Chapter 4
The Morning After
The scent of freshly baked muffins cut through the haze of my hangover. The overhead fluorescents buzzed against my tender skull, but the familiar warmth of the ovens was oddly comforting.
"Good morning," I mumbled, tossing my purse onto the flour-dusted prep table. The espresso machine hissed in the corner, already warming up for the morning rush. "Sorry, I'm late."
"You look like you wrestled a tequila bottle and lost," Kali said, not even glancing up from her muffin mix.
Her red curls caught the light as she worked, creating a halo effect that made her look annoyingly radiant this early in the morning.
Her ability to be perky at dawn was both inspiring and slightly annoying.
"We never really had the chance to chat last night.
" That was because Kali was already three sheets to the wind by the time I showed up. "How did yesterday go?"
"Mission accomplished." I shuffled toward our temperamental espresso machine, a vintage beast that had more mood swings than a teenager.
One wrong move and it would spray scalding water like an angry dragon.
"I am now officially divorced, officially broke, and officially questioning every life choice I've ever made.
But hey, at least I'm consistent in my disasters. "
My gaze dropped to the expensive bag of Colombian coffee beans.
"Are you okay?" She whispered, finally looking up at me with those bright blue eyes that seemed to see right through me. Her fair skin was dotted with freckles that made her look younger than twenty-three. "Did you have trouble sleeping?"
I scooped the beans out of the bag and poured them into the grinder. "Actually, I'm good." I twisted to face her. "Last night I stayed at the bar after everyone left."
"Really?" Kali's eyebrows shot up. "You stayed at the bar alone?
That's either very sad or very badass." I'd only met Kali a few months ago when I'd hired her to help me run the café, but we'd instantly hit it off.
She was my spirit animal. She was loud and vibrant and exactly what I needed after the day I'd had yesterday.
"I'm going with badass."
"Sure, we'll go with that," she teased. "You should have told me you were staying. I would have stayed."
"I just wanted to unpack my day with a few shots of tequila." She nodded like she understood. "But I met someone."
Kali perked up. "Ooh, rebound guy?"
"More like a reality check with nice arms. Even though I'll probably never see him again, he made me realize I might not die alone surrounded by cats."
After sleeping off the tequila and regaining some perspective, I'd realized that Matt probably had his reasons for not asking for my number.
He'd mentioned being divorced too, and if his track record with serious relationships was as disastrous as mine, maybe we were both just emotional disasters trying to figure out how to be human again.
Her shoulders sank. "Why don't you think you'll see him again?"
"Well, to start, he didn't ask for my phone number."
"Did you ask for his?"
I paused, coffee scoop halfway to the grinder. "That's a thing people do?"
"Oh, honey. We need to get you a dating manual. Or at least a basic handbook on human interaction."
"I've never had to do this. I'm a little out of practice, I guess."
"Did you guys hit it off?"
I smiled. "Yeah, kind of, or I thought we did, but I don't know. I kind of got the impression that he doesn't really date. Like maybe he's a one-night stand kind of guy." I flipped on the grinder and had to shout over the noise. "WHICH IS FINE BECAUSE I'M CLEARLY NOT RELATIONSHIP MATERIAL!"
I didn't believe that he was a one-night stand guy, or maybe he was, and I wasn't his type. Shit… I don't know what I believed.
Kali winced, and I turned off the grinder. "The whole neighborhood heard that."
"Good. Let them know I'm available and emotionally stable." I flicked a glance at my watch. "You better go. You'll be late for class."
"Right, because one of us should have our life together." She dusted her hands off on her fluorescent pink apron that complemented our matching pink high-top Converse. "Try not to scare away any customers with your post-divorce glow."
"It's called freedom, thank you very much."
"It's called mascara under your eyes, but sure."
She untied the apron, then removed it and dropped it onto the stainless steel table. "I'll be back around noon, after class. You should have everything you need for the morning rush, and there are more blueberry muffins in the oven."
"You're the best." My phone buzzed just as the door chimed behind her. One glance at the screen made my stomach drop faster than my credit rating.
Chris.
For a wild moment, I considered letting it go to voicemail, blocking his number, and maybe changing my identity entirely. Instead, I did what any rational, mature adult would do: I answered it and immediately regretted every decision that had led to this moment.
"Hello," I sighed into the phone, already feeling my blood pressure spike.
"Brooke." His voice had that familiar edge that used to make me want to hide in the pantry. "We need to talk."
"Chris, we're divorced. The only thing we need to talk about is how to never talk again."
"You need to call your father…"
"Nope!" I cut him off with the enthusiasm of someone who'd finally found their spine. "All of whatever you're about to say is a you problem."
I hung up with a flourish that would have made dramatic heroines everywhere proud.
The café felt suddenly peaceful, filled with the gentle hum of machinery and the promise of a day that belonged entirely to me. For the first time in years, I was exactly where I wanted to be: covered in flour, caffeinated beyond reason, and completely, beautifully free to make my own mistakes.
Starting, perhaps, with learning how to ask for phone numbers.