I brought the mug to my lips, blowing on the surface of the tea to cool it a little before taking a sip. The crisp scent of green tea mixed with fragrant jasmine drew the tension from my shoulders, eliciting another sigh.

He stopped at the table in the back where we’d looked over the florals yesterday. But the buckets were all gone, moved up to the front so Tess could finish the arrangements, the table empty. He took a seat on one of the stools, and I sat next to him, hooking my heels on the bottom rung.

“Feeling any better?”

“I am.”

“Tell me why your day sucked.” He leaned against the side of the table, propping his head on his fist

“Well,” I started, “I had a dozen back-to-back meetings, and my only meal was a hot dog in the back of a cab. I think I’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-two cups of coffee, which would explain my heart palpitations. The rain, getting soaked, sitting through hours of the Felix sisters heckling wedding bands. Shall I go on?”

His smile tilted. “They heckled the bands?”

I rolled my eyes at the memory, laughing softly despite my irritation. “Alexandra booed three of them. Sofia insulted one—she stood up, walked to the stage, and spent a solid ten minutes tearing them apart for any and everything she could come up with. I don’t know how the saxophone player’s mustache had anything to do with the merit of his musical skills, but when she called him a pedophile, he quit on the spot.”

“Oh my God,” he said on a laugh.

“They’re a nightmare. During a cover of a Four Tops song, Natasha hitched up her skirt and twerked for the cameras. To ‘Baby, I Need Your Loving,’ for God’s sake. I would have been impressed if I hadn’t been horrified. On TV, her snatch will be blurred out, but in real life, I had a front row seat to two of her orifices I never wanted to see. Which is especially mortifying, given that my ex is intimately familiar with that particular region of her body.”

The truth of it stung the second I spoke the words.

Kash’s face darkened, his lips uncharacteristically flat, brows serious. “She’s got to know what she’s doing to you.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s aware.” I took a sip of my tea.

A noisy, angry breath through his nose. “Why would she do that? Why would she torture you that way?”