“What?” she asks innocently, gathering the plates and cutlery back up.

“How did this become about you?”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Not this,” I snap. “Jesus, Shannon. Sexuality isn’t something you buy in a Parisian boutique and wear for a season. This is kind of a big deal for me.”

She blinks. Nods. “I’m being an asshole again.”

“Yes,” Kiki, I, and even Gia say at once.

“Points for self-awareness and saying ‘I’m sorry’ way faster this time?” she asks meekly.

I wrap my arm around her shoulders and kiss the top of her head. “I’m glad to have you back, Shan,” I murmur.

“God, you are so sappy.” But before we pile into the living room, laden with takeout cartons and soda, she gives me a quick squeeze.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It seems almost cruel that the morning after my own romance ended is the one in which I finally get to meet Clementine Walker face-to-face.

“I’m a huge fan,” I tell her when Beth brings her to the café counter, wiping my hand on my apron before shaking hers. “I’ve read every single one of your books. Repeatedly.”

“Well, that’s always a nice thing to hear!” She has a big smile, bright teeth, and long blond hair that’s clearly out of a bottle, but in a way that looks really cool with dark roots. It somehow makes me even more nervous that she’s extremely nice, and everything else I’d thought to say to her flies out of my head.

I excuse myself to make her a coffee, and she even compliments the half-formed heart drawn in the foam. “It feels more complex that way,” she assures me. “Like this is a heart that has been through some stuff.”

“You have no idea,” I mutter, grateful when Beth calls for me to come get the cart of books for the signing.

The crowd starts trickling in about ten minutes before the event. I guess romance is a hotter genre in the Stratford area than I knew, because soon every seat in the store is full, and Beth’s sending me to get more folding chairs. I barely get back to my spot at the café counter before Beth makes the grand introduction and everyone claps for Clementine.

“Thank you for coming,” Clementine says, and she sounds so professional that it makes me want to be her all the more. She’s pretty, she’s confident, she’s talented, and the huge rock on her left hand suggests she’s got all her romantic shit figured out. I know from her posts on social media that she’s got a hot husband and two adorable kids, and I bet she’s never had her heart twisted up by a girl she’d become too afraid to call.