Page 34 of Back for Seconds

Anyone can rip your heart out and stomp on it if you keep walking around, chest-first. That was my problem. I was Big Baby June, all ready and willing, dreaming about fireworks and butterflies. And maybe hurting me just came easy to Brian, maybe it was second nature.

There, of course, was another option: that, perhaps, he hadn’t even thought of me at all.

I didn’t trust myself to not break down if I woke Joey up to say goodbye. I didn’t trust myself to not fall into a sobbing, incoherent heap at his feet and demand to know what the fuck had happened between him and his ex. Why was he alone? Had he cheated? Had he found a million different ways to break her heart, even after it was no longer his to break? What had he done?

No, I didn’t trust myself at all.

Chapter 12 Joey

Four days until Christmas

I don’t know why, but I startled awake on the couch, neck yanked sideways into a contortion that would dog me for days, with the distinct sensation that I’d really fucked up.

The house was completely quiet.

June was gone, her blanket folded and left draped over the back of the couch. I stretched and stood, made my way over to the sliding deck doors to watch the milky white sky also blink awake. A squirrel barreled across the top of the old wooden fence at the edge of my property line.

The kitchen was spotless. Completely clean. Countertops gleaming. Dishes neatly stacked. And no note from June.

I checked my phone. No text, either. Nothing.

I’d taken things too far last night. Gotten carried away in my attraction to her. After a lifetime of letting other people take the lead—letting them tell me what to do, where to go, how to be—I’d tried to correct it all in one night.

Fuck.

I made my way to the shower and set the water as hot as I could handle, letting the heat sting my skin and the steam almost choke me, trying to rinse the memory of June’s mouth on mine out of my mind. I should have been embarrassed that I let things unfold that quickly—not ruminating on it, trying to recall every detail with military precision.

If I had made her uncomfortable or done anything that had made her regret the night enough to literally vanish, I wanted to apologize and make things right. Because I already missed her.

Which was an insane thought, so I balled it up and threw it away.

It was a Monday, one of my days for filming content, so after completing my mandatory seven-step wash-day curl routine, I checked my content planning notebook. I knew there were probably better, more professional ways to keep track of what I would upload and share with almost one million followers, but I liked a spiral notebook.

Mondays I did a lunch or pasta dish; Tuesdays, a dessert; Thursday, a protein-focused Cuban-inspired dinner. I recorded, edited, and posted all on the same day, then spent my weekends posting the usual gym-bro bullshit. How to properly do a squat. Why yoga is important. Really groundbreaking stuff.

According to my calendar, today I was making my vegan broccoli rabe pesto and homemade cannelloni filled with dairy-free ricotta. Whoever I’d been when I’d made that choice was not in the building today; I did not have it in me to make pasta from scratch.

I chewed the end of my pen, flipping through the rest of my plans for the week and the ingredients list I’d carefully printed in under each recipe title. If I started rearranging what I made, my schedule for the entire week would fall apart. A pinprick of anxiety needled at my stomach. I liked things a particular way. I liked to know what was coming next. Chalk it up to a childhood of constant chaos, but I didn’t do well with change.

And the rigidity of my jobs had been a constant point of conflict with Amber, stoking the omnipresent flames of my general anxiety around disorganization. Now, just contemplating last-minute changes was triggering me. Triggering. A word my therapist liked to encourage me to use. Recognize when you’re fawning, Joey. It’s because you’re triggered.

Anyway. Vegan pesto on sourdough?

Vegan pesto on tofu scramble?

Vegan pesto and tomato salad?

I snapped my notebook shut and scrubbed at my eyes until little green and black dots swam in my vision, pushing the surge of pressure in my throat. Vegan pesto and…

My left hand wandered to the medal resting against my bare chest. Then I reached into my nightstand and pulled out a small black leather notebook, my prized possession: my nonna’s recipes, all handwritten with mechanical pencil in a shaky script, her hold on the pencil so light that some of her words had rubbed away.

I scoured the pages for something that featured broccoli rabe—the tender, bitter green that had been so omnipresent in my childhood. Sautéed with garlic and olive oil; finely chopped and tossed into soup; boiled until it was sweet and soft then folded into a white wine sauce.

Her recipes were written half in English, half in Italian based on the context. In the margins, she’d left herself little notes and reminders, adjustments.

Rereading her work settled my stomach, slowly quelling the fear that had flared almost out of nowhere.

Then I found it.