Page 11 of Best Served Cold

There’s a pause, and I’m contemplating reverting to Option 1 when she writes back.

How do I know you’re not some psychopath stalker?

I send her my Facebook profile. It says I’m engaged but not to whom. Jonah told me months ago that he has no social media presence and would like to keep it that way. He said he prefers to have real, in-person interactions.

I’ll just bet he does.

This tells me nothing other than that you work at Buchanan Brewery. We HATE Buchanan Brewery.

I look through the photos on Jonah’s phone. He doesn’t take many of them, but there’s a photo of the two of us at his parents’ house a few weeks ago. It was at an all-hands-on-deck family dinner, attended by Rob, who took the photograph with a smug grin on his face. Jonah has his arm around me, and my engagement ring is clearly visible.

A pained sound escapes me. We look content in the photo, and now that kind of happiness feels impossibly far away. Tothink…all this time, my silver lining was made of the kind of metal that turns your finger green.

Three dots appear and then disappear in the chat window. A passing car honks at me, and the man who urinated against the building walks past the brewery, muttering to himself loudly enough to set a very pale pigeon into flight. I glance over to check if Rob is still there—in his perfect parallel parking spot—and some of my unease drifts away when I see that he is. He’s closed the door, but his window is open.

The phone buzzes in my hand.

SilverStarBabe:I’ll be there in two minutes.

The next two minutes are probably the longest in my life. I almost leave, twice, to return to the safety of Rob’s car. Finally, a woman in a bright green and blue wrap dress with feather earrings ducks across the street—not using the crosswalk but actually paying attention to oncoming traffic. She has thick golden hair down past her butt, and a gnawing feeling grows inside of me, because she’sbeautiful. Next to her, I feel like a mouse, perfectly average in every way.

Five minutes ago, the question was why Jonah would want someone else when he already had me, but now I wonder why anyone would want me if they could have her.

She walks up to me, her expression wary, and as she reaches me, her gaze drops to my engagement ring. Hurt ripples across her features, and I realize that this gorgeous woman probably feels the exact same way I do. The thought stokes the rage inside me again, thank God, and I firm up my jaw.

“SilverStarBabe?” I ask.

“My name’s Briar,” she says cautiously. “You’re Sophie.”

I nod.

“And you’re really his fiancée?”

A ball of emotion lodges in my throat. When I break up with him, there’s a chance she’ll step in to pick up the pieces. Ormaybe BigCatchBabe or GingerBeerBabe will. They could slip right into the role I’ve been playing and take over the wedding that never really felt like mine…

It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve tried so hard to become a respectable person, and I’m not going to give up on it now.

“I was,” I say. “How long were you?—”

“About five months.”

My mouth gapes open, and fresh indignation washes through me. “He proposed to me five months ago.”

Her lips part, and I halfway expect her to call me a liar again. But she whispers, “Thatjerk. He…he told me he wanted to be exclusive. That he didn’t have a lot of time to date, but he preferred to focus on forming a soul connection with one person at a time.”

“He said ‘soul connection’?” I ask in disbelief. The Jonah I thought I knew would never talk aboutsoul connections.

She gives a wobbly nod.

“Thatjerk,” I echo, feeling it so deeply in my bones it might as well be part of my marrow.

I want to tell her about the two other women. But that can come later. I need to confront him now. I need to do it while I’m feeling strong.

“I have to give his phone back to him, Briar.”

She glances nervously at the building and bites her lip, and I remember what Jonah said about the Silver Star owner. How he’s allergic to technology, even though his entire operation is reliant on it.

For a second, I think Briar is going to turn me down. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, but she takes my hand and leads me around to a door she unlocks. We step into an office space with a couple of desks left out in the open like islands, a kitchenette, and a closed office door. I can hear a man behind it, laughing in deep gusts.

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