“Have fun, coach,” she murmured when she released him, her dark lipstick still perfectly intact. “Don’t let anybody upsell you on artisanal pickles again.”
“No promises, kitten.”
He turned and wandered off into the crowd like a man who needed a cold shower.
“Jesus,” Xan said, fanning themselves dramatically. “Y’all are like walking, talking, domestic porn.”
Dani shrugged, looking entirely unbothered. “Honestly, I thought it was just the pregnancy hormones when we first got together, but here we are, a year later, and we still want to tear each other’s clothes off ninety percent of the time.”
“That must be inconvenient,” I deadpanned. “Considering you work together.”
She grinned wickedly. “Oh, sweetie. You haveno idea.”
Dani’s words lingered in the air like steam from a kettle, warm and a little dizzying. I tried to imagine what it must feel like to want someone so intensely your whole body vibrated.
The memory of a certain stormy-eyed brunet flashed across my brain, and I blinked it away just as fast.
For days now, I’d done everything in my powernotto think about the longest, most torturous truck ride of my life, and more specifically about how well the driver of said truck had filled out that ridiculous sweater.
Nobody should look that good in a Christmas sweater.
But it wasn’t just the glitter and pom-poms. It was the way his hands, calloused and capable, had gripped the wheel and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled—tiny sunbursts that should not have been as attractive as they were, but my hormones disagreed loudly.
I had never given much thought to the idea of licking a man’s wrinkles before, and yet for some reason, the idea of tasting,savoringevery inch of Bennett King like he was a double scoop of chocolate-peppermint swirl didn’t immediately disgust me.
Quite the contrary, it made my mouth water.
Oof, that’s definitely NSFFM.
Dani flipped a bluish braid over her shoulder. “I love the new logo, Belles. Comb Sweet Comb has a great ring to it.”
I smiled, grateful for the subject change. It was hard to believe that just a little over a year ago, I’d shown up on my brother’s doorstep with nothing but a duffel bag and the gnawing certainty that everyone my age had a roadmap except me.
I was a twenty-three-year-old college dropout with three bee hives, thousands of hobbies, and zero direction.
Just like Dad said.
I sucked in a breath and shook my head, physically nudging the thought away. I had spent too many years in therapy to keep letting his words get to me, the ones he’d carved into me in a thousand subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—ways.
Too scattered. Too sensitive. Too difficult.
His greatest hits had echoed through my childhood long after the divorce, lingering like background noise I didn’t know how to turn off. But I’d finally learned to distinguish his voice from mine—and discovered, much to my surprise, that mine carried farther. Louder.
I had launched my own business, one small but mighty and entirely mine. Better yet, people liked what I made. They came back for second jars and asked about upcoming products. Just last week, one of my regular customers asked about wholesale pricing so she could stock my soaps in her shop.
Me. The girl who’d once had a panic attack at the grocery store because the cereal aisle had been too loud.
I’d gone back to school, too, and not just because my brother had wanted me to. It was only two classes for now, because that was all my brain could reasonably handle without dissolving into putty, but still—it was something.
Maybe I wasn’t directionless. Maybe I had justfinallyfound the right direction for the first time.
And maybe, to quote Lizzo, that felt “good as hell.”
“By the way,” Dani said, picking up a jar of my winter spice seasonal blend. “Have you heard anything from the funeral fucker?”
I shook my head. “Not since he sent an ‘apology picture’ of his penis.”
Xan sat forward in their chair, leaning their elbows on the table. “Eww,” they spat at the same time as Dani grumbled, “Men.”
