Sneak peek at Best Served Cold, releasing May 29
CHAPTER ONE
Sophie
“Uh, Otis?” I ask, waving the phone screen at my twenty-one-year-old cousin. My hand is jittering, causing my two-carat diamond ring to sparkle in the light streaking in through the kitchen window. “Can you come take a look at this? I need a second opinion.”
He sighs as he sets down the toast he was preparing, spilling a glop of jam onto his grandmother’s granite counter. If don’t clean it up, it will probably remain there until we both die. My cousin is sweet, mostly, but co-habitating with him has not been a highlight of my time in Asheville. Now, though…
I’ve never been a lucky woman, so I’m presuming the worst, but maybe Otis will be able to explain away the text message that just ruined my life.
My pulse thunders as he takes the phone in his sticky hand and peers at the screen.
“What the…”
He glances at me in disbelief.
I feel my hope shriveling like a raisin shoved into the back of a cabinet. So the text says what I thought it did…
BigCatchBabe: I can’t wait to see you this afternoon. I’ve been thinking about it all week. After I suck your cock, you can bend me over that barrel again. ;-)
“Uh, Soph.” Otis returns the phone, which I nearly drop, more clumsy from nerves than the jam residue. “Doesn’t this person realize you don’t have a cock?”
“It’s not my phone,” I snap, slapping it down on the counter with a resonant crack. Hopefully, it broke.
Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.
But panic has already cracked me down my middle, heartache seeping out. This is bad. This is really, really bad. This is so bad I have to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen to describe it…it’s a ruinous affair .
“You stole someone else’s phone?” Otis asks, his forehead furrowing. “But why?”
Without looking at him, I respond in a gush of words. “It’s Jonah’s. He just bought me a new one, and he set the wallpaper so it’s the same as his. They’re basically identical, and he took mine by mistake this morning. When I realized what happened, I thought it would be funny to text him from his own phone, because I know he always uses his birthday as his password, but then this text popped up, and…” I swallow the rest of the run-on sentence. “You think someone’s playing a joke on him? Like one of his buddies?”
His mouth falls open, closes, and then opens again. I’m hoping some unexpected brilliance will spill out. Instead, he rubs his chin and says, “Yeah, guys don’t joke around like that, Soph. Not unless they’re secretly blowing each other.”
“So you think…”
He looks like he does every time I ask him to do something around the house—panicky. I can see sweat beading above his upper lip as he wiggles his foot. Finally, he says, “You know what? I gotta go. I forgot, but I have this thing. It’s pretty important, and yeah… I’ll see you later. Sorry.”
“For what?” I ask numbly as he edges away, abandoning his toast.
He lifts a shoulder, shamefaced. “For…you know…being a guy.”
“You don’t have anywhere to be,” I accuse, the words sharper than they should be. He is lying, obviously, but he’s not the one who did this to me.
Jonah is.
Jonah Price is my fiancé of four months.
He told me he wanted to marry me after our first date and bought me an iPad for my birthday three weeks later, loaded with my “favorite songs.” It was his favorite music, truthfully, but it was still an attempt at thoughtfulness. So was the way he proposed, with a bouquet of handpicked flowers.
My great aunt Penny would point out that he’d woven poison ivy into the arrangement, but he’s not a florist. How was he supposed to know?
Jonah has been my silver lining for months, my proof that my life isn’t as badly off-track as it feels. But if this is true…
My knees go weak.
It’s like twelve years have been rewound and I’m sixteen again, stuck in the worst moment of my life. Rewind, repeat.
“Can I leave?” Otis asks as he scratches his head violently. “I think that would be better for both of us. I mean…Jonah hates me anyway. He’s going to find some way to blame this on me.”
“How could it possibly be your fault that he’s running around town getting blowjobs at other breweries?” The thought is distressing enough to reduce me to a puddle, and I grab the phone and sink down to the ground. It’s sticky, suggesting the toast isn’t the first snack Otis made today. I mopped it last night, and I’m going to have to mop it again this afternoon. Only this time, I probably won’t be able to tell myself, Only three months left before the rest of your life starts.
I was supposed to move in with Jonah after the wedding. We’d picked out new curtains together, and he’d surprised me with his very defined opinions about those and the bed linens. Why would someone with very defined opinions on such things cheat on his fiancée?
He and his mother had also insisted on being involved in every stage of wedding planning. She’d chosen the invitations; he’d chosen the venue, after rejecting my idea of holding it at Buchanan Brewery, where I work as a “beer wench,” his words, and a taproom server and part-time manager, mine. I hadn’t really minded. I’d already blown half of my savings on a wedding dress, and everyone knew my family wasn’t in a position to contribute.
“What am I going to do?” I ask. “What am I going to do ?”
Otis makes a worried sound, then opens the fridge and removes a beer. He pops the top with the bottle opener magnet on the door and hands it down to me.
