behind us.
Breezy heads behind the empty counter and snags two to-go cups from beside the register. She unscrews the cap on one of the bottles of cheap wine and gives two hefty pours into each empty cup. “Here,” she says, handing one to me.
I take a sip and then another and then another five, and before I know it, I don’t feel like standing anymore. Literally or figuratively. I plop down in a chair at one of the tables in the eat-in area, and Breezy sits down across from me.
She drinks her wine in silence, and I do the same. Unexpectedly, it starts to feel good that she’s here. As an acquaintance I’ve spent relatively little time with through the years, she feels removed enough from the problem to stay neutral but familiar enough to put me at ease.
“By the way, I did manage to snag your purse.” They’re the first words out of her mouth as she slides it across the table toward me.
“Thank you.”
Breezy nods and goes back to drinking her wine.
I drink my wine too, tears that I can’t hold back still occasionally streaming down my cheeks as I do.
Everything Clay and I have been through. Everything that I’ve been through. Everything that I’ve lost. Everything that we should’ve been.
It’s too much.
To find out that we’re not even divorced is the final blow to my composure.
My nerves are shot to shit, every cell inside my body feels like it’s hanging on by a thread, and the only thing that’s keeping me together is this stupid glass of wine. I’ve never been a drinker, but damn, alcohol certainly helps to numb the pain.
I don’t know how much time passes, but I do know that Breezy hands me a second glass of wine when my phone pings from inside my purse, and I pull it out to find a text from Norah.
Norah: Are you okay? I know I’m the last person on earth you want to talk to right now…well, besides the idiot whom I won’t name. But I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Josie. I’m so, so sorry for what happened out there. I swear to you, I had NO IDEA that Clay was the chosen groom until this afternoon or that he was going to be a total asshat. Please don’t hate me. I love you.
A few more tears slip down my cheeks, and I type out a quick response.
Me: I don’t hate you.
I’ve never hated my sister, even when I thought I did after Grandma Rose’s funeral. Norah is pure of heart, with intentions to match. I know her big plan wasn’t to have me find out my ex-husband is still my husband on an altar in a white dress in front of the entire town. Still, it fucking sucked.
Norah: You promise? Because I feel like a real asshole for putting you in that situation.
Me: Promise.
Norah: Breezy still with you?
I glance up to find Breezy typing out an email on her phone. Breezy has always been a bit of a boss bitch from way back. She runs Bennett’s and her family’s art galleries—which have several notable locations across the world. The woman’s life is a busy, city-girl whirlwind, and the fact that she’s sitting here with me, being a silent source of support while I’m drinking my tears away, shows that beneath that tough-as-nails surface is someone with a heart of gold.