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“Yes, I know. You’re very distraught.”

“How will I ever go on?” She takes on a southern accent to really accentuate her pain and I shake my head, leaning back against the prep table to wait. Morgan has a flair for the dramatic so I may be here a while.

“Are you done?” I ask, a smile in my voice and my brow arched.

“I suppose,” she muses. “For now. What are you up to, buttercup?”

I push off the table. “Just at work, going over inventory. What are you up to?”

“Oh, me? Well, I’m trying to figure out why the hell your boyfriend is calling all your friends, trying to find you.” I stop mid-step and take a breath.

“Probably because I left him and moved out.”

She gasps. “No. You didn’t.”

“I did,” I answer with a nod and the immediate squeal that comes out of her has me pulling the phone away from my ear for just a second. When I move it back, she’s already talking again.

“…best news ever. Oh my god! I can’t believe you finally left that bum.”

I laugh. She’s been begging me to leave Owen for months. Every phone call between us somehow circled back to how I deserved better and how worried she was about me so I’m not at all shocked by her reaction.

“Praise the lord,” she continues, readopting her southern accent. “Oh, what a joyous day! Tell me everything.”

I make my way across the kitchen and sink into a chair we keep in the corner as a smile stretches across my face. “Are you sure you don’t want popcorn, first?”

“Oh…” She pauses and I swear, I can feel her indecision. “No, no time for that. Start talking, woman.”

With a laugh, I begin telling her all about how my break-up went down from our fight the afternoon before to the absolute chaos that unfolded after my hotel shift.

“Wait, so where are you living now?”

My gaze flicks around the kitchen and a soft smile plays on my lips. “Calvin apparently keeps an apartment above the bakery to help people who get into a bad spot. He said it’s mine as long as I want it. I did insist on paying him some rent though.”

“I love that,” she answers and I can hear the genuine smile in her voice. “It’s so… you. A cute little downtown apartment above the bakery you work at. Tell me it has brick walls. I’m imagining brick walls.”

I laugh. “Yes, there may be a brick wall somewhere in the apartment.”

“I knew it!” She lets out a groan. “I swear I can see it. This is going to be so good for you, Lenny.”

“I think so, too,” I answer, heat rushing to my cheeks as I look at the terra cotta floor tiles. “I am feeling a lot better. Especially since I quit working at the hotel.”

Morgan gasps again. “You did? You didn’t tell me that part!”

“Yeah, the day after I left Owen, I put in my two weeks and about five minutes later, Brett sent me an email saying that I had been fired, effective immediately, so I don’t know what to call that,” I say with a laugh. “But I’m no longer working there.”

“What an idiot,” she says but there is no real venom in her voice. I get it. I wasn’t all that upset about being fired either. “That doesn’t matter, though. What does matter is you living your life and being happy, finally.”

“I’m working on it, Morgs.”

She tsks and I swear, I can see the determined expression on her face in my mind. “I’m serious. You’ve been taking care of everyone else for years, Len. You’ve been running yourself into the ground and now you’re free. You have to take full advantage of your situation now.”

“Yeah?” I ask, leaning back into the chair and crossing my legs out in front of me. “And what does that look like?”

“What do you want it to look like?”

And there is the real problem I’m faced with. Now that I’m out, now that I’m free, what the hell do I want?

“I don’t know,” I answer, picking at a loose thread on the seam of my jeans. “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.”