“Correct,” I said evenly.
Frankie’s face looked haggard. “I don’t want to split up!”
“This is a win, win situation. We can split with a minimum of fuss.”
It only took Cash a few minutes to fix the toilet. Even though I certainly was not ready to date again, there were other things besides getting serious with a man. . .
“No charge,” Cash said, straightening up to his full height and ducking to get under the door frame.
“Thank you for coming on short notice,” Frankie said. “We’ll be happy to give you a big tip.”
“It doesn’t sound like there’s aweanymore,” Cash said dryly. “No charge foryou, Jillian.”
Cash and I headed back to the front with Frankie following behind.
“Jillian, please, please, give me another chance. I promise I won’t screw it up this time.”
“No,” I said.
“All I want out of life is for us to run our coffee shop together.”
“Don’t you meanhercoffee shop,” called a loud voice, and I heard Earnest rattling down our driveway enthusiastically, with his poor assistant Augustus following after him with a rolling suitcase full of law textbooks and a piece of paper with a fancy quill pen.
Earnest was a tall and gangly man with slicked-back dark hair and the zeal of an ambitious man usually stuck defending tourists getting drunk and lighting fires at the beach, while his assistant was a big gentle giant.
“Can’t wait to see you in court,” Earnest cackled with delicious anticipation. “I’m so excited I’m here in person to get paperwork from you.”
“I reject it!” Frankie said hotly. “I will do everything I can to keep this marriage.”
“I am enjoying the thought of ripping you apart into tiny pieces in court and stomping on your bloody body,” Earnest said, straightening his tie, “Metaphorically speaking. Franklin J. Davenport, you’ve really fucked up this time.”
“He’s going to get a lawyer, too!” Christabelle shrieked, suddenly charging up the stairs in her crab costume. “Youhave just as much right to this place as SHE does.”
“Yes, please DO,” Earnest cackled, “Bring in all the fancy city slickers you want. I look forward to tearing into them. Augustus, make a note of that.”
Augustus was dutifully making a note of it as Christabelle stomped her foot on the porch.
“Frankie, your parents will help. I know they’re loaded.”
My ex’s face was pale with shock.
“Fuck you, Christabelle. I will never move a muscle to take away the coffee shop. Jillian can do whatever she wants with it. This doesn’t concern you. What happened between us was a stupid mistake.”
Her eyes widened. “But what we had?—“
“We had nothing,” Frankie interrupted, his jaw set. This was a tone I’d never heard my sunny husband use before.
“Nothing worth remembering.”
Christabelle’s jaw dropped, but before she could speak I heard a cheerful tootling I recognized very well, and a massive, sleek yacht pulled up with luxuriously wealthy ease at the Ramshackle Bay docks.
Out hopped a tall, handsome man in his 60s with a thick head of white hair and a captain’s hat twinkling with diamond embellishments. Next to him was a beautiful woman in her late 50s, her long blonde hair teased up several inches around her face and her slim wrists dripping with diamond jewelry.
“Oh, look!” Christabelle said smugly, her crab crawls wiggling with fury.
“There’s your parents now. We’ll see about you owning the Perk Up & Read, Jillian. Once their lawyers get done with you I’d be surprised if you owned the shirt off your back.”
I said nothing as my ex’s parents walked down the docks, Franklin Davenport, Senior snapping his fingers imperiously at a servant who had just leaped out of the waiting limo to spread a long silken walkway down so his wife Claudette didn’t have to get her heels dirty.
