Page 8 of A Taste of Vanilla

I look down again.

Grant’s voice has been in my head all week. Him saying I was making a scene. Him saying everyone made mistakes. Him saying we had built too much to throw away. Him saying I was being dramatic when I left. Him saying, “Halston, please,” like I was embarrassing him by bleeding where people could see.

Grant said my name like it belonged to him.

I rub at the pale line on my finger where my engagement ring used to sit. “I wanted to be enough,” I admit.

Oliver’s mouth flattens. “You were.”

“Clearly not,” I say, my eyes burning.

“No, you were plenty. He was greedy,” he argues.

I close my eyes. For a second, the bar blurs into sound. Laughter, ice, low music, the Vipers yelling, Oliver breathing through his nose like he’s trying not to commit a felony for friendship.

Then a basket shifts against my elbow, and I open one eye. Mozzarella sticks.

I stare at them.

“When did you make those?”

“I anticipated a second wave of despair.” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the counter.

“Did you?”

“I own a bar. I can smell escalation.” He tosses his rag over his shoulder.

“You deep-fried cheese for my heartbreak?”

“I deep-fried cheese because you are a menace when underfed,” he corrects.

I pick one up, stretching it between my fingers in one long, glorious ribbon. It nearly makes me cry again. “This is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Raise your standards,” he says as he hands a patron a beer.

“I tried. He slept with his secretary.”

Oliver’s eyes narrow, and I wave a mozzarella stick. “Sorry. Dark joke.”

“I liked it,” he says, which is basically a smile.

“You looked murderous.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“Suzy Homemaker never had mozzarella sticks at midnight.”

“Suzy Homemaker was a prison.”

“Suzy Homemaker would have had a casserole.”

Oliver’s face twists with disgust. “Casseroles are just lasagnas that gave up.”

I point a cheese stick at him. “That is offensive to Midwestern women everywhere.”

“We’re in Baltimore.”

“I’m from Ellicott City. I’m allowed to defend theoretical casseroles.”