"You look terrible," Sophie announces, appearing in the doorway of The Reading Nook's back office where I'm supposedly helping with inventory.
I don't look up from the clipboard. "Thanks. That helps."
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Last night."
"Actual sleep. Not lying awake replaying conversations in your head."
"I don't know what you're talking about." I make another note on the clipboard, refusing to meet her eyes.
Sophie plucks the clipboard from my hands. "You just wrote 'Dean Mercer is an idiot' in the romance section inventory."
I snatch it back. The words are there in my own handwriting, right next toClaimed by the Highland Warrior. "That was a note to myself."
"About inventory?"
"About life choices."
"Uh-huh." She crosses her arms. "Front. Now. We're staging an intervention."
"I don't need an intervention."
"That's exactly what someone who needs an intervention would say." She grabs my elbow and steers me toward the café area.
Carla is already waiting at my usual table, two mugs of coffee positioned like this was planned. Which it clearly was. The barista doesn't even look up from her organic chemistry textbook---just pushes one mug toward the empty chair.
"I didn't order that," I say.
"You didn't have to." Carla flips a page. "You have the look."
"What look?"
"The 'I made a terrible mistake but I'm too stubborn to admit it' look." She glances up. "Also, you've been here every day this week and you keep sighing. Loudly."
"I don't sigh."
Sophie sits across from me and slides the coffee closer. "You sigh like it's an Olympic sport you're trying to qualify for."
I take the coffee because arguing with both of them seems exhausting. It's my usual order---oat milk, one pump vanilla latte. Of course it is. Everyone in this town knows everything about everyone, including my emotional state based on caffeine consumption patterns.
"I was right," I say into the mug. "He didn't ask. He assumed. He talked to his brother before he talked to me."
"You were absolutely right," Sophie agrees.
I blink at her. "I was?"
"Completely. He handled it badly. Very badly." She takes a sip of her own coffee. "Now, want to talk about why being right feels so terrible?"
"It doesn't feel terrible." I pick at a scratch on the table.
Sophie raises an eyebrow. "You wrote his name on my inventory sheet."
The words come out tangled. I set down the mug harder than intended. "He should have asked me first. Before making plans. Before talking to his brother. Before showing up at my door with our whole future mapped out."
"Agreed."
"And I built my practice here. I have patients who depend on me. I have a life."
