Page 328 of Love Bites

“You’retoonice. You’re all sweetness and light around here, and it makes my job really damn difficult.”

“Me being nice makes it hard to run the counter?”

“No. You being so fucking nice that you allow your ex-boyfriend—who dumped you the second he spotted his fated mate—to keep chatting you up even though he knows his mate will cut his balls off if she finds out makes my job of leading you three wild women through the world of shifters difficult.”

“That’s not what we pay you for.”

“If I didn’t step in now and again, you’d end up making some pretty gnarly mistakes. Like that time last summer when the hottie with the black hair was hitting on you? When you looked as if you were going to just melt into his side without asking him his species?”

“That just seems rude.”

“Honey, in this world, rude is what keeps you from dating a skunk shifter. Do I need to remind you how that would have gone?”

Ugh. No. She didn’t. “Okay, fine. I’m an idiot for being nice. I just can’t help but acknowledge someone when they talk to me.”

“Texts aren’t talking—texts from ex-boyfriends are either booty calls or future mistakes. Maybe both. Ignore him.”

I thought about her words for a long time, long enough to have finished a batch of my famous éclairs and for my sister, Madeleine, to arrive at the shop. She dove straight into the business of making the groom’s cake we’d be supplying for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night. Me? I thought about ignoring Nico. For what felt like hours.

But I couldn’t stop thinking that Misty’s advice was wrong.

“What now?” Misty said when she caught me frowning at my phone again.

“I just—”

“Donottell me you were thinking of texting Nico back.”

“Well, I mean—”

“No. Just no. You can never, and I mean ever, text him again. There is no good reason why you’d ever need to.”

This was going to be awkward. “It’s an invitation.”

“To what?”

“The wedding.”

Her face went flat, but her eyes—oh, her eyes were bright and hard as they stared at me. I knew that look—her fox was hanging out really close to the front of her mind. That little vixen had a mean streak a mile wide. I wasn’t the biggest fan of having caught her attention.

Voice harsh, every word enunciated and slow, Misty said, “He texted you an invitation to his wedding.”

Not a question, and yeah, okay. When she put it that way… But his bad manners didn’t mean I had to act the same way. “I should probably RSVP, right?”

“That man has some balls, I’ll tell you that.” Misty huffed, pacing along the back counter and looking almost frazzled. Even the ever-calm Madeleine watched her warily, earbuds in and probably having no idea what we were talking about but knowing something had gotten to our solid and sure customer service person. We’d had lines out the doors and people screaming when we’d run out of their favorite cookies, yet I’d never seen Misty frazzled.

This was new territory. “Misty?”

“I’m thinking.” She mumbled something to herself, still pacing. Still looking like a woman without a solution to a problem. Definitely new territory. Madeleine disappeared into the back, probably pretending to look for something in the storage room. Smart girl, though we’d have to have a little talk about her abandoning me with a crazed fox shifter. Not cool, Madeleine. Not cool at all.

“Maybe I’ll text Ginger.” My other sister, and the one with the most experience with men. Quite literally. The woman had no shame and an endless supply of both dating horror stories and successes. “She might know what to do.”

Misty didn’t answer me, so I did just what I’d planned—sent a text to my wildest sister and hoped for the best.

Me:I think I broke Misty.

Ginger:What did you do now? I’ll be there in two minutes to put her back together.

Me:Nothing intentional. Nico texted me again, this time to invite me to his wedding. Thoughts?

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