She’d been sure things between her and Sawyer had been good, that they’d been not only on the same page but on the same paragraph. The same sentence, even. The night had been incredible. Hadn’t it? They fit together perfectly. Didn’t they? The sex was off-the-charts terrific. Wasn’t it?
Had she been mistaken the entire time? Misreading the signals? Misinterpreting things she heard? Saw? Felt? Because she’d woken up to a sticky note.
A fucking sticky note.
The thing that had thrown the entire fanbase ofSex and the Cityoff the deep end: the dreaded sticky note.
“Goddamn it,” she muttered as she began stacking the books up again so she could shelve them. She picked one up and read the synopsis on the back, which talked about how the female main character didn’t trust the male main character as far as she could throw him, but she wasso drawn to him anyway…
“Run,” Jenna said aloud to the empty shop, coupling it with an eye roll. She scanned for the character’s name. “Shana. Run now, Shana. Run fast and far. And for the love of God,” she put her face close to the cover as she hissed, “do not have sex with him!”
She shelved the remaining books, then dusted a bit, placed some orders, rang up some customers, and basically did her best to keep herself busy while her phone stayed infuriatingly quiet. Delia arrived in the early afternoon, and when Dakota came in a few minutes later carrying two cups, she took one look at Jenna and indicated the chairs in the back.
“Come. Sit. Talk.”
Jenna sighed and hung her head for a moment.
“Go,” Dee said from behind the counter. “I’ve got this.”
In the back of the shop, Jenna dropped into the chair next to Dakota, across from the loveseat, and took one of the cups. “That obvious, huh?”
“Girl, I’ve known you too long not to be able to read your face in a split second.” Dakota took a sip of her coffee, then added, “And yousuck at masking. You really need to get yourself a resting bitch face like mine.”
That made Jenna laugh softly.
“The girl next door?” Dakota asked.
Blowing out a long breath, Jenna nodded.
“What happened?”
She spent the next few minutes relaying the events of the previous evening, from Sawyer running out to the hospital to Amanda showing up to the way Sawyer had come to her rather than go into her own place to the sex. At that, she fell back against the chair with a whimper. “God, Dakota, it was so good. So. Freaking. Good.” She waved an all-encompassing hand. “I don’t mean to sound like one of these books I sell, but we fit together perfectly.”
“Like two puzzle pieces?” Dakota said with a gleam in her eye.
“Yes.” Jenna sat up. “Fucking yes. Just like that. It was almost frightening, it was that good.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up to an empty bed and a sticky note.”
“Oh, shit.”
Jenna nodded. “Yup.” She had to stay angry or she’d cry, and crying in front of Dakota wasn’t something she wanted to do. She didn’t want her friend to know how deeply this thing hurt—no, she wanted to shrug and be flippant about it.
“What did it say?” Dakota leaned forward toward her, clearly invested.
“ ‘Had a great time. Early meeting. Talk later.’ ” Yes, she’d memorized it, because how hard was it to memorize eight generic words?
“Okay. Not terrible.” When Jenna gave her a slightly wide-eyed look, she tipped her head at her. “It’s not. Did you text her?”
“I did. She texted back. It was all very surface-y and impersonal.”
“All right. Again, not terrible. Her job is busy, right?”
“Yeah.” They sat there, sipping their coffee. The bell over the door rang a few times here and there, and Jenna saw a customer or two wandering the aisles, heard Delia talking from the front, and they continued to sip. Dakota’s eyes were on her, she could feel them, and she avoided her gaze for as long as she could before finally sighing. “What?”
Dakota’s voice went soft as she asked, “Are you okay?”
