“Pretty much,” says Leigh, chuckling. “But, fuck Frumplestein. He can suck it. He should have signed up the Sentinel to be a sponsor somewhere else when he had the chance.”
I grin at that because I love my friend, and even from so many hundreds of miles away, I can picture her badass expression as she says this.
“Hey, any contractions yet?”
“Just Braxton-Hicks,” she tells me, “but if this little one doesn
’t make an appearance by Memorial Day, they’re going to induce me.”
“Tell him to wait for Aunt Amanda to get back to town, huh?”
“No way, girl. The sooner the better. I have hobbit feet and my waddle makes me look like a giant duck. Quack. Quack.”
That makes me laugh before telling my best friend to hang in there and saying goodbye. I have just enough time to get to the store for groceries before Luke shows up at noon.
He arrives on time to find me stirring pudding, my cooled pie crust ready to be filled.
“Hi!” I say, giving him a quick kiss in the doorway before hustling back to the stove. “I’m almost done!”
“What are you doing?” he asks, taking off his shoes and following me into the kitchen.
Today he’s back to wearing his black golf shirt with pressed khaki pants. The shirt is embroidered with details about the academy and his name: Sgt. Luke Kingston, and he looks so fine, I feel my body mellowing, melting, readying for him.
“You’re a sergeant?” I ask.
He nods. “Deputy Commander of the academy…at your service.”
I stick my finger into the pudding I’m stirring, then pop it in my mouth, sucking greedily as he watches. “I’ll be at your service in a few minutes.”
“Day-umnnn,” he growls. “That’s sexy.”
“You’re good for my ego.”
He sits down at my kitchen table and takes off his academy baseball cap, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I’ve been meaning to ask: what happened with your ex?”
“Bryce?” I scoff, wiping my finger on a paper towel. “Nothing good.”
“How about the cliff notes version?”
“Rrrrgh. Okay. We…met while I was doing a story on local cuisine. Bryce was the Sous Chef at a French restaurant. We started dating, moved in together…stayed that way for about five years. And then…”
“Then?”
I take the pudding off the stove and put the saucepan in the sink to cool down for a few seconds before pouring it into the crust.
“…and then he cheated on me with our friendly, neighborhood bartender.”
“Oh, man.” Luke scrubs his hands over his face, his expression pained. “What an asshole.”
“Yeah.” I sigh, nodding in agreement. “It sucked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m …not,” I say, the word surprising me. I chuckle softly, leaning back against the counter. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry he cheated and I’m not sorry it’s over. It should have been over a long time ago.”
“You didn’t love him?”
I bite my bottom lip, thinking this over. “I don’t know. I don’t…think so. I mean, we were together for a long time. Bryce was a fact in my life. My insta-date, my roommate, my companion…I think we started out in love…or at least in serious like. I fell out of love with him at some point, but I guess I just figured that was how things went. Like, maybe it wasn’t passionate and soul-stirring, but it was comfortable, and we’d been together for years, and…I don’t know. I guess I just thought it was enough.”