Chapter 7
ANNALISE
“You’re telling me that you found your boyfriend of three years cheating on your birthday ?” Bryce gapes at me, dumbstruck at the information I’ve just dropped on them.
I might have only winced a handful of times while indulging them on all things Anna and Stewart when we got to the bakery an hour ago. Even that asshole’s name makes me feel ill. Like I’ve swallowed too much cheap tequila on an empty stomach.
“Fiancé, Bryce. Her fiancé!” Poppy corrects her, just as unimpressed as her best friend.
Bryce’s fingers jab into the squishy top of her croissant. “Your fiancé! That makes the betrayal even worse. How is it possible that you only ruined a few of his things? I would have killed him.”
“He loved his clothes more than he ever loved me. Clearly. This was better revenge than death,” I mutter.
Poppy twists her mouth, sweeping her eyes over the hustle and bustle of people entering and exiting the shop.
Our table is tucked in the corner, a bit separate from the rest of the open space.
The vibe of the place is incredibly cozy, somewhere you could spend hours working or thinking.
It’s nice to have somewhere like this here.
Back in Vancouver, there were a million different coffee shops and cafes, but none of them made me feel this . . . at peace.
I frown. I’m aware enough of my own mind to realize that comparing Cherry Peak to Vancouver has become a crutch of sorts.
A way to make my move not feel as scary.
But in doing that, am I stalling my progress here?
I don’t know if I’m going to ever go back, so why can’t I let go?
The only person who matters to me in Vancouver is my mother.
Is she enough to eventually pull me back?
The answer is obvious. If staying with her were enough, I wouldn’t have left.
“Have you gone on a date since? You know they say that the best way to move on is to let someone else screw you five ways to Sunday,” Poppy says.
“Nobody says it like that,” Bryce blurts, fighting off a laugh.
There’s no stopping my laugh, though. It tears free and fills the bakery, loud and strong. It’s the first time I’ve laughed like this in months. The realization of that is a sucker punch to the gut. My laugh slowly trickles off.
Bryce halts her croissant tapping and instead places her hand over mine, squeezing. “No. Wherever your head went just now, the answer is no.”
“A cheating man is not worth that frown. No man is, cheating or not,” Poppy adds.
Bryce nods. “It’s one of the reasons I haven’t dated one since college.”
I blow out a pitiful breath. “I haven’t been well and truly single in a long time. Before Stewart, I dated pretty frequently. Maybe that’s part of my problem.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dating a lot despite what society thinks of it as long as you’re happy.
And I don’t just mean happy with dating.
I mean with everything. Dating, your life, you in general.
You have to love yourself first, obviously, but I don’t think the only way to get there is to be alone.
Not completely anyway,” Poppy says, expression soft.
I’m suddenly struck with the realization that these girls are going to be incredibly hard to let go of if they decide later on that they don’t want to be my friends. One pole class and snack date together and I’m ready to make us friendship bracelets.
“That was so incredibly wise of you, Pops,” Bryce sighs, her eyes a dimmer shade of blue than usual.
The pole instructor fits with her a sharp look. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“Surprisingly, no. That was solid advice.”
“Solid enough for you to take it too?” Poppy counters.
I try not to pay too much attention to that comment and pick at the gingerbread cookie on the brown napkin in front of me instead. It’s really damn good, but all this talk of Stewart and loving yourself has my stomach shrivelled up.
Poppy sets her hand over Bryce’s and, in turn, mine before asking, “What do you say we do something fun this weekend? The three of us.”
“Yes. Absolutely yes,” I agree.
Bryce flashes two rows of sparkling white teeth and nods her agreement. Pulling her hand back from where it lay sandwiched between Poppy’s and mine, she adds, “In town or out?”
“Doesn’t matter to me. I haven’t been outside of Cherry Peak since I moved here,” I tell them.
“Have you been to Peakside yet?” Poppy asks, eyes on me.
Bryce groans and pushes the rest of her croissant away, as if she’s no longer hungry. “We’re not taking her to Peakside.”
“You just don’t want to see Vic. Even you can admit that it’s the best place to peruse for a possible rebound. All the firefighters go there on Saturday night.”
My interest piques at the new name. “Who’s Vic?”
Bryce opens her mouth to answer me, but Poppy beats her to it. “Bryce’s ex-girlfriend. The owner of Peakside’s daughter. We’ve been avoiding the place for months now since they broke up. I’m having withdrawals.”
“You’re just horny,” Bryce grunts.
“And? You’re horny too, but you refuse to move on. This is only a prime example of that.”
I try and keep up with their back and forth, storing away the information they reveal. For this Vic to be worthy of a woman as beautiful and kind as Bryce, she’s bound to be someone that’s hard to forget.
“How long ago did you break up?” I ask.
My question drags both sets of eyes in my direction. It’s Bryce that answers, her skin paling a bit. “A long fucking time ago.”
“Four months and three days, to be exact,” Poppy adds.
Bryce grimaces. “Should I be scared that you know that?”
Poppy waves her off. The corner of my mouth lifts the slightest bit.
