It’s going to be a great year.
2
“Are you sure you don’t have any other dating prospects besides a single mum who wears more flour than face powder?” Liv asks.
I chuckle as I look down at my friend where she leans against the front counter in Sweet Escape.
“I’m sure, Liv. Please?”
She scrunches her nose, visible with indecision.
“I don’t think you’ve mentioned dating anyone in the five months since I’ve known you. Are you even trying?” She picks up a flat piece of pale blue cardboard and starts folding the sides, fashioning it into a pastry box. “I’m just your lazy little back-up, aren’t I?” She tutts. “No more beignets for you.”
“You’re one to talk. I haven’t seen you give attention to anyone who walks in this place, and there are plenty of men who vie for it.”
“You know why that is,” she mutters quietly.
Yeah, I do know. Over the past few months, Liv and I have formed an open and honest friendship. She’s helped me understand how I can be there for my half-sister, who unexpectedly became a single mum, and I’ve learned that Liv has no idea who her daughter’s father is.
Liv was the victim of a home invasion that not only left her comatose, but also waking up with retrograde amnesia. She has no recollection of the twelve months leading up toher attack, including any romantic partners she may have been with. Thankfully, doctors confirmed her conception date as being well before the attack. But that means there’s someone out there walking around, not realising they have a daughter. And a woman who’s desperate to find him.
I finish tightening the screw on her new door latch, tuck the screwdriver back in my toolbelt, then close the door, making sure it stays in place this time.
“All fixed,” I say, picking up the rubbish I left and dumping it in the bin.
“Thanks for doing that so quickly. When I called you this morning, I didn’t mean you had to drop everything and come right over.” She chuckles.
I brush my hands over my work pants and attempt to casually look out the front window in the direction of Parlour Tricks. My boss, Lee, is dating the owner of the excessively pink beauty salon. The one I supervised the complete renovation of, finishing up a few weeks ago. I could tell myself that’s why I’m looking over there now. In reality, it’s because that’s where the dark-haired beauty escaped to. The one with deep chocolate eyes, as decadent as the cocoa scent that seemed to float off her skin as she passed me.
“Westley?” I feel my cheeks burn from the knowing curiosity laced in Liv’s call.
“Sorry. What?”
Liv looks out the window, following where my distraction lies before smirking back at me. “That was Maevyn. Claire’s new manager.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Maybe you should ask her to be your date for the wedding.”
I throw my head back with a groan as I stomp out of the service area to the customer side of the counter, picking up the cappuccino she made for me. A little blue box filled with a few beignets sits beside it. “You can’t start dating someone, and aftera few weeks, ask them to be your plus one for a wedding. Jesus, I’m not that desperate.”
“Why don’t you just go alone? Didn’t you say you’ve known most of the people going since high school?”
“Because I already RSVP’d with a plus one. And yes, there will be a lot of people from high school, including my ex.”
Liv leans against the counter, a conspiratorial look in her blue eyes. “Are you still holding a candle for your high school girlfriend?”
I shake my head. “We never dated in high school. We reconnected at our ten-year reunion. But she’s my… ex-fiancée.”
Her mouth drops, eyes darting behind me before she leans in closer. “You were engaged?”
It’s been five years since Phoebe and I ended. What started as a whirlwind romance fizzled out just as quickly. We got caught up in the honeymoon phase, completely bypassing the foundation of any good relationship. Communication. We were engaged after only three months. We’d briefly touched on having a family one day, but I didn’t realise the logistics of how that came about were destined to be our breaking point.
I had a vasectomy when I was twenty-five, well before Phoebe and I got together. I was adopted as an infant, and I always imagined doing the same thing, giving a kid a chance in life they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Just like my parents did for me.
Phoebe was determined to carry her own children, and I completely understood that. At first, we each tried to get the other to see our point of view, but then it turned to resentment and anger, both too set in our ways.
After one particularly bad fight, she stormed out, and I didn’t see her again until late the next morning. She came back a mess, completely shattered as she confessed she’d slept with someone else. She’d gotten so drunk the night before, so down on everything that felt out of her control, that she sought comfortin a stranger. I didn’t hate her for it, only hated that we’d caused ourselves hurt for so long. We were never meant to work.
