Page 12 of A Taste of Vanilla

“Okay, but I’m also wearing a good bra.”

His hand comes down on the bar, thundering around the room. “I am begging you to have one thought privately.”

“I have had too many private thoughts. That’s how I ended up engaged to a man who thought black pepper was adventurous.” What makes it worse is his father is a food critic.

Oliver grimaces. “That should have been the first red flag.”

“There were so many flags. A whole parade of them, actually.”

“With permits.”

“And I was standing there like, wow, look at all this color.”

I look at the mirror again. Maybe Grant hadn’t changed overnight. Maybe the betrayal had not appeared out of nowhere like a crack in glass. Maybe that crack had always been there, and I kept decorating around it. A bow here, a bakery successthere. And then a ring. A wedding date. A future I could explain to people without sounding lonely.

The problem with being cheated on is that the cheating didn’t just ruin the relationship; it rewrote all the memories that went with it. Every sweet moment became suspicious, and every compliment evidence. Every time he called me too much, I heard the warning inside of it.

My chest tightens, and I reach for a mozzarella stick, only to find the basket empty. Devastating.

My phone buzzes again, and Oliver peeks at it. “Marley says she’s going to bed and if you do anything stupid, she wants plausible deniability.”

“Text her a heart.”

Oliver shakes his head.

“Text her a skull.”

He stares.

“It’s our thing.”

He types with two thumbs, slower than any person under fifty should legally text.

“What did you say?”

“Skull emoji.”

“You found the emoji keyboard?”

“I’m not ninety.”

“You print invoices.”

“I like paper.”

“You read newspapers, Oliver.”

“I like information that doesn’t yell at me and tell me I’m going to be murdered today.”

“You own a fax machine.”

“Maybe you should mind your business.”

“My business is closed for the night.”

“Then find a hobby.”

“I have hobbies.”