As if reading my mind and knowing exactly who I was thinking about, Naomi let out a noise of disgust. “Ugh,Blane.” She said it with the same passion someone might sayUgh, I stepped in dog crap. “Should have known the bastard was evil, based on his name alone. I mean, who’s namedBlane? What is he, the high school bully in every eighties movie ever made?”
I really wished she didn’t have a point, but sadly, she was right. I thought I’d been so careful when it came to him. Having been burned one too many times in the past, I’d insisted on taking things slow when we were starting out. He’d been so supportive and understanding that he tricked me into thinking I’d finally landed a good one, a man I could have a future with. Then I showed up at his house one evening with chicken soup because he told me he was sick. Turned out, it wasn’t so much the flu he’d come down with as another woman going down onhim.
The door to the shop was pushed open right then, setting off the gentle bell. I glanced up with a smile that quickly fell from my face at the sight of who’d just walked into my sanctuary.
“Holiday, hi,” the venous woman chirped way too brightly.
The sound of my name coming out of her mouth was grating, like nails on a chalkboard. The only people who used my full name were those who barely knew me. And this vicious bitch, ofcourse. “Rebecca,” I offered flatly, my tone void of any emotion. I swallowed down the acidic taste in my mouth and forced on a professional mask. “Welcome to One More Chapter.”
She looked around the space I’d put so much time and effort into. “I’ve never been in here before. It’s just so... quaint.”
“Wait.Rebecca?” Naomi shot up on her seat, twisting around to give the woman a vicious glower. “You mean the skank you caught on her knees, going to town on that Vienna sausage your ex called a dick?”
I did a terrible job of masking my snort, but did my best to school my features and not laugh at my friend’s apt description. I waved her off, silently miming at her to zip her lips before shifting my focus back to the Vienna sausage lover. “What can I help you with, Rebecca?”
She wiped the vicious narrow-eyed glare she was casting Naomi off her face and pasted on a saccharine sweet smile that was fake as hell as she looked back to me. “I was just stopping in to see if you had a section on wedding planning.” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers, causing the diamond on her ring finger to sparkle.
My stomach dropped at the sight of it. Not because I missed him or wanted him back—Rebecca was welcome to the cheating, lying piece of crap—but because, once again, I hadn’t been enough for a ring. Or even monogamy, for crying out loud.
“Blane and I are thinking an outdoor ceremony next fall. You know, when the leaves are starting to turn. It’ll be so beautiful.”
I made it my mission in life to never hate anyone. Hate was like a poison in your bloodstream. Butdamnthis woman was making itreallyhard.
“But looking around...” She trailed her gaze through my store, curling her top lip up like she found it lacking.Bitch. “I’m not sure your little shop will have what I’m looking for.”
“You little—” I acted fast, reaching out and placing my hand on Naomi’s shoulder and shoving her back down in the chair before she could pounce and scratch Rebecca’s eyes out.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I lied through my teeth. “Maybe you’ll have more luck in Grapevine or Hidalgo.” Any of the surrounding townsoutsideof Hope Valley would work. “But it was nice of you to stop in.”
When Naomi pushed to her feet again I didn’t bother trying to stop her. I’d never been good with confrontation, so I was all too happy to leave it to her to usher that she-devil out of my store.
“All right, you human blister, that means it’s time to go.”
Rebecca let out an affronted huff. “Excuseme?”
Naomi continued forward, waving her arms and forcing her to stumble backward toward the door. “You heard me. And just a heads up, you might want to find a new person to do your Botox and filler before the wedding. Your face is starting to look like a Barbie doll after thirty seconds in a microwave.”
I couldn’t hold my giggle in that time, not that I wanted to. As soon as the door closed behind the wretched woman, I blew out a breath of relief. “Thanks for that.”
Naomi turned back to me and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re too nice,” she said in a scolding tone.
I moved back to the boxes of books I still had to unpack and display. “I’m not sure there’s such a thing as too nice.”
Naomi returned to her chair, snatching up one of the copies of the latest romance release I had set up on a special endcap. She flopped down into the seat, sitting sideways with her legs dangling over the arm as she fanned through the pages. “There is when you smile at the vicious bitch your ex cheated on you with instead of snatching the gaudy ring off her finger and chucking it down the storm drain.”
“It was gaudy, wasn’t it?” I jabbed my finger at her. “And if you break that spine, you’re buying that book.”
“Already planned on it. Mom’s reading it for their book club and wouldn’t stop going on about it so I figured I’d see what all the hype was about. And don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. You’re trying to change the subject.”
I blew out a sigh. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m trying to run a business here. I can’t just go around alienating anyone who makes me mad. Besides, you know confrontation makes me break out in hives.”
Naomi rolled her eyes, but there was no heat behind it. “Fine,” she relented grudgingly. “Act like a responsible adult, see if I care.”
I shot her a grin. “Thanks for the permission.”
“But I still think you need to set up a dating profile.” Her hand shot into the air to silence me before I could argue. “At the very least, you need to get laid, becauseBlanecannotbe the last guy you had sex with.” She fake shivered like the idea repulsed her, and honestly, given how things had ended between us, I got it. If I could go back in time and undo it all I would. As it was, I’d considered smacking my head into a wall a couple of times in the hopes a brain injury would erase the memory.
“Look, I’m not going to find some random guy to sleep with just so my loser ex is no longer my last.” I wasn’t opposed to a one-night stand or a casual hookup—not that I’d ever had either—but I wasn’t going to search one out either. “That seems a little desperate. I’m off men for the foreseeable future, and that’s that.”
