Death to Valentine’s Day (The Improbable Meet-Cute: Second Chances #5)

Chapter One Maia

Chapter One

Maia

Get up, get up, Geeeeet Uuuuup!”

There was nothing worse than the cheery voice of your best friend on her favoritest of all holidays, when all you wanted to do was drown in ice cream and french fries while watching every horror movie you could find. Because horror was exactly the right emotion when it came to Valentine’s Day.

“If you don’t rise from that festering heap of a bed, I will dump this three-day-old milkshake, that is currently growing something, over your head,” Violet threatened.

I pulled the blankets up, covering my face. “Leave me here to rot, right along with my milkshake.”

Breakups were bad. A breakup on Valentine’s Day last year?

Even worse. But walking in on your boyfriend doing your cousin doggy-style when he said he was working late at the office?

Painful and cliché. Hearing her say, “Mount me, stallion?” Well, that was burned into my brain for all eternity—in the worst way imaginable.

But the soul-crushing bit? Realizing I’d never loved Jackson in the first place. Not really. And I’d wasted a decade of my life on something I never truly wanted.

The holiday was well and truly cursed, and there was nothing my best friend could do to convince me otherwise.

“I think this classifies as an emergency,” Violet muttered.

“Uh, Vi, baby?” our other best friend, Erik, asked, concern bleeding into his tone as the sound of water wafted through the air. “What are you doing?”

A second later, freezing-cold water splashed over me. The blankets were no match for the chill.

I let out a yelp, scrambling atop the mattress. Violet only continued shooting water at me from the edge of my bathroom, soaking my lemur pajamas. “What the hell, Vi?” I demanded as I jumped off the bed.

She dumped the handheld shower sprayer back into my bathtub and shut off the water.

I cursed that my one-bedroom apartment was the size of a shoebox.

If it had been bigger, this wouldn’t have been possible.

But even though I lived forty-five minutes outside of Denver, the rent prices here had felt the impact of the influx of people to the area.

And working at a nature preserve didn’t exactly mean I was rolling in cash.

“Harsh, Vi,” Erik said with a twitch of his lips, making his green eyes sparkle.

Violet just shrugged and turned back to me. “You needed out of that bed. You smell, and so does that bedding.”

I gave my pajama top a sniff and wrinkled my nose. She might have a point there.

But I deserved a little wallowing time at the reminder of everything that had happened.

I’d lived down the street from Jackson West since the second grade.

We’d shared bus rides, carpools, and after-school snacks—usually in the company of his grumpy older brother, Decker.

How a ten-year-old could be grumpy, I wasn’t sure, but Deck had managed it.

I guessed it made sense that he’d gone on to become a professional football player who smashed guys into the ground every week.

But it also made it sort of special that he’d always had a soft spot for me.

The three of us had formed a sort of best-friend trio.

It might’ve been unlikely, but it worked.

Homework sessions and vicious games of Monopoly Junior.

Weekend campouts that Jackson usually ended up ditching halfway through for the promise of a comfortable bed.

Deck attempting to teach me to throw a football.

Even a handful of family trips together.

It was our unlikely trio twenty-four seven right up until Jackson asked me out our sophomore year of high school. I’d been startled, to say the least, but then I thought about how good it could be. We knew each other so well, and friendship was the best kind of relationship, right?

The problem was, I didn’t think there was ever any real spark. A hum, maybe, but no true fireworks. Some part of me didn’t even blame Jackson for cheating. Because I’d started to wonder if all those songs, books, and movies were lying about what love could be.

Okay, maybe I could blame him. Because I’d never even considered straying, even though I wondered.

“Come on, sugar,” Erik coaxed. “Shower and a hot little outfit will have you feeling better in no time.”

Alarm bells started going off in my head. “What are you really here for?”

My two besties shared a conspiratorial look.

“Speak,” I demanded.

Violet tossed her brown locks over one shoulder. “We’re going out.”

“Hell, no” was my immediate response. “It’s freaking Valentine’s Day. Are you delusional? What part of that sounds like a make-Maia-feel-better plan?”

Erik took me by the shoulders, gripping me tightly. “It’s a Death to Valentine’s Day party. Only V-Day haters allowed. And it’s a masquerade. Think of the drama. The spectacle. We have to go.”

“Plus, it’s at a super-sweet mountain mansion,” Violet added. “Come on. Don’t make us go without you.”

I let out a deep breath. She had a point.

It wasn’t like sitting around in my empty apartment and ordering Uber Eats for the five hundredth time would make me feel better.

The last time I’d gotten a delivery, the guy had drawn a smiley face on the cup and written: Turn that frown upside down. That was crossing a line.

Violet rolled back her shoulders as if readying to go into battle.

“Listen up, buttercup. You are going to put on your best slut clothes—and I mean that in the most feminist, take-back-our-sexual-power kind of way. You’re going to dance, drink just a little too much, and if you’re lucky, get the kind of dicking down that finally cleanses that douchebag from your system once and for all. It’s been a year. It’s time.”

The year remark had me stiffening. Because she had a point. I’d been on a few dates over the past twelve months but nothing that had progressed past a peck on the lips. I was starting to feel . . . broken.

Erik snapped in his version of applause and wiped a fake tear from his cheek. “Put that speech on my tombstone.” He turned to me. “What do you say, sugar?”

I stiffened my spine. I’d wasted too much time on Jackson West already. Too much time on a life I’d never really wanted. It was time for me to start living. I looked both my best friends in the eye. “Pick out my slut-era outfit. I’m taking an everything shower.”

Erik exaggeratedly swooned. “Not the everything shower. Watch out, boys!”

“Promise you’ll wear whatever I pick out?” Vi called as I headed into the bathroom.

My steps faltered because I knew the risks. Then again, it was my closet. How bad could it be?

Famous last words.