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How could I have made such a huge mistake?
I knew that Georgia was probably foaming at the mouth to know how the date that absolutely wasnota date had gone, so I at least had a slight reprieve from her. Luna was a different story. She’d been blowing my phone up all morning, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she showed up on my doorstep, demanding answers. And I couldn’t even lock her out, because like a freaking idiot, I’d given her a key!
I was mid-wallow when I discovered there was no coffee in my house. If it had been anything else—like food or air—I would have convinced myself I could do without it for a while longer. But not coffee. I lived on it to the point I was pretty sure the blood running through my veins was caffeinated.
I stood in front of my coffee maker, staring at it like it owed me money for a good five minutes before finally caving and headed out into the sunshine—stupid Mother Nature. What an asshole. Going to the general store to stock up was out of the question, so I started toward the coffee shop, opting to drive to make the trip as short as humanly possible.
The only saving grace for a day as shitty as this one was the fact that Luna and Georgia were the only two people in town to know anything about my date-not-date.
Or so I thought.
I realized my epic mistake the moment I walked into Drip. Monica’s gaze swung to me, and the moment it landed, her eyes began to dance with excitement.
“Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re here! I want to knoweverything.”
“How did you—?” I clamped my mouth shut and squeezed my eyes closed, focusing on deep breathing before my head could explode.
I was going to kill Luna. I was going to murder her and bury her in my backyard, and if anybody asked me where she’d gone I’d tell them all they needed to know was that I’d done Whitecap a favor.
“Luna really can’t keep her mouth shut, can she?” I grumbled as I stopped in front of the counter.
“Why do you act like that’s a surprise? She can’t keep a secret to save her life. We should all count ourselves lucky she doesn’t know any of the country’s nuclear codes.” That worked to pull a tiny smile across my lips. “But I don’t care about that. I want to know how your date went,” she decreed way too damn loudly.
God, small towns were the worst!
“It wasn’t a date,” I replied flatly.
“But Luna said—”
“She was wrong.”
“Yeah, but then Georgia told me—”
I lifted my hand to stop her. “Georgia blabbed too? Come on!”
She let out a disgruntled huff and slapped her hands down on her hips. “Will you stop changing the subject?”
“I’m not changing the subject. I already told you it wasn’t a date. Now can I please get a coffee?”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t a date?”
Leaning forward, I lowered my voice so no one could overhear. “Can you keep your voice down? This whole thing is embarrassing enough without everyone in town finding out.”
Concern washed across her features as she braced her hands on the counter and met me halfway across it, now whispering, fortunately. “What happened?”
“Nothing, okay? I just thought it was a date but it turned out it wasn’t. That’s it.”
The skin between her eyebrows pinched with worry as she looked me up and down, finally noticing how I looked. I may or may not—definitelynot—have remembered to brush my hair before twisting it up into a tangled knot on top of my head. My sweats had definitely seen better days, and when I looked down, I realized that the flip-flops I’d slid on from the pile pushed aside by the front door didn’t match. Oops. Hey, at least I remembered to put on a bra, so that was a win.
“You know, I’m pretty sure there’s a whole hell of a lot more to your story, but from the looks of you, it’s either cleaning day or you’re dangerously close to a mental breakdown. I’m leaning more toward the latter, so I’ll let it slide. For now.”
“Kind of you,” I mumbled. “Coffee?”
I let out a sigh of relief when she moved to one of the huge industrial machines that sat behind the counter and went about making my usual. I shook off my bad mood just long enough to thank her and agree to come over to dinner with her and Sam in the near future.
I made the mistake of thinking I was home free when I turned onto my street. I’d get to resume my steady decline into the pits of embarrassment without any more interruptions. Unfortunately, when I pulled up in front of my house, I saw a familiar figure standing on my front porch, looking all kinds of put out.
“Don’t you work?” I called as I climbed from the driver’s seat and shoved the door closed, beeping the locks.
