“I know, buddy, I didn’t want her to leave either.” She sighed and headed into the kitchen for some breakfast. What was she expecting? That Adley would wake up and actually be happy to be there? That she’d laugh off the night before, sip coffee, and lean on the counter while Sabrina made her some eggs? “You’re living in a fucking romance novel, Bri,” she said out loud as she pulled out ingredients to scramble some eggs and try to shift her train of thought.
Her brain was having none of that, though. Nope. It forced her to relive the previous night as she cracked eggs into a bowl. How happy she’d been—no, she’d been downright giddy to have Adley appear on her doorstep. Even in her drunken and angry state, Sabrina wanted to grab her up and kiss her all over her scowling face. But she’d stuffed all of that down because…why? Why had she? Yeah, Adley was pissed. And drunk. And kinda looking for a fight. But what if Sabrina had just grabbed her and kissed her? What would’ve happened then?
She added a little milk and used a fork to scramble the eggs as she remembered how much she’d wavered, back and forth, between sleeping on the couch and crawling in bed with Adley. God, it had been so tempting. She poured the eggs into the hot frying pan and moved them around with the rubber spatula as she remembered peeking in on Adley around two in the morning, because of course, Sabrina couldn’t sleep. She’d wandered the house like a ghost…a creepy ghost, given how many times she stopped in the doorway of the bedroom just to listen to Adley breathe.
The eggs finished cooking, and she tipped them onto a plate, taking a small scoop and dropping it in Sprinkles’s bowl to cool. She salted and peppered her own, refilled her coffee, and took it out to the dining room table. She set Sprinkles’s bowl in its usual spot in the kitchen, then sat at the table with her breakfast, her work, and her very jumbled thoughts.
She opened her laptop and tried her best to focus. The soft opening of the new Sweet Heaven was in nine days, the grand opening four days after that. Everything was on track to make the deadlines. The painters would finish up the interior this week, and after that, they were just waiting on the ice cream shipment to arrive. That reminded her of stupid Bryce and his stupidly unoriginal flavor suggestions, and that yanked her mind right back to Adley.
Her phone rang and saved her, thank Christ, and it was Teagan on FaceTime. Relief and happiness flooded through her, emotions always triggered by her best friend.
“Hey,” she said as she answered on her laptop instead of her phone, since she was already sitting right in front of it.
“Hi, cutie,” Teagan said with their trademark smile. “Just popping in to do a drive-by. How’s things?”
“Where are you driving by to?” Sabrina used the fact that her hands were free to eat her eggs as they talked.
“Target,” Teagan said, coupling it with an eye roll. “The place that has more of my money than my bank.”
“Buying more baby stuff?”
“I can’t remember the last time I bought something thatwasn’tbaby stuff.” They shook their head, but Sabrina could tell by their expression that they were far from annoyed.
“Get used to it,” she said with a laugh, then realized that she actually did need to talk about the previous night.
As if reading her mind, Teagan addressed it first, asking, “I take it your surprise houseguest is gone?”
Sabrina didn’t mean to sigh, but she did. “Yeah. Not long ago.”
“And what happened when she woke up this morning?”
“She was horrified, of course. Couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Apologized all over the place but ran out like her ass was on fire.” She tried to make it sound light but knew she just sounded sad about it.
“Babe,” Teagan said, then their gaze went beyond the camera, probably to their wife. A nod, then, “Okay, I’ve gotta run, but listen to me. You’ve got to figure this out because I think this chick means something to you. You know?”
Another sigh. “Yeah.”
“Talk later?”
They signed off, and Sabrina sat there for a long moment. For thefirst time since they’d broken up so many years ago, Sabrina longed for the simple complexity of Teagan’s life. Or was it the complex simplicity? Either one. The domesticity of having a home and a partner and shopping for a crib for the impending arrival of your first child sounded like heaven compared to her own life. Flying from city to city. Rarely sleeping in her own bed. No roots, no home really. Finally meeting somebody who might matter, only to find out your company might blow up her livelihood. She dropped her head into her hands and just sat there. She had so much to do, so much to go over, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was sit there, hold her own head, and think about Adley.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, she had absolutely no idea what to do next.
* * *
While she’d managed a shower and clean clothes, that was about all Adley could manage that morning. Rattling around her house just made her feel jittery, so she headed to the one place she felt most comfortable.
The blessed cool of the stainless steel counter was the only good thing in her life right now. Adley sat there in the back kitchen of the Scoop, her forehead directly on the counter, and contemplated—or rather tried not to contemplate—her horrific choices from the night before.
Seriously, how stupid was she?
Her head was pounding. Of course it was, she’d had three—four? five?—glasses of white wine last night. Everybody knew white was much more apt to give you a headache than red. She knew that. She also hadn’t eaten, so all that wine on an empty stomach…How in the world did she not expect to end up hammered?
What she had done was a clear testament to how she’d been feeling lately—largely confused and angry. About her business. About her abilities. About her feelings for Sabrina—
Snapping her head up wasn’t the greatest of ideas, but she did it at that last thought, and everything swam in her vision for a second.
Her feelings for Sabrina.