Page 69 of So Bad It Must Be Good

Chapter Seventeen

Kayla sat in Dinah and Carter’s kitchen and stared at the cupcake Dinah had shoved in front of her. She’d spent most of last night crying, and then she’d spent her morning finishing up her temp job and worrying about Liam and his father.

She hated that she was worried about the jerk, but she was. Couldn’t help it. If anything went wrong in that surgery, Liam would somehow find a way to blame himself. And that was stupid and obnoxious and he should know better.

But she wanted to be the one to teach him, even when she was so damn mad at him she’d imagined herself punching him in the balls more than once.

“Eat it,” Dinah demanded, swiveling the plate with the cupcake back and forth. “It’ll do a broken heart good.”

“Aren’t you supposed to go back to work? Grandmother will not be happy with you taking an extra-long lunch break.”

“Grandmother can bite me.”

Kayla looked dolefully at her cousin.

“Okay, Grandmother can maybe not bite me, but she will deal. I have plenty of personal time to take. You need a cupcake and a shoulder to cry on.”

“I need a boyfriend who isn’t an asshole.”

“Oh, those don’t exist,” Dinah replied decidedly, sticking her finger in the frosting on the cupcake and taking a little bite to her mouth.

“You love Carter,” Kayla pointed out, taking her own little finger scoop of frosting.

“Yes, I do. Immeasurably. I’d do anything for him, and sometimes I love him so much it physically hurts. And sometimes he’s an asshole and I want to punch him in the junk.” Dinah shrugged. “Likely, he feels the same about me. I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s just love.”

Kayla couldn’t manage a smile, though she knew she should try. “I’m really not hungry, Dinah.”

“But it’s chocolate.”

Kayla did manage a smile at that. “You don’t think I should apologize? Maybe . . . Maybe I overreacted. His dad is having surgery today. I was too hard on him.”

“Do you really think that?”

Kayla heaved out a breath and rested her chin on her arms. “No.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

“But if I’m right, why am I miserable?”

“Oh, honey.” Dinah reached across the table and squeezed her arm. “I don’t know that anything in life that’s right is ever easy. Especially when you add in love and other people. It’s kind of a recipe for misery.”

“That’s—” Her phone rang and she nearly jumped. She scrambled for it, and she’d be embarrassed by doing so in front of Dinah later.

But it wasn’t Liam. It was the phone call she’d been waiting for from the orchard she’d interviewed at, and she should be excited rather than disappointed.

Still, when she answered she couldn’t seem to muster nerves or excitement or anything other than an Eeyore depression. “Hello?”

“Good morning, is this Ms. Gallagher?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. This is Sheila from Tiffer’s Farm & Orchard. I’m going to be kind of blunt because I know how stressful it is waiting for an answer on a job. Unfortunately we decided to go another way with the position you applied for.”

“Oh.” It was disappointing. If she hadn’t spent all night crying over Liam, she might have even cried, but all she managed to feel was kind of numb.

“But we did want to offer you an alternate position.”

“Alternate . . . position?”

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