Page 48 of I Can't Even

“I will quit, obvi,” Simone said. “Oh, god, I wonder if I should go apply at Starbucks?”

“Oh, don’t do that.” I pried the lid off my coffee and blew on the froth of white as I studied them over the lip of the cup. “He hasn’t asked her yet. How bad is she really?” Yes, I was fishing.

“Are you kidding?” Rachel looked at me as if I was as thick as the foam in my cup. “Have you met her?”

“No, I’ve never even seen her.” I glanced at them under my lashes. “Is she pretty?”

“Only if you like the super high maintenance, hair extensions, boob job, and weekly mani-pedi type.” Rachel straightened the napkin holder by her register.

“Yeah. Believe me, if you’d seen her, you’d remember her,” Simone said. “She is the most attention-seeking, needy, whiny diva I have ever met.”

“Totes,” Rachel agreed.

The two girls rolled their eyes in perfect sync and then Rachel said in a grating, high-pitched voice, “‘Rachel, get me an espresso and this time make it right. I’d hate to tell Liam that you can’t handle this job.’”

“‘Simone, bring me a glass of ice water, and don’t forget the lemon wedge and make sure you get all the seeds out.’” Simone’s full mouth twisted in a sneer. “‘I’d hate to have to tell Liam that his staff can’t even handle ice water.’”

“If he marries her, I swear it’ll destroy his business,” Rachel said. “She’s a horror!”

Simone nodded.

“Who is she?” I tried to make it sound like a perfectly plausible question and added, “I mean, is she from town? Do I know her?”

“No,” Rachel said. “Her name is Courtney Jonas, and she lives up in Los Angeles.”

And now I had a name. Yes! And L.A. How perfect, since my current nemesis, Paisley, currently resided there as well. A twofer.

“Then she’s not around very often,” I said. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“Unless she moves here,” Simone said. She and Rachel exchanged a worried glance.

“Don’t panic,” I said. “It’s a long journey from a proposal to an actual wedding.”

I intended to interrupt the process completely. I left a big tip and hunkered down in my corner seat of the café with my flat white and laptop. I wasn’t sure where to begin the search for information about Liam and Courtney, but figured I’d start with all the standard social media sites.

It was not as illuminating as I’d hoped. While Liam’s Coffee Shop had several prominent business accounts, I couldn’t find any personal pages for my Liam Mahony. There were other Liam Mahonys, just not mine. So, he either didn’t have them or he had pretty high security.

The search for Courtney Jonas was not much better. I could verify her on social media, but she had all of her privacy blocks on, meaning I could see she was there in her teeny tiny profile picture but not much else. Very annoying.

I tapped my finger to my lower lip. The coffee shop in Los Angeles was his most recent enterprise, where Courtney lived. If he got any press coverage for the opening, it stood to reason that she might have been there. I found the location of the Los Angeles shop and looked at their website. It was a bit cumbersome and not navigationally friendly, but I did finally find some pictures of the grand opening.

Liam popped right out of the pictures at me. There were tons of them, and he was smiling as was his beaming staff. He was clearly enjoying the success of his endeavors and for a moment I just marveled at all he’d accomplished. I was so very proud and happy for him.

Since he had spent our high school years working as a barista, owning a chain of coffee shops had always been Liam’s ultimate goal. He’d gone to San Diego State and gotten a business degree, then returned to Gull’s Harbor and opened his first shop after college with loans from his parents and the bank.

Babs had kept me up to date on his goings on. I used to think she was just being cruel but now I wondered if she’d done it to prove that she’d been right. I never would have had the big adventurous life I’d dreamed of if I stayed with Liam, because the reality was that I never would have left Gull’s Harbor, I would have stayed with him.

I tried to picture what my life would have looked like had I stayed but I couldn’t get it to crystallize in my mind.

I scrolled through the grand opening pictures on the coffee shop’s website and stopped when I saw one of him with his arm around a woman the size of a pencil with long, sleek, black hair, unnaturally white teeth, and ginormous cleavage. She was tucked against his side and staring up at him with her bright smile and big, brown doe eyes, and I felt like I’d just swallowed a fistful of tacks. This had to be Courtney. I was sure of it.

I scanned the photo to see if it listed her name anywhere. It did not. I studied the picture hard. They were clearly a thing. It was obvious in the way she gazed at him. My stomach rolled a bit. My Liam was dating her; he was going to marry this busty being.

For a second, I thought I should take it as a sign from the Universe to back off and leave the poor man alone. But if the Universe was really sending me signs, then the fact that Liam and I still had some crazy chemistry going, a truckload of unfinished business, and I’d learned that his staff clearly hated Courtney, well, it seemed like the signals were actually urging me forward with my plan to win him back, right? Right.

There was no doubt I’d need to up my game. I pondered what I should do next and it seemed I had no choice. I was going to have to bust out Em’s boots but where and when? Hmm. I considered my options then I noticed that a band was playing at the coffee shop that evening. Seemed like an excellent time to strut my stuff, especially if I could get my niece and nephew to act as human shields. They were leaving soon for their Swiss summer camp, so I figured this was an opportunity to bond. Yes, with an agenda, but still.

I sent the twins a text telling them to meet me at Grandma’s house. The best way to win their sixteen-year-old devotion was to pay them, and I added that if Hannah could bring any clothes that her parents refused to let her wear out in public because they were too sexy that would be hugely helpful.

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