Page 11 of Big Girl Panties

"You're so stupid," I whispered to the empty apartment. My feet carried me down the hallway on autopilot. Bedroom. Bed. Face-plant.

Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling, replaying the night through my head, my cheeks heating when I remembered the attempted kiss.

"What the fuck was I thinking?" I groaned, rolling over to find Karen, my calico cat, perched on my dresser like a furry gargoyle, green eyes glowing in the darkness.

She slow-blinked at me, the cat equivalent of an eye roll.

"Don't give me that look," I muttered. "At least I'm trying to put myself out there."

Karen's tail twitched once. Dismissively.

"Oh, what would you know about dating? Your idea of romance is leaving dead mice in my bed." I sat up, pointing an accusing finger at her. "And for the record, that mouse head on my pillow last Tuesday was not romantic. It was traumatic."

She turned her back to me and began grooming her paw.

"Are you seriously giving me the silent treatment right now? I'm having a crisis here, Karen. A little emotional support would be nice."

Without breaking her grooming rhythm, Karen lifted one leg higher, presenting me with a perfect view of her butthole.

"Message received," I sighed, flopping back onto my pillow. "Even my cat thinks I'm a disaster."

Chapter 4

The Morning After

I could still taste the tequila from last night when I stumbled into the café at 5:30 a.m., but it wasn't the alcohol that kept me awake all night; it was the memory of a stranger who'd reminded me I might survive this.

The scent of freshly baked muffins cut through the haze of my hangover. The overhead fluorescents buzzed against my tender skull, but the familiar warmth of the ovens was oddly comforting.

Vanilla Bean opened at 6:00 a.m., and I was running thirty minutes behind schedule. Thank God for Kali taking the early morning shift.

"Good morning," I mumbled, tossing my purse onto the flour-dusted prep table. The espresso machine hissed in the corner, already warming up for the morning rush. "Sorry, I'm late."

"You look like you wrestled a tequila bottle and lost," Kali said, not even glancing up from her muffin mix. Her red curls caught the light as she worked, creating a halo effect that made her look annoyingly radiant this early in the morning. Her ability to be perky at dawn was both inspiring and slightly annoying. "We never really had the chance to chat last night." That was because Kali was already three sheets to the wind by the time I showed up. "How did yesterday go?"

"Mission accomplished." I shuffled toward our temperamental espresso machine, a vintage beast that had more mood swings than a teenager. One wrong move and it would spray scalding water like an angry dragon. "I am now officially divorced, officially broke, and officially questioning every life choice I've ever made. But hey, at least I'm consistent in my disasters."

My gaze dropped to the expensive bag of Colombian coffee beans.

"Are you okay?" She whispered, finally looking up at me with those bright blue eyes that seemed to see right through me. Her fair skin was dotted with freckles that made her look younger than twenty-three. "Did you have trouble sleeping?"

I scooped the beans out of the bag and poured them into the grinder. "Actually, I'm good." I twisted to face her. "Last night I stayed at the bar after everyone left."

"Really?" Kali's eyebrows shot up. "You stayed at the bar alone? That's either very sad or very badass." I'd only met Kali a few months ago when I'd hired her to help me run the café, but we'd instantly hit it off. She was my spirit animal. She was loud and vibrant and exactly what I needed after the day I'd had yesterday.

"I'm going with badass."

"Sure, we'll go with that," she teased. "You should have told me you were staying. I would have stayed."

"I just wanted to unpack my day with a few shots of tequila." She nodded like she understood. "But I met someone."

Kali perked up. "Ooh, rebound guy?"

"More like a reality check with nice arms. Even though I'll probably never see him again, he made me realize I might not die alone surrounded by cats."

After sleeping off the tequila and regaining some perspective, I'd realized that Matt probably had his reasons for not asking for my number. He'd mentioned being divorced too, and if his track record with serious relationships was as disastrous as mine, maybe we were both just emotional disasters trying to figure out how to be human again.

Her shoulders sank. "Why don't you think you'll see him again?"