The next day, Gabby woke alone in her large honeymoon bed and walked out to the patio to enjoy a special wedding day breakfast. She had slept for approximately an hour. Markus was seated, already dressed and clutching a half-empty coffee.
She glared at him for leaving her alone and sad all night. Rationally, she knew it wasn’t his responsibility to comfort her after breaking up with her, but normal rules didn’t apply when you were in the middle of a mission going sideways. She wanted a hug, and she wanted this whole nightmare to be over.
They ate in an unhappy silence.
When Justin finally showed up on the patio, she dissolved into a pile of raw emotion. Here was the person she could lean on through thick and thin, and especially when she had man trouble.
“Hello!” he trilled. “I’m here to make you beautiful.”
Gabby’d never been so happy to see her best friend, except for maybe the last mission when he helped her haul mobsters into a supply room, no questions asked.
“Gabby’s already…” Markus cut himself off. “It’s just that I don’t think any woman needs makeup to be beautiful.”
Gabby guffawed. If he thought she was that beautiful, he wouldn’t have broken up with her.
Markus looked up in surprise. “Why are you laughing?”
“Why do you think?” she asked.
Okay. Apparently, she’d gone from sadness to anger about the breakup in the space of a minute. Anger fit like a glove. A boxing glove. Sadness, no thank you. Also, she was mad at herself for even thinking about her breakup when she had more important things to consider, like keeping her job and health insurance.
“You’re misinterpreting what I said,” Markus shot back.
She raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t.
“Don’t question me at work.”
“Grow a pair, Markus,” Gabby snapped back. “And check your ego.”
Justin looked between them. “What is going on here? Is this how you two are together because…” He looked down his nose in judgment. “I can’t tell if I like it. I mean, is this your kink or are you just like old married people who should have gotten a divorce thirty years ago but didn’t ‘for the kids’ and now everyone has to suffer through you?”
They turned to shoot identical laser eyes at Justin.
“Fine, be strong and silent with me. I can be into that. Just take me to your fancy honeymoon bathroom.”
Markus said, “I’ll see you later. I’m going over to get ready with G.”
Good riddance. Gabby couldn’t handle the breakup. A relationship should provide a solid foundation to stand on, a base. All week, their relationship had been like the ground during an active earthquake, shifting and cracking beneath her feet. It was makingeverything else harder. How could she do her job when she was always bracing for the next seismic shift?
Justin oohed and aahed over the splendor of the bathroom. “Ohmygod. Look at all these full-size products.” He held up a bottle of something like he was fromIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
“This is probably a thousand dollars of makeup and skincare products,” he said.
“It makes me turn red and rashy. I don’t think Inner Beauty is for me.” Now that she had read Jasmine’s emails, she realized it was probably the red dye number six. Gabby wasn’t a dermatologist, but she knew that if it was an ingredient in Flaming Hot Cheetos, it probably wasn’t also an ingredient in inner beauty or outer beauty. It might actually be an ingredient in cancer.
He sounded disappointed and squirted a bunch onto his palm and started rubbing it into his own face. “This is too expensive not to use.”
Despite everything, she couldn’t help but relax as Justin started to do her makeup.
“What’s with you and Mr. Sad-Sack Spy out there?”
Gabby shook her head. “He broke up with me.”
Justin gasped. “Shut. Up. On your wedding day?”
“Technically, last night, right before the bachelorette party.”
“Do you want me to fight him? Because I will. I might be good with makeup, but I have a right hook like Tyson, and I will bite his ear off.”
