Page 29 of Fixing Up My Love Life

Amber snorts. “Only if my dream includes healthcode violations and a fryer that catches on fire when the humidity rises above sixty percent.”

Right on cue, something in the back makes a pop and a hiss, and the overhead lights flicker like we’re in a horror movie. We both freeze.

“Okay,mildfire hazard,” she amends, casually grabbing a flyswatter and thwacking a bug that had the audacity to buzz past her ear.

“I swear,” I say, laughing, “this place could be a sitcom.”

“It is,” Amber replies. “Only instead of a laugh track, we’ve got Bernice in the kitchen muttering nonsense and boiling cabbage.”

We both cackle, and the tension in my chest eases, just a little. That’s what I love about Amber. She never tries to fix me. Instead, she hands me carbs and makes me laugh until the ugly stuff doesn’t feel so heavy.

She sets the fries down with a flourish. “There. Medicine.”

I poke a cheese-covered fry with my fork. “What if I still want him? Even after all this?”

Amber’s eyes soften. “Then you figure out what you need from him. And if he can’t give it to you, you walk away with your head high and your dignity mostly intact.”

“Mostly?”

She shrugs. “Listen, you can keep the dignity or the cheese fries. You can’t have both.”

I grin and take a bite. “Worth it.”

Behind us, something crashes in the kitchen, followed by Bernice’s voice hollering something about someone’s elbow in the slaw again. Amber just lifts her coffee mug and toasts the chaos.

“Here’s to falling for dumb men with good shoulders and big secrets,” she says.

“And to best friends who serve fries with sarcasm and zero judgment.”

We clink mugs and dive into the mess—of food, feelings, and everything in between.

CHAPTER 12

Jack

The smell of charcoal, sizzling bratwurst, and freshly mowed grass hangs heavy in the chaotic backyard. My dad’s old grill is puffing smoke, and I’m sweating through a T-shirt while pretending I know what I’m doing with the tongs. The folding table is filled with a bowl of pasta salad, a tray of deviled eggs, and the Jell-O mold my aunt insisted on bringing. Again.

Brett lounges in a camp chair nearby, arms crossed, sunglasses perched on his head, watching me like I’m the nightly entertainment. “You’re burning the brats again.”

“I like ’em crispy.” I flip one that lets out a hiss.

“You’re gonna send the neighbors into a panic,” my dad grumbles from the porch, setting down aplatter of buns. “That woman next door still thinks my grill’s a death trap.”

“She’s not wrong,” Brett mutters, waving away smoke. He’s a marine officer turned real estate partner turned watermelon slicer extraordinaire. We met flipping properties in Jacksonville, NC, near the big USMC base. He started out rehabbing tiny military rentals between deployments and somehow made it look easy. Still single. Still not interested in settling down. Yet.

I adjust the burners and glance at Caroline, who’s plopped into a rickety lawn chair under the shade of the oak tree, legs kicked out in front of her and lemonade in hand. Her expression says she’s already mentally clocked out.

“Dad,” she calls, squinting over her cup. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Trying to look competent while slow-roasting your own dignity.”

I blink, then glance down just in time to yank my shirt back from the grill.

“Didn’t realize I was getting roasted along with the bratwurst,” I say.

She raises her lemonade. “You’re welcome for saving your life. Again.”

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