Page 37 of Cups of You

Willie whistled before replying. “Well, shit. So that’s that then?”

Amber sighed. “I think I want it to be.”

Willie set her cup on the counter. “Hold on. I sense this requires a chair and for you to come around here and sit with me.”

Amber looked around. She had almost forgotten that while she was off, most people were working on a Wednesday afternoon. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. Are you busy?”

“Does it look like I’m busy?” Willie asked teasingly. “It’s usually dead until like four when people trickle in here or there. Most of the rush is on the weekends when the college crowd comes in to use the back tables.”

“I see. Is business slow?” Amber walked around the counter and sat in the chair Willie offered her. “I mean, the town is bigger than it used to be.”

Willie shrugged. “Business is good enough to pay the bills. I have a contract with the community college, so their ordered books come through here and I get a lot of online orders for people wanting to get books shipped. Lots of people still don’t trust ordering stuff from a place they can’t visit.”

“Well, that’s good,” Amber said. “I’ll need to potentially figure out what to do if I decide to stick around.”

“If I had more business, I would hire you so we could sit around and talk shit about people like we did in high school.”

Amber smiled. “Thanks for the thought.”

“Always. Now, back to this asshole who broke your heart. What did he say when you confronted him? Did you confront him yet?”

“Yeah. He just said come home so we can work things out. No apology. No explanation.” The thought of Josiah still not apologizing when he was so clearly in the wrong angered Amber all over again. “It was one thing that always pissed me off about him.”

“One of many I’m sure.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” Amber conceded. “You know, truthfully, I had looked at taking some time off and coming down here as a bit of a blessing. Things were getting rough between the two of us and I had been considering taking a break to figure out if we were really working.”

Willie nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She looked down and popped the top off it. “Any other major reasons why?”

“Well,” Amber said as she thought of all the reasons she had originally chocked up to minor inconveniences but now without the blinders of being together, she was seeing as a major issues that should have given her pause before.

“Well, for one, he always talked about how much more important his job was than mine. Like, to the point where I passed on some great opportunities that came my way over the past couple years.”

“Major red flag,” Willie replied with a grimace. “Let me guess, he talked about making sacrifices, but you were the only one who seemed to be losing out.”

“Yes,” Amber exclaimed. “You too?”

Willie nodded. “Yeah. Before I met Don, I was dating this guy who was a total asshole, but he was so stealthy about it that I didn’t catch on for months. Surprisingly, it was when I met his sister that I realized I had to dump his ass.”

“What happened?”

“Girl, he kept talking down her accomplishments and I realized he had been doing the same damn thing to me. As soon as I realized he was trying to make me feel like my job and wants were unimportant and that this was a pattern, I threw up the deuces and broke up with his ass.”

“Damn.”

“I always said I wouldn’t be one of those women who got caught in a bad relationship because I was too smart for that. The truth was anyone can get caught in it. All it means is that the person you’re with is manipulative.”

Willie leaned forward and put a hand on Amber’s knee. “Let his ass stay on the curb and you figure out your next steps. The best revenge is thriving.”

Amber felt encouraged and she raised her coffee cup. “To thriving.”

“To thriving.”

Amber felt something in her chest loosen at being a little less alone.

TWELVE

Benjamin watched Amber walk out of the café. The knowledge that she was considering staying here in Millensville had his mind reeling. He knew she was considering all her options and that he shouldn’t get his hopes up, but his heart was stubborn. Randy was right, when Benjamin fell, he fell hard and here he was taking a dive for a woman who was probably reevaluating her entire life.

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