I waved her off. “It’s fine. A new restaurant idea was an ambitious choice after everything. I was able to get out of the lease without being in debt. That’s a plus.”
Colin’s parents had gifted Colin and I ten grand to open the cupcake shop. The problem was that Colin had gone to school for restaurant management and I was just the pastry chef. A Cordon Bleu, French-trained, pastry chef, but still … I knew nothing about business. It was doomed from the start. I should have gotten out of it when I’d learned of his death, but his parents wanted to see it come together. Colin’s dream. We’d worked on it at the same time as we planned our wedding. We were set for our grand opening the day after we landed from our honeymoon.
Cupcakes and Whiskey.
A bar with dessert that matched the drinks. The perfect pairing. Colin got the best bartender in New York City and I curated the menu, inspired by my time in Paris. Chocolate croissant cupcakes with Kalua mudslide or bacon maple scones with caramel rum.
Sigh.
If I hadn’t fucked it up, it would have been amazing. I missed more work than I attended. Shit fell through the cracks. The line out the door died down when they realized I hadn’t ordered or baked enough to feed them. One day I’d been so despondent, I just closed the place early and went home.
I had to hear about it on social media. Some bitches showed up to the closed shop and made a whole Instagram story about it.
Reputation was everything and the restaurant suffered after that.
Julie pointed an accusing finger at me. “Are you thinking about that Instagram bitch?”
I grinned. “Just a little. She had a million followers. A million!”
Julie waved me off. “She was a bitch who made a huge, nuclear, World War Three big deal about a restaurant closing an hour early.”
I shrugged. “It was three hours.”
“The point is: Fuck her.” Julie was viciously protective of me and I loved her for it.
I held up my bubble tea and smiled at my bestie. “Fuck her.”
We clinked plastic cups before the beeping of Julie’s phone caused her to peer down. “Okay, I gotta get back. Eight p.m., my place. I kicked John out for the night. You, me, getting hammered and watching Netflix!”
I gave her a quick hug and then watched her go, weaving in and out of the restaurant while still shoveling lo mein into her mouth.
She looked back at me in the doorway. “HOLY SHIT I’m getting engaged!” she yelled as a huge grin swept across my face. The restaurant burst into applause and she left with a fist pump in the air. That’s when my mind wandered to the day Colin proposed to me. It was perfect, he was perfect. We were perfect.
Now that Julie was gone, I could let my fake smile fall, I could let my shoulders droop. I could ask myself on the one-year anniversary of Colin’s death … what the fuck was I doing with my life?
Ashton
The blaring alarm clock cut into my sleep like an assault, I rolled over and slammed my hand down to shut it off.
Another fucking day.
Every night I went to sleep and prayed I wouldn’t wake up, but lo and behold, that fucking alarm clock was there to remind me I was still in the land of the living.
Great.
Sitting up, I pulled a cigarette from my bedside table and lit it. Reaching out, I touched the picture of my twin sister that sat at my bedside table. I remembered the day I took that picture. We were seventeen and she’d been canning strawberries with Gran; she was a sticky mess. She had a crush on one of my buddies who was over, and I’d called her a sticky slob or something and she’d flipped me off. I’d snapped the pic right as she flipped me the bird and glared me down in the way that only Jenna could do.
She hated the picture, which of course made me love it.
Emotion tightened my throat and I reached out and slammed the frame face-down.
Tomorrow was the one-year anniversary of her death. One year since the universe decided to take her and not me. Peering down at the ten-inch scar on my chest, I shook my head and took another drag of my cigarette. I shouldn’t be smoking, or drinking for that matter, but I didn’t care anymore. I shouldn’t be alive. Jenna should.
My second, backup alarm went off and I tore from the bed and yanked it from the wall, ceasing its blaring mid-stream.
After showering, smoking three more cigarettes, and tossing on a questionably clean shirt, I headed downstairs to open the bar. I was surprised to see my real estate agent Darcy waiting for me out front.
“Surprise!” She bopped on her heels, holding two Starbucks cups. “We got an offer!”
Darcy had been trying to sleep with me for months. She was a perky twenty-five-year-old blonde with a banging body. But she also had a big brain and cared too much about people. Not the kind of girl you had a one-night stand with, so I avoided her advances at all costs. Ya know, I was a gentleman like that.
“Shit, really?” Was I finally going to be rid of this shithole? I looked up at the Wayne’s Place sign. The failing family business I’d been saddled with five years ago was falling apart, in every way.
Thanks, Dad.
Darcy handed me the cup of coffee and I thanked her. Just because I hated my life didn’t mean I had to be rude to a nice young woman.
“It’s lower than we wanted.”
