She carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who’d long stopped needing to prove herself. Silver threaded through her hair like deliberate strokes of light, and her clothes—simple, impeccable. She seemed to belong to another era of grace.
“So does that mean I’m boring and bland and predictable?” Vivi asked, embarrassment thick in her voice.
“Darling, authenticity suits you far better than embellishment. You’re strong, daring, and entirely capable on your own.”
Vivi breath caught and her eyes stung. It was just a silly comparison to coffee, but it was the nicest thing someone had said to her in a long time.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I needed to hear that right now.”
Before she could say more, Jo was back. “Black neat, for New York,” she said and slid the cup across the bar. She crooked grin daring Vivi to say something else.
“The accent’s that bad?”
“It’s making my ears bleed.”
Vivi picked up the cup and took a deep breath of the steam and groaned. “This smells delicious. What is it?’ she asked taking a sip. The hot liquid stung deliciously as it slid down her throat, warming up her belly.
“Black Ivory coffee,” Jo said with a mischievous grin. “The beans are predigested by Thai elephants and pooped out.”
Vivi nearly spit it all over the Jo, who pointed to the sign over the bar. Right, ‘Don’t waste even a sip’. Vivi barely forced herself to swallow the coffee, gagging a little in the process.
“Welcome to Pine Ridge,” Jo said and then, with a salute, disappeared to help someone at the end of the bar.
She turned to thank the older woman, who had all but vanished, like a fairy godmother in Prada.
With no excuse left, Vivi took a seat at the bar that overlooked Main Street. The sun was setting, creating shadows that mimicked the forest of ponderosa pines lining the mountains surrounding the small rustic town.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Glow, what’s today’s Glow Up exercise?” she asked her AI self-help coach, which she purchased on Instagram late one night after her boyfriend confessed he’d taken an overseas job—and sold his flat.Theirflat. Well,heowned it. Butthey’dshared it—for three years.
They’dshared the mortgage, the utilities, the broken dishwasher, the broken toilet, the remodel, and so much more. Stupidly, she’d never added her name to the title. Never insisted because she’d never wanted to make a fuss.
A chipper AI voice came back with, “Glow & Tell Daily Challenge: You have fifteen minutes to confess three secrets to three strangers. Singing along with Adelle in the shower doesn’t count.”
Okay, Vivi. Just three secrets to three strangers.
She had to get it right. There were only twenty-eight of her thirty days left to find an place to live and get her life in order. At least the outline of a plan would be nice—or she’d have to admit defeat and move back in with her mother. Even worse, if her mother’s guestroom filled up first, she’d have no choice but to follow the human embodiment of every bad decision Vivi had ever made—Lewis.
Sure, Singapore sounded exotic and tropical but,man oh man, it would feel like one more pound added to the albatross that had been wrapped around her neck for most of her adult life.
Talking to people IRL wasn’t her strong suit. Now, give her a computer, a stack of dating bios, access to the internet and she was damn eloquent. Poetic she’d been called. But right then she couldn’t even form a word.
Maybe if she wrote it down first.
She opened her notes app and began swiping this way and that, her fingers flying over the screen with hyper-speed from muscle memory.
Three secrets I’ve never told a soul
1. I’ve never had an orgasm with someone else in the room.
While true, it was too embarrassing to say aloud. Plus, the trick to successful admissions, like in dating bios, was to say just enough to get a visceral reaction without trauma dumping. And that was a story meant for her diary.
Vivi went to delete the confession and accidentally hit the speech button.
“Shit. Shit, shitty, shit, shit!”
Oh God. Abort mission. Delete. Undo!
But it was too late.