It’s from the six pack of Hair of the Dog IPAs I brought home from work last night. I’d gotten it for Jonah, but he’d turned up his nose and insisted he preferred Big Catch’s IPA.
Now that seems doubly insulting.
“It’s 9 a.m.,” I say numbly.
He pops a second beer open for himself. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make a mimosa. The proportions always get messed up.”
“You’re staying?”
He sighs and settles onto the floor beside me. “Yeah. Sorry I tried to bounce. Grandma is at her doctor’s appointment for another hour, and you don’t have any friends. She’d be disappointed in me if I left.”
One of the pieces from my shattered heart digs into my chest, in danger of metaphorically puncturing a lung. He’s right. I don’t have any friends here. I moved to Asheville less than a year ago, and I met Jonah that first week. Between spending time with him and taking care of my great aunt, Otis’s grandmother, I’ve been too busy for friends. Or for my dreams, which have faded into the background, lost behind all of the wedding Pinterest boards Jonah’s mother has sent me.
I take a sip of the beer, then a glug of it.
“That’s the spirit,” Otis says as I start coughing. “So…I can’t think of a chill way to say this, but we both know what’s going on here. If you tell Jonah, he’s going to make up some excuse. Maybe he’s already on his way over to switch the phones back. He’s got to be panicking.”
I take another glug of beer. “He…he’s got a meeting at one of the breweries he distributes for this morning. He won’t be able to leave without offending the owner.”
“Is it at the blowjob place?” he asks.
I flinch. “No. Big Catch is owned by one of those mega corps. His meeting’s at Silver Star. The owner is really touchy about technology. He doesn’t let any of the employees use their phones while they’re working.”
“Well, Jonah’s going to panic when he realizes he messed up, and he’ll have some explanation, and…”
“You’re worried I’m going to believe him,” I say numbly.
“Yeah. I mean, he’s persuaded you before.”
Just then, the phone buzzes again. I drop it like it’s a hot potato and the music just stopped.
Otis meets my gaze, sighs, and grabs it.
He checks the screen and immediately flinches. “Uh. I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s another one.”
“What?” I squawk.
He hands it over, and I take it with a shaking hand.
SilverStarBabe: Do you have time to grab breakfast after your meeting? I know you’ve been busy, but I’ve barely seen you for weeks.
SilverStarBabe: My therapist says we need to find ways to reconnect.
I glance at Otis in disbelief. “How is this happening? Is this a bad dream? Jonah told me just this morning that he can’t wait to wife me.”
He grimaces.
“He was being sweet,” I say automatically, because defending Jonah to Otis and my aunt has become a reflex. Shaking my head, I say, “No, it was stupid. But…seriously. Is this a dream? I don’t understand…”
He reaches out, and I’m about to hand the phone to him so he can take a second look when he pinches my arm instead.
“Ow,” I cry out. “What was that for?”
“Sorry,” he says, nearly fumbling his beer. “Just wanted to make sure. You know, I’m surprised too. I never would have thought Jonah had this much game. He owns five pairs of Crocs, and he thinks Africa’s a country.”
“So did you,” I point out, glancing at him. I was the one who’d filled them both in. Otis had taken it with his usually easy acceptance, but Jonah had given me the cold shoulder all day.
You don’t need to correct people, Sophie. You’re not a teacher. It was a barb he’d known would hurt.
Jonah’s like that sometimes. He can be sweet and so complimentary, but he can also be a bit of…
Well, an asshole.
I’ve told myself he’s just not good at reading other people’s feelings. Some people are naturally empathetic, and others need to be reminded, constantly, that other people have feelings. I’m a type one, and he’s a type two. No big deal. But maybe I was making excuses for him because I was desperate to hold onto that silver lining.
I swallow, trying to regain control of my emotions. “So, we think… It seems like Jonah has been cheating on me, right? Like…possibly with more than one person. There’s no other explanation?”
That would mean the man I’d fallen in love with didn’t exist. That he was a mirage created to fool me.
But why would he do that?
If he wants to flounce around town fucking whoever he wants why have a girlfriend at all, let alone a fiancée?
He gives a sympathetic shrug before admitting, “I don’t think so, but maybe you should, you know, see if there are any other babes saved on that app.”
I look and gasp, because there’s one more—GingerBeerBabe.
I glance up at him. “There’s one more.”
He whistles, then says, “I think you need to text them.”
“The women?” I ask, my voice quavering. “What am I going to say?”
He shrugs again, his long-ish light brown hair flopping around his shoulders. “But you deserve the full story, and that dude’s not going to be honest with you. When he found out I like disc golfing, he claimed he held a local record, but he thought my discs were all frisbees.”
“He does like to be the best,” I say on an exhale.
“His own brother hates him,” he adds.
“His brother’s a dick.”
