“I need a sponge bath, sugar, and coffee first.”
“I brought breakfast.” She held up a paper sack.
I sniffled as I unlocked the shop. All that flannel and sleeping in the straw had not been kind to my nose.
Olivia looked at me critically as I shrugged off my coat.
“I guess you didn’t spend the night at a certain handsome woodsman’s cabin?” she teased.
I thought of Brody and turned red. “No.”
“Oh my god, you did!” my friend said. “The guy from the bake-off, the lumberjack, you slept with him. Admit it!”
“No.”
“Made out with him?”
“No!”
Olivia was disappointed.
“He just asked me to hook up with him at my dad’s Christmas party.”
“Did you?”
“I can’t just sleep with him; I don’t even know him.”
Olivia was incredulous. “That was your chance at a small-town romance.” She unpacked the breakfast bag. I sniffed appreciatively as the smell of eggs Benedict wafted out of the containers Olivia put on the counter.
“I wanted a romance, not a hookup,” I complained, setting out two rickety stools.
“Beggars, meet choosers.”
“He’s supposed to woo me,” I grumbled, grabbing a fork and digging into the food. “So good,” I said around a mouthful of egg. I started guzzling a coffee then paused, feeling guilty.
“I can pay you back,” I promised.
“You can pay me back in details.” Olivia opened a container of cranberry French toast and poured butter maple syrup on it.
“Nothing to say. Brody wanted to take me back to his cabin and chop wood naked in front of me. I sneezed on him. I left. My dad was a dick. The end.”
“Um, you cannot turn Brody down.”
“It sounded dangerous,” I argued.
“It sounds hot. Besides, you don’t have any other prospects,” Olivia reminded me. “You’re under a lot of stress. Practice some self-care.”
“I haven’t even showered in days.”
“Brody doesn’t seem like he’d mind.”
I stole a piece of Olivia’s French toast.
“Matt would probably be pissed,” I said, swiping a piece of English muffin and bacon into the creamy hollandaise sauce.
“Boo. Grumpy Matt. I sicced the carolers on him just like you said.”
I took another swig of my coffee then blurted out, “He watched me sleep last night.”
