Clearly, she was changing. Or something within her was changing. She no longer felt like herself. Well, no, that wasn’t quite accurate. She was still her, but things within her were shifting. Interests. Priorities. What she saw for her future. What shewantedfor her future. She didn’t really understand it. Any of it. Something she’d read a while back said that your thirties are the Age of Enlightenment. She’d had no idea what that meant at the time she’d read it, but she was wondering about it now. Was this it? Was that what was happening? Was there enlightenment now?
A snort. Because no, she didn’t feel enlightened. If anything, she felt like she was in the dark about what was going on with her. It wasn’t a comfortable place to be.
She squatted. “Up.” Sprinkles sat up again. “High-five.” It took a couple tries, but he got it, put his paw against her raised palm. She gave him the last of the bacon. “You are the best boy. Should we go for a walk? Wanna go to the dog park?”
At the mention of theWword, Sprinkles’s ears perked up as he popped to his feet.
“Let’s get you hooked up,” she told him, grabbing his leash and harness out of the front closet. He loved walks, and he loved sniffing the perimeter of her fenced-in backyard, but nothing gave him more exercise than running with another dog or two around the dog park. She tried to take him a couple times a week if it wasn’t too hot. They were just about to head out the front door when her phone pinged from her back pocket, and she pulled it out, gave it a quick glance. A text from the Realtor she’d spoken to.
Got a couple properties that tick most of your boxes. Attached.
Slipping the phone back in her pocket, she saved the text to look at once she was at the dog park with time to kill.
April was probably Sabrina’s favorite month when it came to weather. It was warm, usually in the low seventies, but not hot. Not humid. She didn’t mind the humidity—she’d lived in Atlanta for most of her life and she was used to it—but she didn’t love it either. Being outside was something that made her feel calm and centered, and sweating like a farm animal did not lend itself to calm and centered. Today was gorgeous, though. Sunny with an occasional puffy cloud floating in the electric-blue sky. Seventy-two degrees. The dog park was within walking distance of her house, a perk she hadn’t realized she’d had until Sprinkles had come into her life, and she’d done some googling. In true terrier fashion, he sniffed pretty much every blade of grass along the way. She didn’t so much have walks with Sprinkles as she had slow strolls. Moseys. Saunters. She didn’t mind. These walks with him over the past few months had given her more time to think than she’d ever allowed herself in the past. Yes, she’d scroll on her phone while they walked or read email or research. But for the most part, their walks had become her peace, her respite from the relentlessness of herwork life, which had very nearly become all-consuming without her even realizing it.
In about thirty minutes, they arrived at the dog park, a small fenced-in area divided into two large sections, one for dogs twenty-five pounds or less and one for bigger dogs. Currently, there were five dogs running around in the big dog section and only one in the little dog section, a Westie, standing at the fence and watching the big dogs with what could only be described as envy. Sabrina was familiar with her—Bella—and she was relieved because she knew Bella would run Sprinkles ragged, and once they got home, he’d collapse and sleep like a baby, happy and exhausted.
She unclipped Sprinkles’s leash, and he flew toward Bella like she’d shot him out of a cannon. The endless sprints began. With a nod to Bella’s mom, Sabrina headed to her usual bench. It was another thing she liked about Bella being at the park—her mom wasn’t terribly social, which was totally fine with Sabrina. She wasn’t up for inane small talk normally, but especially lately. She’d been so solitary, so in her own head, that it had freaked Teagan the hell out and they’d said as much.
“You’re a social butterfly,” they had said during their last conversation. “You go out to bars by yourself in unfamiliar cities and strike up conversations with strangers. ThisI vant to be alone”—they’d used a terrible Swedish accent there—“thing is so not you. It worries me. It’s not like you to be stuck in your own head like this. What can I do?”
Sabrina had laughed it off, promised them she was fine, that she’d tell them if she needed something, some kind of help. Teagan had balked a little, hadn’t quite believed her, but had finally relented, promising to check in on her even more than usual.
The truth was, she felt fine, but more pensive. Teagan wasn’t wrong—Sabrinawasin her own head a lot, like, most of the time, and it wasn’t her usual thing. She was a stand-up-and-do-it kind of person, not a sit-down-and-think-about-it one. But she’d definitely been overthinking since…well, yeah. Since Adley.
