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ChapterOne
WYNN
This class was bullshit.
I dropped the paintbrush I held in my right hand while lifting the wineglass in my left to my lips and sipping deeply as I took a step back to inspect the painting I’d been working on for the last hour.
I tilted my head from side to side and squinted my eyes. It looked... bad.Reallybad. Which didn’t make any sense, because I could have sworn I followed the instructor’s directions perfectly. It wasn’t like they were very hard. This class was barely a step up from paint-by-numbers, for crying out loud.
My friend Poppy came up beside me. “How’d you d—oh.” Her smile faded into a frown, her head tipping to the side as she studied the square canvas resting on my easel. “Uh...”
“Is it really that bad?”
She patted my arm sympathetically. “It’s the effort that counts.”
I dropped my head backward and scoffed. “Give me a break, Pop. The sign outside advertised this class was for twelve and up.”
She snorted before curling her lips between her teeth to hide her laughter. “Well, that girl over there looks like she might be in middle school.”
“I saw her,” I deadpanned before gulping the last of my cabernet. “And even her painting is better than mine.”
Humor dripped from her words as she said, “I wasn’t going to say anything...”
I shot her a killing look and snatched up the wine bottle, refilling my glass. “I don’t get it,” I complained, glaring at the travesty of a painting like it had personally insulted me. “First I totally butchered that fruit bowl I was trying to make at Wine and Wheel a month ago.”
“Is that what that was supposed to have been?”
I shot Poppy a flat look. “Then I couldn’t even make a simple scarf at that Sip and Knit night we did the other week.” I waved my hand at my painting as I took another drink of wine. “Now this. It’s like I don’t have a single artistic bone in my body.”
She let out a fake thoughtful hum, but there was no missing the sarcasm that coated her tone. “Maybe if you tried making somethingwithoutthe wine, you’d have better luck.”
I snorted into my wineglass and took another sip. “No thanks. God, talk about boring as hell.”
A throat cleared and we turned to find the instructor standing behind us, a sour expression on her face.
“Not this,” I quickly back-peddled. “This class is a blast. Totally better than all those others. Five stars all around. My review on Yelp is going to say just that, mark my words.” I lifted my glass in cheers with an awkward laugh as she rolled her eyes and walked off. I looked back at Poppy and pulled my mouth into a wince. “Think I managed to play that off?”
Poppy shook her head on a huff of laughter. “God, I love you. You’re such a disaster.”
My face crinkled in an offended glower. “Your tone said that was a compliment, but your words cut deep.”
She snorted and threw her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in for a sideways hug. “It’s all love, sweetie. You’re alovabledisaster. It’s part of what makes you you.”
A bewildered laugh bubbled up from my throat. “You can’t be serious. What makes me me is the fact I’m a freaking mess?”
She bopped me on the tip of my nose. “Alovablemess. Don’t forget that part; it’s the most important.” She gave me a small jostle. “Can we get out of here now? Jase just texted that he’s eager for me to get home. If you know what I mean,” she tacked on at the end with a lascivious waggle of her brows.
My features pinched with disgust. “Oh,blech, I don’t need to hear that!” I shook my head, trying to clear away the disgusting image she’d left behind.
Jase Hyland, Poppy’s husband, also happened to be my boss. However, we’d known each other for so long that most of the time he felt more like a pain-in-the-ass older brother I got immense joy from tormenting rather than the dude who signed my paychecks.
He first met Poppy through his sister, Farah, when he’d come to visit. She’d been the first of them to pack up and trade Connecticut in for Redemption, and it didn’t take long for him to decide to make the move to be closer to her. After all, she was the only family he was willing to claim, and vice versa. I followed after him when he offered me a raise that was impossible to turn down, and in doing so, had become fast friends with Poppy and Farah both.
What had started as a fake engagement between Jase and Poppy in order to prove to the board of his family’s company that he was serious enough to be put in control of a multibillion-dollar legacy had turned very real in no time. Now the two were married and nauseatingly in love.
I’d been in Tennessee for three years now. I’d built a life and made friends with people who were more like family, and in that short time, I had a front row seat as every single one of them settled down with the loves of their lives.
It didn’t used to faze me to see them all together, but that was because I’d fooled myself into thinking I’d been in a healthy, loving relationship of my own. I was one of them, just counting the days to my own happily ever after. Then I discovered my boyfriend of six years hadn’t been missing me the way I had been missing him, and instead of preparing to move to Tennessee to be with me, like he’d promised, he was screwing the woman who lived in the apartment across the hall.
