There were a handful of other customers in the place, but no one looked familiar. Grateful for small favors, she grabbed an armful of her two favorite food groups—chocolate and salt—then made her way to the front counter to check out.

The convenience store clerk gave her a big eyebrow raise as she dumped her loot on the counter, but either he had sisters or a girlfriend because he didn’t say anything as he started to ring her up.

She didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t surprise her. Ten years was a long time. The thought brought a new wave of anxiety and had her grabbing one more thing that she didn’t need—a package of cookies from the counter display.

“Nice,” the clerk said without a smidgeon of judgment in his voice as he rang her up. “I especially like the way you’ve got the entire junk food pyramid represented here. That’s not easy to do.”

She had a pack of donuts, two pies—one lemon, one cherry—a pint of caramel delight ice cream, a family-size bag of chips, and now cookies as well.

“Bad breakup?” the clerk asked.

“No.” Only a little bit of a lie. Because there was bad and then there was bad bad. And hers had definitely been the latter.

“Smoking too much wacky-tobacky?” he asked.

She could one hundred percent understand why he might think so, but she again shook her head in the negative. No, she was attributing this junk food fest to getting fired from the upscale San Diego salon where she’d worked until three weeks ago.

Apparently she was going to eat her feels about that whole situation.

“Maybe you’re having a party?” the clerk asked and flashed a smile. “FYI, my name is Cliff, and I like parties.”

“Sorry,” she said. “No party.” She took a moment to eyeball the rack of candy bars on display.

Cliff laughed. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you have repeat customer all over you, so you should know that we’re open twenty-four seven. Which means you really don’t have to buy us out of stock right this very minute. Also, at midnight the candy bars go on sale—two for one.”

“Do I look like the sort of person who’d go out at midnight for a sale on candy bars?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

She sighed and handed over her debit card, aware that a line had formed behind her. Not glancing back, she said a quick little prayer that her card went through the first time and let out a breath of relief when it did.

Getting fired sure had put a crimp in her style.

“Do you want a bag?” Cliff asked. “We charge for them now. Ten cents each.”