Page 17 of My Brooding Valentine

“Holy hell,” Macy suddenly said. “Who’s that guy?”

We all turned in the direction Macy was looking and immediately saw the guy she was talking about. But unlike theothers, I wasn’t admiring him. I was staring at him in complete disbelief.

“No way,” I said out loud.

Dakota, who was seated next to me, gave me a strange look. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s him,” I said, nodding toward the desk where Sawyer stood. “That’s the guy I was telling you about last night.”

I’d arrived early and checked into the room, which had left me plenty of time to pout and cry before my roommate arrived. Once she got a look at me, she insisted we go downstairs to the restaurant and have a drink. Halfway through a bottle of beer, it became clear to me nothing could make me feel better. Nothing.

Sawyer was talking to the woman behind the desk. His features were set in determination. He’d come here to track me down.

“He’s come here to track me down,” I said, repeating the words to Dakota, mostly because I was struggling to believe that myself.

“You know him?” Bronte, another baker who wore an outfit that had to have cost at least a thousand dollars, asked.

I nodded. “He’s a guy I was seeing before I came here.”

Was seeing? That was an exaggeration. It was a one-night stand. He was a hookup. That was probably closer to the right terminology.

But he was here now. That had to mean something. Hookups didn’t chase women across the country. He would have had to pay a fortune for a plane ticket to get here this quickly.

“Go get him,” Dakota said.

I shifted my gaze to my roommate, who was already becoming a good friend. I pushed myself to my feet at the same time Sawyer looked in my direction. My heart was pounding. My legs felt rubbery. But somehow, I managed to force them to carryme from the seating area to the front desk, where Sawyer turned, facing in my direction.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, deliberately keeping my tone neutral.

Maybe he had a completely non-romantic reason for being here. I’d left something at his house, for example, or in the cabin next door. It was absurd, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up, only to be let down.

“I fucked up,” he said. “I don’t know how I managed to screw this up so quickly, but I did.”

I shook my head, hesitating as someone breezed past us and approached the woman at the front desk. They started talking, and I felt more comfortable speaking, knowing that nobody was listening to us.

“Iscrewed up,” I said. “I guess I was so sure you were going to hurt me, I did the breaking up for you. Like that would be easier somehow. It just seemed impossible to me that this could happen so quickly. I was looking for signs you were having cold feet.”

“My feet are red hot,” he said with a hint of a smile. Those eyes seemed to almost sparkle as he looked at me. “And I’m dealing with the same thing. When you came to my door, mad at me for something I didn’t even know I’d done?—”

“You didn’t do it,” I interrupted. “I was being a nincompoop.”

His eyebrows arched at that word, but he continued. “I reacted in anger. It’s a bad habit. I get hurt, I get angry, and then I shove the person away so they can’t hurt me anymore. It sounds like we’re both a little messed up when it comes to relationships.”

I gave him a smile. “You could say that again. I don’t even know how to do this. I’ve spent the past decade or so watching my friends deal with dating drama. I didn’t want to come acrossas some sort of weird stalker who thought one night meant forever.”

“One night did mean forever, as far as I’m concerned. For as long as I’m alive on this Earth, anyway.”

My heart felt like it might melt and ooze right out of my body. It was like something out of a movie.

But this was no movie. This was my life. This was the man I’d been waiting to find all these years. And now that I had him, the last thing I’d do was let him go.

As he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, right there in the lobby, I knew that my home wasn’t Hope Peak or Billings or even Seduction Summit. My home was wherever this man was.

EPILOGUE

HAILEY

“Welcome to The Cozy Crumb,” I called out as I heard the door to the bakery open.

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