“They love you,” Evie said. “You’re like Meg Ryan in every nineties rom-com before the happy ending, and Tucker’s the villain.”
She wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling picture windows and looked out at the snow falling on Main Street. “I didn’t want to be the sad girl when it was me who finally left, even if it was at the last possible second.”
That rankled the most, that image of herself in their minds.
Poor Lily, being cheated on and lied to.
Ugh. She wanted her damn dignity back.
Evie’s expression softened. “You’ve handled this so well,” she said quietly. “Eventually, you knew you’d have to face him.”
Lily stifled a sigh. On that long, snowy ride across the mountain with Gage MacKenna, she’d made herself a promise. She was going to start over. Be braver. Bolder.What would New Lily do?had become her mantra as much asI am a still lake.She was in charge of her own happy ending, dammit.
She’d been trying to move on. She’d said yes to every cinnamon bun and some of the unsolicited but well-meaning blind dates, out of sheer optimism—okay, and pressure, too—even if it all felt a little too much like dating in a fishbowl, with the entire town watching to see what she’d do next.
But three dates in, she was seriously reconsidering.
The first guy, the brother of a woman in her Mindful Yoga class, asked her if she wanted to go back to his place to see hisrock collection after they had dinner. And no, it wasn’t a euphemism. He was serious.
The second guy had talked about his bowel cleanse for forty-five minutes during their dinner date then taken off, leaving her with the tab because he needed to get to the bathroom.
And the third had spent two hours ranting about cryptocurrency then tried to lick her face in the parking lot of the Northfield Pub while she fended him off.
She was tired of being Northfield’s tragic sweetheart. She didn’t want to be whispered about or pitied. She wanted to take back her story.
“Poor Lily,” my ass.
She was fun and flirty and back on the market. Okay, and maybe she wanted a little revenge on Tucker, but that was normal. She had years of fun to make up for, a whole list of fun things she’d skipped while she played the sweet, dutiful girlfriend. Things like kissing until her toes curled, and doing things that scared her, excited her, made her feel alive.
The problem was, the men she was being set up with weren’t exactly inspiring any of those feelings either.
“I’m proud of you,” Evie said, tying her scarf around her neck with a dramatic flourish. “You’ve been really putting yourself out there with all these dates since you got back.”
Lily snorted. “Yeah. Putting myself out there… like bait in shark-infested water.”
Okay, so New Lily was struggling a bit. But eventually, she’d meet someone without any weird obsessions or at least someone who didn’t want to talk about them over dinner. Changing long-held habits took time. She just had to keep putting herself out there. Keep looking for the perfect guy. Someone tall and dark with broad shoulders and the most delicious pelt of curly hair on his chest?—
Nope.
Ruthlessly, she dragged her thoughts back to the present.
Thinking about Rush wouldn’t do her any good. Not when he’d made it clear that whatever had happened between them at the cabin was temporary.
“Well, tonight might be your lucky night. Bradley Benson. With a name like that, he has to be good rom-com dating material. At the very least, he must really love his mother, since he brings her to your hot yoga classes.” Evie grinned mischievously.
“Gertie said he’s cute in a banker kind of way, and he owns a dog, which is half the reason I said yes. That’s usually a good sign,” Lily said brightly. Maybe Bradley Benson had a hidden wild side, like a penchant for pinning her hands down while it snowed outside…ugh. She dragged her thoughts back to the present.
“That’s the spirit.” Evie pulled out her phone and pushed her glasses up her nose to squint at the screen. “Oh, that reminds me. I need a recipe. I have a date tonight too.”
“Want to double-date?” Lily asked hopefully. “The pub does a killer Friday fish fry. And if our dates are disasters, we can hang out with each other.”
“Can’t,” Evie said. “I’m cooking dinner for him at home.”
Of course she was. Which meant Lily would have to stay out of their shared apartment for at least a few hours, since Evie had taken her in when she’d moved out of the house she and Tucker used to rent. “Who are you making dinner for?”
“Dr. Pierce,” Evie said, beaming.
Lily frowned. “Evie. You have a date with your boss? The one who wears those stupid bow ties and takes credit for all your ideas?”
