Page 16 of Should Have Been Me

Ryan studied me closely before asking, “So, you’re okay about this? I mean, you aren’t going to spiral again and spend the next two weeks drowning yourself in cookie dough ice cream until we have to pull you out of it with another intervention?”

Okay, so I may not have handled the breakup all that great the first time around. But that was a year ago, for crying out loud. “I’m fine,” I assured them, feeling a twinge of guilt at the concern in their expressions. Alongside my parents, these two had been my rocks when the breakup first happened and the handful of months that followed. “I’m over Barrett, I swear.” The relief I felt at the truth of that statement was a huge weight off my shoulders. The pain of loving him and losing him was gone. After seeing him for the kind of man he really was, it hadn’t been hard for those feelings to shrivel up and die.

But my pride was something else altogether, and it was pride that had me up in arms over my ex being engaged to the woman he’d started seeing so shortly after our breakup. I prided myself on being a good person, and I didn’t like wishing ill on people, but I would have been lying if I said I didn’t hope the both of them got a terrible case of cystic acne the day before their wedding. But I’d keep that to myself.

Eliza appeared at the end of our table just then, dressed in a crisp white chef’s coat with the name Sinful Sweets Café embroidered across the left side of her chest. “Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?”

I bit the side of my tongue to keep my snarky response at bay. Eliza Prewitt was a friend of mine, one of the sweetest people I’d ever known. She’d had it rough growing up, thanks to a shitty mother. But when her father fell for Chloe Delaney years ago, things started looking up for her. Chloe gave Eliza the mother figure she never had with her own, even expanding her bakery, Sinful Sweets, to include a dine-in café after Eliza completed culinary school.

Now she was married to her childhood best friend, retired football star, Ethan Prewitt, living out the happily-ever-after she absolutely deserved, and the last thing she needed was for me to act like a jerk all because she was trying to be a good friend.

“I’m fine, really,” I assured all three sets of eyes that were watching me way too closely. “I’m not heartbroken, and this isn’t going to send me spiraling, I swear. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. Now that I’ve had time to process, I’m over it.”

Well, not completely over it, but enough that they didn’t need to worry about me stepping in to exact some karmic retribution, since that stingy bitch was taking her sweet time doing it herself.

Eliza nodded proudly. “Good. You deserve so much better than that jerk.”

“Exactly,” Ryan agreed. “As far as I’m concerned, those two deserve each other.”

Tarryn’s hand came down on the table like she just had the most brilliant idea in the world. “You know what you need, Jo? You need to get back on the horse. Find another dude to dust the cobwebs off.”

My brow crinkled and I choked on the sip of coffee I’d just taken, sputtering and spilling it down my chin. “Oh my God,” I wheezed once I was able to pull in a full breath. “I don’t have cobwebs, you asshole.”

Eliza and Ryan just laughed.

“You know what I mean,” Tarryn exclaimed with an eyeroll. “It’s been a year. You need to get back out there, already. This may be a small town, but it’s not lacking in hot men.”

At the mention of hot men, why in the hell did my mind immediately go to that sexy-as-sin stranger who’d insulted me and my cat? I shook my mind clear of his gorgeous face and rock-hard body. It was one thing to be good-looking, but another entirely to be a raging prick.

No thank you.

“Amen to that.” Eliza threw her hands up in agreement.

I jabbed my finger in her direction. “You hush. Women happily married to hot men don’t have the right to chime in.” She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key before I turned back to Tarryn. “And as far as getting back out there, I’ll do that when I’m damn good and ready, and not a moment sooner.”

I planted my feet and prepared to stand so I could go to the bathroom to clean up my little coffee spill, but as soon as I shoved my chair back, it collided with something behind me. Something—or should I say someone—who let out a grunt at the impact.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorr—” I started, spinning around to apologize to the person I’d just plowed into, only for my gaze to lock onto a pair of teal eyes ringed in copper.

“You,” I let out on a surprised breath, almost as though my earlier thoughts had summoned him out of thin air.

“You have got to be kidding me,” the man from the other day barked out as he looked down the front of his suit to take in the blooming coffee stain spreading across his once crisp white button-down.

Whoops.

9

VAUGHN

This had to be some kind of cruel joke. Either that or I’d pissed off some higher power recently who was getting a real kick out of getting back at me via second-and-third-degree burns. At the rate things were going, I was going to need a skin graft soon.

I’d been so focused on taking that first sip of coffee—Sinful Sweets really did brew a superb cup of coffee—that I hadn’t been paying adequate attention to the table I was passing, and the woman shoved her chair backward, plowing right into me, sending the coffee splattering down my front.

This was what I got for venturing into town again because I’d been too busy over the past few days to run out and replace my broken coffee maker at home. Never again. I was never leaving my house again.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorr—” The cat owner’s lips parted on a quiet exhale as those dove gray eyes of hers went wide. “You.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I gritted out, hunched forward and grasping the front of my shirt in an effort to keep the steaming hot fabric off my skin.

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