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“And?” I grit out, yanking some bacon out of the packet and slapping it down on the stove like it’s the reason everything is wrong in my world.
“And—” he drawls out teasingly, making me want to smack him over the head with the spatula currently in my hand. “It’s only a matter of time.”
I know.
“A girl like Mackenzie Scott isn’t going to stay single forever.”
Does he think I don’t know this? Or that I’m not tortured by it every damn day?
“I’m actually surprised she’s still single now,” he continues, and frustration turns my knuckles white as I grip the handle of my spatula like I’m trying to crush it into dust. “I mean, the girl is, without a doubt, a perfect ten.” He hums in reverence before continuing. “That gorgeous face of hers and those pretty blue eyes. And don’t even get me started on her tight ass and perky—”
Hearing him talk about Mac like that has my heart pounding in a thunderous rage, and I spin around, ready to commit murder with the spatula in my hand.
I don’t know if you could actually kill someone with a spatula, but I’m willing to give it a shot.
“I knew it.” He eyes me off knowingly for a moment before nodding his head in clarification, then giving me an earnest look. “Get your shit together, man. And do it fast before you miss your chance.”
He turns his back to me and gets back to work, his parting words leaving me reeling and my gut feeling heavy as the reality of my situation sits in my stomach like a lead weight.
I don’t have a chance in hell. And the blatant reminder of that has cast an ominous cloud over my entire morning.
Turning back around, I take a fortifying breath and throw myself back into the task at hand, hoping that doing what I love will distract me from the pain of wanting something I can’t have.
Cooking has always been a source of therapy for me.
When my father passed away when I was thirteen and left us with very little money, my mother opened up a florist shop in town calledBlushing Bloomsas a way to put food on the table.
It was tough at first. My mother worked long and grueling hours just to make enough to support my brother and me. So wanting to help out in any way I could, I took it upon myself to cook dinner for us every night.
Little did I know that it would unlock a passion for the culinary arts that I didn’t even know I had, and it’s all I’ve wanted to do ever since.
Hearing the doors to the kitchen creak open, hope springs to my chest that it’s Mac and I can somehow make things right. But when I turn to see who it is, my stomach immediately sinks when I see Violet Buchanan strutting toward me, her hungry eyes eating up my frame like she’s been starved for days.
For fuck’s sake, what’s she doing here?
Not only do we have theStaff Onlysign on the door to keep the likes of her out, but I’m not in the mood to deal with her shit right now.
We dated during senior year. It most definitely wasn’t one of the smartest decisions in my life, but teenage guys are driven by their dicks and nothing else, and she just so happened to put out. But along with that, at the time, our union made sense. I was the quarterback for the football team, and she was the cheer captain. We were the golden couple at Clark Falls High. Too bad she was a self-absorbed, narcissistic bitch who had the emotional capability of a cactus.
I’d dumped her straight after graduation, and her bruised ego had granted me somewhat of a reprieve from her bullshit. But as the saying goes, ‘time heals all wounds,’ and from the minute I stepped foot back into town, she’s been relentlessly trying to ‘rekindle what we had,’ as she so eloquently put it. Though if my memory serves me well, you can’t rekindle something that never burned to begin with.
“Hello baby,” she purrs, leaning her hands against the island counter and not so subtly using her arms to push her cleavage out of the top of her low-cut shirt.
“What are you doing here, Violet?” I ask, trying but failing miserably to mask the irritation in my tone. “You know customers aren’t allowed back here.”
“I know, but Mackenzie told me I could come back here.”
I look at her with an arched brow. “Did she now?”
“Yeah, in fact, she insisted I come back here and thank you personally.”
My eyes immediately shoot to the dining room, spotting Mac taking an order at table seven. She smiles brightly at the couple while taking their order before peering up from her order pad and locking eyes with mine. A smirk plays on her lips as she looks from Violet, then back to me, and my brows draw in, wondering what she’s playing at.
“Thank me for what?” I ask, turning my attention back to Violet.
“The flowers, of course.”
I blink at her. “What flowers?”