“It might not be my place to say anything, considering I literally moved provinces to get away from my ex, but I think that going out will help. Both of us. There’s no time like the present, right?
It’s not fair to us not to live our lives because of someone else. ”
Bryce studies me for a moment, features smooth and calculating.
Her thick onyx hair is tucked behind her ears, and I find myself counting the number of studs along her right one before moving to the left—ten in total.
I don’t even have my earlobes pierced. Maybe I’ll make an appointment at a jeweller to get that done soon.
I’ve always wanted to wear cute earrings.
How many sets of expensive diamond studs did Stewart get me before he realized I couldn’t wear them?
“You’re right,” Bryce says, some colour coming back to her face. “We’ve both sulked enough, I think.”
“Hell yeah!” Poppy juts a fist into the air. “Word on the street is that Brody Steele is back in town and has been moping around Peakside for a couple weeks now. Maybe we’ll have a run-in with him while we’re there.”
Bryce chokes on a laugh, rolling her eyes. “I should have known you had a secondary reason for wanting to go to that shithole.”
I swipe my tongue over my lips and ask, “You know Brody?”
“Everyone here knows Brody. Do you?” Poppy finishes her muffin and crumples the wrapper in her hand.
“No. But I heard he was here. People love to chat when they get their hair done.”
It was one of the older women, Marg, who told me he was in town.
Or, rather, began complaining to anyone who would listen that the prodigal Brody Steele had returned home at last. Everyone who’s listened to country music recently knows who Brody is.
He was opening for Killian Granger on his world tour, for Pete’s sake.
What I didn’t know until I moved here was that he was from Cherry Peak.
“People can be assholes. We both knew him in school. He was two grades above us, but he was a nice guy back then and still is now, from what I hear, if not a bit broody. The old folks in this town just give him a hard time because of who his family is. I guarantee they wouldn’t give a crap about him if he wasn’t a Steele, even with the fame,” Poppy grumbles.
“Who’s his family?” I can’t help but ask.
Bryce sucks on the straw sunken deep in her iced coffee before saying, “Steele Ranch is the biggest cattle ranch in Southern Alberta. He was supposed to stay and help the business but chose music instead. A lot of people in the community hold that against him.”
I find it hard to think poorly of those who choose themselves over the expectations of others. A part of me feels for the guy.
“That’s unfair.”
Poppy dips her chin in agreement. “It is.”
When my phone chimes from my coat pocket, I reach behind me to where my coat drapes over the back of my chair and pull it free. My already aching muscles in my abdomen scream at the stretch.
My scowl is immediate when I read the message.
17805559540: Ignoring a man’s apology is rude.
A furious growl slips from my lips as I swipe open my phone and shoot daggers at the text. Bryce and Poppy lean toward me, and I glance up just in time to catch the curious looks they give each other.
“You’ll laugh if I tell you,” I mutter.
Poppy shakes her head furiously. “You have my word that I won’t.”
“Ditto,” Bryce says.
Huffing, I extend the phone to them. Poppy snatches it from my grip right away, and Bryce laughs at her. For the next few moments, they scroll through the messages I’ve exchanged with the rude stranger. When they get to the one that sparked my distaste, Bryce clucks her tongue.
“He’s an ass,” she says.
“So, it isn’t just me, then? That was an insult, right?”
“I think it was more of a case of a tangled tongue than an insult, but it was still rude,” Poppy adds a second later, handing back my phone.
I purposefully made sure he knew that I had read his message last time, and he’ll know the same thing now. The question is whether I reply this time or if I do what I should have done at the beginning of this exchange and delete the number.
“You should reply. Tell him off,” Bryce suggests.
I tap my thumbs against the side of the phone before typing out a message.
Me: Tell me one good reason why I should accept your apology.
Showing the girls the message, I wait for them to approve of it before sending it off a second later. “I feel like a teenager fighting with the mean girl at school over email.”
Poppy sets her chin in her palm. “I’ve been needing a bit of drama in my life, honestly.”
“This place has enough drama for you. You just ignore it all,” Bryce points out.
I lock my phone and slide it back into my coat. “You should spend a few hours at the salon. You’ll hear enough drama to last a lifetime.”
“Do you like working there?” Bryce asks.
“I do. Despite the gossiping, I love doing hair. I would love to have my own salon someday. It’s been a dream of mine for like a decade now.”
Poppy’s eyes light up at that. “A fellow entrepreneur.”
“ Someday .” I put emphasis on the word this time. “I’m broke after moving, and I’m not making nearly enough to be able to afford a place anytime soon. Plus, a town this size doesn’t need more than one salon.”
It was one of the things I had to accept when I moved here.
Braxton was the one who chose this place for me after I spent a week straight trying to pick somewhere to go.
She laid out a map on the coffee table of her rental and handed me a die, telling me to drop it anywhere on the map and wherever it landed would be my new home.
When it hit the map directly on Cherry Peak with my lucky number facing up, I took it as a sign and got my plans together.
It wasn’t until I began to research the town that I realized where I had agreed to move.
It’s not like I had the money before this to buy a salon. Not in the Vancouver market anyway. It’ll happen eventually. I feel it.
One step at a time, Anna. You’ll get there.