Rob is Jonah’s half-brother, from his father’s first marriage. He’s only a year-and-a-half older than Jonah. His mother went to rehab when he was eight years old and then only had partial custody, so they basically grew up in the same house. They didn’t get along growing up, and they barely speak to each other now.
Rob’s a musician—a “free spirit,” Jonah’s mother always says with a pinched expression. I’ve only met him a few times, including at Christmas last year. I tried to be kind to him—and even got him a special guitar pick—but it’s obvious his dislike of Jonah encompasses everyone connected to Jonah. Because he loves nothing better than implying I’m a Mary Sue, the kind of woman who blindly smiles and goes along with everything. From the way he says it, it’s clearly intended to be an insult.
He's not entirely wrong about me. After my life blew up when I was sixteen, I made a promise to get along and play nice, and I meant it. I’ve lived up it, even though life has been full of more downs than up. But Rob isn’t right about me either, dammit, and every time I see him, I feel a strange itch to prove that to him.
“He’s not all bad,” Otis says, scratching his nose. “We bumped into each other at Buchanan Brewery one time and had a beer. He paid.”
“You only enjoyed yourself because you were both badmouthing Jonah.”
“Maybe.” Otis takes another swig of his beer. His eyes hold on my face. “You’re not crying.”
“I must be in shock,” I say.
“Or maybe the glass is shattering,” he says. “You’re realizing what Gram and I have known for months—that Jonah is a controlling douchebag. A liar.”
My hand trembles harder as I feel Otis symbolically tugging at my silver lining. “There could still be an honest explanation.”
“Text them,” he says, acting surprisingly invested. “Do it now.”
Hand trembling, I click on the SilverStarBabe text window and start typing.
This isn’t Jonah, but I have his phone. Who are you?
Three dots appear instantly.
SilverStarBabe: Did you kidnap my boyfriend????? What do you want?
I glance at Otis, who is unabashedly reading over my shoulder. “She says…”
“Tell her.”
Finger shaking, I type,
I’m Jonah Price’s fiancée, Sophie. We’re supposed to get married in three months. Who are you?
She starts typing, but I switch to the other window, because I know my cousin is right. I took one of those personality quizzes a couple of months ago, and it informed me I was an ostrich. If I stop now, before I have irrefutable evidence, Jonah might be able to talk me around. Because I really, really want to believe this isn’t true.
This is Jonah Price’s fiancée, Sophie. Who are you?
There’s a knock on the front door, and my eyes lock with Otis’s.
“Hide the phone, man,” he says. “Put it in the freezer or stuff it in your boobs or something.”
I look down at my flat chest, distracted for half a second before I shake my head. “I’m not hiding from this.” A surge of anger breaks through the shock and hurt. Jonah is always talking about the pressures of his job as a distributor for the breweries in the region. He’s always gone. Working, he said. But it’s starting to look like the only thing he was working was me.
The phone buzzes in my hand and I glance down.
It’s SilverStarBabe.
That’s not funny, Jonah.
So she doesn’t know. It makes her blameless and him worse. Do the others know? I haven’t texted GingerBeerBabe yet, but it feels like I’ve run out of time.
Another knock lands on the door as the phone buzzes with a new text, this one from BigCatchBabe.
Well, fuck. I didn’t know, but I should have. All the trips. The unavailability. I’m Rachelle. Want to cut his balls off together?
A sound escapes me that’s half sob, half laugh.
“Sophie.”
I glance up at Otis as the knock lands again.
I hand him the phone.
His expression firms up. “I’ll guard it with my life. He’ll have to fight me for it.”
It’s a sweet offer, but I have a feeling Jonah would just have to look at him funny for Otis to hand it over.
“I’ll handle this,” I say through a dry mouth.
I pick up my beer bottle, surprised to find it empty, even though I don’t remember drinking more than a sip or two. Then I get up off the sticky floor and prepare to do something abnormal for me. I’m going to make a stand.
I try to harness the fire of BigCatchBabe while I make my way to the door. Inside, I’m teetering between devastation and fury. I want to latch onto the fury. I need it.
But when I open the door, Jonah’s not standing on my stoop. It’s his brother, Rob, dressed in a black band T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. His hair is shaggy and dark, his face unshaven. His eyes are hazel, like Jonah’s, but more yellow than mossy green. He always looks like he’s heading home from a bender or some woman’s bed. He looms over me, several inches taller even though I’m five-foot-eight.
Right now, he feels like the embodiment of his brother’s sins. It’s not fair, but I hate him. I loathe anyone with the last name of Price. I’m unimpressed by most people in possession of a Y-chromosome, although Jonah is currently exempt for being sweet and helpful. I want Rob to sink into the earth and bring Jonah with him. His cold, intimidating father can go with them.
I put a hand on my hip and give him a cool look. I can feel the tears pressing at my eyes now, and I refuse to give into them in front of Rob, of all people. Swallowing all of the awful feelings down, I ask, “What are you doing here?”