Page 2 of Restless Ink

Men were slime, and Roger was the slimiest.

“Yeah. Sure. Bye.”

“Thanks for tonight, babe. I’ll call you.”

“Don’t bother,” she whispered as she walked away, her middle finger in the air. It was possible he couldn’t see it, but it was still warranted.

“Don’t be that way, babe,” he yelled from the bedroom where he still hadn’t moved, but she ignored him, closing the front door softly behind her. As much as she wanted to slam it, she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of her showing any emotion beyond coldness.

Because she was Thea, the ice bitch who played with icing in her bakery. She knew what her exes had said before, and now Roger would just be another of those who thought her cold or something along those lines.

Whatever, she was done with men.

She got into her car, threw her purse onto the passenger seat, and made her way to the grocery store. She was so freaking mad, she didn’t even want to bake. That’s when she knew that something was wrong, and if she didn’t get some sugar soon, she would break—and that wasn’t something Roger deserved. And because she didn’t want to do something she loved, she knew she was right at the level where she’d start crying in her car, and she refused to do that.

So, she’d go to the store, pick up some ice cream, then eat the whole pint before she went to bed. Alone. Because, of course, she would be alone. Why wouldn’t she be?

“Ugh,” Thea whispered to herself, annoyed at her train of thought. She hated self-pity, but being tossed out after a particularly bad bout of sex had kind of sent her over the edge into the land of meh.

As soon as she parked, she leapt from the car, purse in hand, and made her way into the twenty-four-hour market. Hopefully, she’d be in and out quickly, and no one she knew would see her do her version of a sugar-loaded walk of shame.

Of course, that’s when her heel broke.

Because…of course, it did.

Nothing good ever came from lack of orgasms.

Fuck this night.

Fuck it hard.

Fuck it harder than she’d been fucked.

Though that wouldn’t be hard, because…Roger.

She picked up the broken part of her heel and limped her way to the frozen food section. She’d be damned if she left without her sugar. Now, though, she’d buy five pints because it was just that kind of night.

Thea was just deciding between the low-calorie fake ice cream and the good old-fashioned heavy cream version when a familiar voice called her name.

“Thea?”

Whynottonight? Seriously. Whywouldn’tthis man be right by her after everything that had happened already? Seemed about right.

She rolled her shoulders back and turned to Dimitri, her best friend’s ex-husband and Thea’s friend, as well. If she were going to meetanyonein a grocery store after what had turned out to be a horrible date while wearing a broken heel, her version of the walk of shame outfit, and messy bedhead hair that tumbled down her shoulders in dark waves, it might as well be him.

“Hey, Dimitri.”

Dimitri. The man had once been in her life just as much as Molly had. Thea had been friends with both of them and had even known the two separately before they started dating. She’d also refused to take sides during the separation and then after the divorce. Of course, it had always been Molly who wanted Thea to take a side. Dimitri stayed quiet, clearly hurting from the breakup at the time and the changes in his life. He’d tried to keep his friendship with Thea soon after the papers had been signed and even a few months following that, but Thea had always felt awkward because of Molly. Now, she had a feeling she’d made the wrong choice because Dimitri was her friend too, and she’d lost him.

She looked over the line of his jaw, the bend on his nose from where he’d broken it in a bar fight in college—a scuffle that had been about protecting a friend and not because of too many drinks. He wore a cotton shirt under his leather jacket that clung to his wide chest, and jeans that molded to his thighs—not that she was looking at his legs. She knew he had a large tattoo on one quad that was part of his family history, words in Cyrillic that she’d never been able to decipher. He also had a grouping of trees on his forearm and wrist that made a half-sleeve that he’d said reminded him of his family’s home. He was a fourth-generation American and had never been to the place his family hailed from, even his last name wasn’t Russian, but he’d always loved his ink.

That much Thea remembered about him, even though she hadn’t set eyes on him in a month—though it felt like far longer.

His brow rose as he studied her, his gaze traveling down her dress to her broken heel. It wasn’t like she could hide anything.

“Are you okay?” He didn’t smile as he said it. In fact, he looked angry, really angry. “Do you want me to take you somewhere? To talk?”

She blinked, confused. “What are you talking about? I’m fine.” Well, shewouldbe fine once she had her ice cream and a long bath, but she didn’t need to tell him the details.

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