Page 46 of A Taste of Vanilla

Still locked.

Phone.

Unfortunately functional.

Don’t answer him.

Him.

Not Grant. Not your ex. Not Boat Shoe Judas. Him.

Oliver knows where the weak spot is, which is irritating because I prefer everyone in my life to be less observant unless I’m wearing a good outfit.

It’s not that I want Grant back. Because I absolutely do not. But grief is an absolute little gremlin. It doesn’t always ask what’s good for you. Sometimes it asks for what’s familiar. A text from the person who hurt you can feel like a door worth walking through.

Even if that door leads directly back into a burning house.

I won’t.

Good.

A second later, another message.

Eat something.

I let out a breath that almost becomes a laugh.

Bossy.

Alive.

There it is again. Alive.

I put the phone down and drag myself off the mattress. The floor is cold under my bare feet. I step over bins, find leggings draped over a folding chair, and pull them on with the careful dignity of a woman trying not to anger her uterus before noon. Then I find my oversized blue cardigan and wrap it around myself.

In the tiny bathroom, I brush my teeth with my travel toothbrush and stare at myself in the mirror.

Still pale. Still puffy-eyed, still ringless. But still here.

I brush my hair into a messy ponytail and tie a pale pink bowaround it. Grant liked my bows. He said they made me look sweet.

I narrow my eyes at myself before deciding that I’ll figure out how to wear one like a threat instead.

Then I go downstairs and enter my bakery through the back door. It smells like butter and yesterday. Not the bad yesterday, but the good yesterday.

Coffee beans, vanilla, and sugar that’s baked into the walls. The faint richness of pastry cream from the morning before my entire life caught on fire.

I flip the lights on, one row at a time, and the stainless steel and pale tile glow. Out front, the pastry cases are empty beneath the glass and the chairs are still upside down on all the tables. The chalkboard menu near the register still lists yesterday’s specials in my loopy handwriting.

BANANA VANILLA COLD FOAM LATTE

BECAUSE REGULAR VANILLA LACKS COMMITMENT.

I stare at it. Then I laugh.

It’s not a pretty laugh. Not even happy. But it’s a laugh. “You poor, stupid psychic,” I tell the chalkboard as I wipe away the second line with my mini eraser.

For a second, I consider replacing it with something professional. Something mature. Something that says I’m an emotionally stable business owner and not a woman who threw an engagement ring into coffee less than twenty-four hours ago.