Page 19 of Best Kind of Trouble
Liam might be the only person who could help me save the brewery.
I think he needs this too.
Good luck at work tomorrow.
Thank you.
I love you too, BTW. You’re a badass bitch. That’s your new mantra. Chant “I am a badass bitch” in the morning while you fold yourself into a pretzel.
The next morning, after I finish my yoga session, I sit on my mat and try to do as Hannah suggested. She saved me, and in return, I intend to give her every single thing she ever requests. Even if that means chanting “I’m a badass bitch” to myself like a total weirdo.
Who knows? Maybe it’ll even work. I could use a confidence boost—I’m meeting my father at his lawyer’s office this morning to sign the papers that will make Silver Star mine. So there’s no better time to start believing I’m a badass bitch. Or atleast tough enough to sit across from him without showing any signs of emotion.
Still, I feel kind of dumb saying something like that out loud, especially since the only “person” around is Karma, my Siamese cat, who gives me a withering look whenever I do stupid things. He also enjoys leaping onto me while I’m doing bridge or wheel pose, as if I’ve formed a useful table shape for him to rest on.
I love him madly.
Then again, I have a history of falling for emotionally aloof men’s BS. Jonah wasn’t the first, but his betrayal hurt the worst, because I’d really thought all the yoga I’d done and hours of therapy I’d endured had gotten me somewhere. I’d promised myself that I would never fall for someone else’s lies, the way I had with my business partner and past boyfriends.
Great-Aunt Sky once told me that I have a natural instinct for reading the energy people put out into the world, but that I ignore my better judgment because I’m too accommodating and let other people paper their version of the world over my own.
Lo and behold, she was right, because I’d dated an engaged man for months, totally oblivious.
It’s mortifying to think about the promises we exchanged, which meant nothing to him and everything to me.
Jonah was supposed to help me run Silver Star Brewery. I had the creative vision, and he’d use his talents to get the brewery’s beer into all the right places and keep my staff and customers satisfied. He’d claimed his people skills were superior, and let’s be honest, he was obviously right. He’s so good with people he convinced four women to believe they were his one and only.
I’d certainly believed in the vision he’d created.
I’d thought Ilovedhim.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last six months wondering why Jonah went to all the trouble of lying to us. Was it only foran ego boost, or had he been forming tidy little backup plans? Separate lives waiting for him in case he decided he wanted or needed to slip into them.
Sometimes I wish I had a backup life—an existence separate from the one I have as Briar Sterling, my parents’ greatest disappointment. My mind drifts to those alternate lives whenever I try to meditate. I imagine myself as a barista in Seattle, or a musician scraping by in New York City. An artist in some tropical place where everyone walks around drinking alcohol out of pineapples. Anything but me, here.
“You’re a badass bitch,” I remind myself. My gaze drops to Karma, who has padded up to my thick yoga mat. He gives me a look that says,Please, who do you think you’re fooling?
I suppose he has a point.
“Should we move to Seattle?” I ask out loud. “I know it rains a lot, but maybe that means there are perpetual rainbows.”
He meows.
“I am abadass bitch,” I make myself say one final time before getting up and rolling up the mat.
I get another doubtful look from my cat. He nudges me with his front paw—anare you for real?gesture if ever there was one.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I’m going to stop, because…drumroll, please…I am a badass bitch. Hannah says so, so it must be true.”
He looks dubious, but I really felt like a badass bitch last night. It was satisfying to beat that bag with my fists at the boxing gym. My knuckles are still sore this morning, but sore in a good way. Sore from being used.
My mother would have an aneurysm if she knew I’d been to a boxing gym. She’d definitely insist I bathe in sanitizer after putting on those dirty, scuffed gloves. Then again, my mother has never known best. Practicing at the gym made me feel the kind of bone-deep enjoyment I get from spending time with myfriends, from doing yoga, and from planning my upgrades for the brewery.
Could I join a gym like that?
I mean, surely it’s not just for men…
My next thought, I’m ashamed to admit, is to wonder what my parents and their friends would think if they found out I’d joined a boxing gym with a bunch of burly, sweaty men.
