Page 2 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

Vivi turned from the sign as a woman glided past her.

"She's the Grounds Guru in these parts," said the woman in her seventies who didn't look a day over forty. Her accent sounded so similar to Queen Elizabeth's that Vivi half-expected her to gently wave at the peasants. She carried herself with the confidence of someone who no longer had anything to prove. Silver threaded through her hair like soft strokes of light, and her impeccable clothing seemed to belong to another era.

"So does that mean I'm boring and bland and predictable?" Vivi asked, embarrassment thick in her voice.

"Darling, authenticity suits you far better than embellishment. You're strong, daring, and entirely capable on your own."

Vivi's breath caught and her eyes stung. It was just a silly comparison to coffee, but it was the nicest thing anyone had said to her in a long time.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I needed to hear that right now."

Before she could say more, Jo was back.

"Black, neat, for New York,” the barista said, sliding the cup across the bar with a crooked grin that dared Vivi to say something.

"The accent's that bad?"

"It's making my ears bleed."

Vivi picked up the cup, took a deep breath of the steam, and groaned. "This smells incredible. What is it?"

She took a sip. The hot liquid stung deliciously as it slid down her throat, warming her from the inside out.

"Black Ivory coffee," Jo said, a devil’s smile slashing across her face. "The beans are predigested by Thai elephants and then pooped out."

Vivi nearly spit it across the bar. Jo pointed to the sign. Right, rule number one, Don't waste even a drop. She forced herself to swallow, gagging only slightly in the process.

"Welcome to Bridlewood," Jo said, and then, with a salute, disappeared to help someone at the other end of the counter.

Vivi turned to thank the older woman, who had all but vanished, like a fairy godmother in Prada.

With no excuse left, she took a seat at the bar overlooking Main Street. The sun was setting, casting shadows that mimicked the forest of ponderosa pines lining the mountains surrounding the small, rustic town.

She pulled out her phone. "Glow, what's today's Glow Up exercise?" she asked her AI self-help coach—the one she'd purchased on Instagram late one night after her boyfriend confessed he'd taken an overseas job. And sold his flat. Their flat. Well, he owned it. But they'd shared it for three years.

They'd shared the mortgage, the utilities, the broken dishwasher, the broken toilet, the remodel, and so much more. Stupidly, she'd never added her name to the title. Never insisted, because she'd never wanted to make a fuss.

A chipper AI voice came back with: "Glow & Tell Daily Challenge. You have fifteen minutes to confess three secrets to three strangers. Singing along with Adele in the shower doesn't count."

Okay, Vivi. Just three secrets to three strangers. How hard can that be?

She had to get it right. There were only twenty-nine of her thirty days left to find a place to live and get her life in order. At least the outline of a plan would be nice or she'd have to admit defeat and move back in with her mother. And if her mother's guest room filled up first, she'd have no choice but to follow the human embodiment of every bad decision she'd ever made: Lewis.

Sure, Singapore sounded exotic and tropical but it would feel like one more pound added to the albatross that had been wrapped around her neck for most of her adult life.

Talking to people in real life wasn't her strong suit. Give her a computer, a stack of dating bios, and access to the internet, and she was downright eloquent. Poetic, she'd been called. But right now, she couldn't form a single word.

Maybe if she wrote it down first.

She opened her notes app and began swiping this way and that, her fingers flying over the screen with hyper-speed from pure muscle memory.

Three secrets I've never told a soul.

1. I've never had an orgasm with someone else in the room.

While true, it was too embarrassing to say aloud. Plus, the trick to successful admissions—like dating bios—was to say just enough to get a visceral reaction without trauma dumping. That confession was strictly diary material.

Vivi went to delete it and accidentally hit the speech button.