Page 84 of A Taste of Vanilla

My phone buzzes.

MARLEY

Breakfast at your place before opening? I have gossip and need caffeine.

I stare at the message. Then the note.

Then at the back door.

Then back at the message.

A laugh bubbles out of me. Bright and panicked.

I just slept with a stranger and my best friend is going to know the second she walks through that door.

seven

. . .

No Eye Contact Coffee

HALSTON

There aretwo kinds of secrets. The first kind has weight. Heavy, ugly, soul-rotting weight. The kind that you feel in every room. The kind that Grant kept. The kind that rewrites the past and makes every single normal memory look suspicious under fluorescent lighting.

The second kind has glitter.

Still dangerous, obviously. Still possibly capable of ruining your life before breakfast. But shiny and stupid. The kind that makes you pace around your bakery at six in the morning with your hair smelling like a stranger’s skin and your thighs reminding you that you had, in fact, participated in casual, consensual, mind-blowing sex with a stranger for the first time ever.

The man from Oliver’s bar is the second kind. I think.

As amazing as it was, part of me is too ashamed to admit it.

Hooking up with a stranger on my floor mattress like I’m a frat brother is not something I think I want to say out loud.

I stand behind the counter in Bitter Bloom, staring down atthe note the man had left like it may grow legs and start chasing me.

You need a better lock.

Enjoy your day, stranger.

That’s it.

No name, no number, no “Good morning! Last night was incredible!” No smooth line that will immediately make me regret every second I was nude in front of nameless eyes. No “Thanks for the sex Sorry about your emotional devastation! Here’s my LinkedIn.”

Just practical criticism and coffee.

The man is apparently the human equivalent of a fire extinguisher with excellent hands.

I pick up the note.

Set it down.

And pick it back up again.

Set it back down.

“Absolutely not,” I whisper.