Chapter 1
Eden
She sat in the corner of the cozy coffee shop, watching the world go by.
More like watching it burn.
Yet nobody glancing in Eden Hailstone’s direction would guess that she was anything but content as she sipped some herbal tea from a to-go cup and witnessed several orders placed at the register, couples in heated discussions, a book club tearing apart the latestNew York Times#1, and a fiber arts meetup clacking knitting needles and cursing over crochet hooks.
For a while, she was alone. Her phone occasionally lit up with a text from someone, but she didn’t bother to look. Eden was too set on sitting in a plush chair, legs crossed with her jacket covering her lap, and her to-go cup occasionally touching her lips as she sipped and sighed.
There were a hundred thoughts in her head.
Almost a whole week had gone by since the greatest coincidence of her life was unceremoniously revealed in one of her boyfriends’ medicine cabinets.After one of the hottest nights of my life.Right on the heels of the other hottest night of her life – with two men, anyway.
Of my life. In my life.
Those were two prevailing thoughts she courted over the past week. While her time of the month had also swept through, reminding her of hormones, stress, and pain, Eden spent an inordinate amount of time wrapped in a blanket on her loveseat while watching old rom-coms and biting her bottom lip at the thought ofmy life.
She was only twenty-five. Quarter-life crisis time, some might say.I’m supposed to know who I am and what I want now.She was supposed to be bucking the system that said she was either this or that. She was tasked with looking back on her teenage self, her college-aged self, and evenherself of the previous year. What direction did she go in? How did she meld her past with her future? How should she even embrace who she wasnow?
That was what she meditated on when she saw one of her boyfriends come through the coffee shop door and spot her in the darkened corner.
“Hey.” Liam didn’t stop at the counter before claiming the couch next to her. A small table with a mid-century lamp separated them. They did not hug, nor did they kiss. While Eden hadn’t broken up with either Benson or Liam after the previous weekend, she had asked for some space to process everything they told her. Liam was the first one she reached out to the night before. She had also texted Benson, but hadn’t heard back from him. “How goes it?”
It was such a silly thing to ask her. Especially when she sat there, studying his charcoal gray turtleneck, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows as the day warmed up in the late afternoon. Liamhadn’t been wearing a jacket when he walked in. All he carried with him was a messenger bag, probably containing his work laptop, and his phone.
Meanwhile, he must have known that they all had been better.
“All right,” she muttered.
“Feeling better?”
She had almost forgotten that she had dumped all of her period woes on him a couple of nights ago.And turned down his offer to come and massage my lower back.Eden was not in the mood to be touched by anyone, least of all a guy who was used to getting a “little something” in return for his attention.Nope. Not happening.Not until she was done searching the depths of her soul. Or something.
“Yeah.” She put her to-go cup on the table between them. “You?”
He shrugged. It was only then that Eden realized he had been wearing earbuds, which he now removed and placed in their charging case before slipping the whole thing into his messenger bag.
“Been a helluva week.”
“Yeah?”
Liam pulled his bag strap over his head. After the bag ended up on the floor, he explained, “You ever spend several nights hashing it out with your ex?”
She flinched. “That bad?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s that bad.”
Eden didn’t know whether to sigh or chuckle.Damnit, Ben.He was so emotional, wasn’t he? The man who was so practical and put-together when things were fine could fall apart in asnap.“He’s not responding to my texts.”
“Because he thinks you hate him.”
“You’re kidding.”
Liam rolled his eyes as he slumped toward her, hand in his hair and fingers rubbing his forehead. “You have to understand, Ben’s been living that socially conservative life in public for so long that he… well, he struggles with having all of him out there when it wasn’t his idea. He also knows I’m right,as usual,because I kept begging him for us to tell you our history. It was killing me inside that you didn’t know that Ben and I…” Liam grunted. “I already told you all this. I won’t repeat it.”
Indeed, they had a long phone conversation the night before, which led to Eden asking to see him when he was done with his meetings the next day. Now, here they were.