With a sigh—she’d been doing that a lot lately, sighing like she was an old woman who needed to sit down every few minutes—she sat down on her usual bench under the enormous oak tree that grew in the middle of the park and pulled out her phone to take a closer look at the links her Realtor had sent. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing.Exploring her options? Living out a fantasy? Dreaming of a different life? She tried not to dwell on it because if she did, she’d feel terribly guilty for what was likely a waste of her Realtor’s time. But for now, it was fine.
She clicked on each link. A cute shop in Vermont. She’d have to get used to snow. Scroll. Another in Seattle. She loved how gorgeous the Pacific Northwest was but didn’t think she could take that much rain and gray. Scroll. A storefront—currently a gift shop, by the looks of it—with an apartment up above at the base of the Adirondacks. If only she skied or something. Scroll. Wait.
“What?” She said it aloud and sat forward on the bench, any tiny smidgeon of relaxation she might’ve felt vanishing in a heartbeat. She sat there, staring at the phone in her hand, at the real estate listing for the building that housed Get the Scoop in Northwood. “Oh God. Poor Adley,” she whispered into the park air. Her heart squeezed in her chest, and she closed out of her Realtor’s text and scrolled down until she got to Adley. So long ago, it seemed like. She’d thought many times of just deleting the entire thread, but she couldn’t. It included Adley’s cool, detached texts, yes, but it also included the ones before. Way before. When they were…God, what had they been? A fling? Fuck buddies? Convenient? She opened a new text message, but her thumbs hovered over the keys because what the hell was she supposed to say?Gee, sorry my company drove yours out of business?The reality was, there had been other issues. Get the Scoop had been floundering already, she knew that. But Sweet Heaven certainly hadn’t helped.
Business is not personal.
She heard the voice in her head, and it made her close out of the open text box.
“I bet it felt pretty personal to Adley,” she said quietly, sadly, repeating the same thought she’d had every time the business-versus-personal line ran through her head.
Bella and Sprinkles flew past her, running full speed like dogs tended to do. Sprinkles was slightly smaller, but a titch faster, and they ran the entire perimeter of the park over and over until they both collapsed in the grass, doggy lungs heaving, tongues lolling.
To be that carefree… Sabrina smiled sadly and shook her head as she looked at her exhausted dog. Wouldn’t that be nice? To not haveto worry about anything except food and play and sleep? To never be concerned about love, to know without a doubt somebody adored you?
She looked down at the phone again. Called up the Scoop’s listing again.
Bookmarked it.
Chapter Twenty
It had been an extra rainy May in Northwood. Normally, Adley would be bummed about that because May signaled the beginning of ice cream season in the Northeast. Rain and gloom didn’t make people think they might like a cone or a sundae. But now that she had no ice cream to worry about, she found herself embracing the rain. The gray. The damp chill in the air. It all matched her inner mood. She didn’t tell anybody that she worried this might be who she was now, that this gloom might be permanent.
That was her inner mood. Her outer mood was a different story. She put on a happy face. After all, she was the hostess and assistant manager at Chumby’s, a nice midscale restaurant on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t ever ridiculously busy, but it was never empty, and she began to appreciate the benefit of good, steady business. It could be counted on, which meant bills could be paid.
“Hi there. Reservation for three under Nichols.” The man in front of her was in his forties and had two women with him. Adley guessed from their ages they were his wife and his mother.
“Of course,” she said with a smile. She had to force herself to inject it with warmth. Smiling was easy, but making it look and sound genuine was harder, and that was something she was working on. She checked his party off on her computer, grabbed three menus from under her desk. “Right this way,” she said and led the trio to their table.
She didn’t hate the job here, and that was a good thing. It wasn’t hard. She took care of reservations and made the schedule for the staff each week. Took care of payroll and placed orders for supplies. Shereally liked the beginning of a shift because she got to sample the day’s specials along with the waitstaff. She enjoyed savoring the different flavors as the chef explained how something was made and offered up little details that the waitstaff might enjoy passing on to customers. It was also a job that was easily left behind when she headed home, and that was new. She didn’t spend her evenings thinking up new flavor combinations or playing switcheroo games on her accounting software so she could make sure everybody got paid that week. This job didn’t stress her out.
She could admit that last part was a relief.
