“So, what happens now?” he asked.

“I think that’s my line,” I said without looking up.

“You know what I mean,” he said, poking my ribs. “When you move out, will I see you again, or will I just be part of the Half-Moon Hollow welcome wagon package?”

“I’ll give you a good review on Yelp, if that will make you feel better.”

“Oh, you’re funny, you are.”

“I try.” I was so tempted to tell him I was staying right there with him, in this very house, as long as he wanted me. And I would be willing to sleep in this freaky Tim Burton bed if he would keep rubbing my back like that. But for now, that sounded a little psycho. So I gave him a Cheshire Cat smile and said, “I’m not quite sure yet.”

“Oh, that’s mean.” He groaned.

I slid my arms around his neck and rolled over him. “Maybe I should take another spin on the welcome wagon before I decide.”

I nipped along the line of his throat, leaving a deliberate mark on his collarbone with my teeth. It faded in seconds. I was going to have to find a way to make those stick.

“That’s so wrong.” he said, sighing.

“You want more genteel pillow talk, get a more genteel girl.”

—

The next thing I knew, I startled awake in the bed, alone. I could hear footsteps above me, making the floorboards creak. Sam was pacing upstairs in the living room, and I could hear his hushed tones even in the basement. I blinked blearily at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was after 10:00 P.M. Who would be visiting here at this time of night?

I slipped into my shirt and jeans and crept quietly up the stairs. The kitchen was dark, but the lights in the living room were blazing. I could hear Sam yelling, “No, I don’t have to explain that to you!” followed by tinny babbling. Was he talking on the phone? I hovered near the door, watching as Sam paced back and forth over the worn rug.

“Lindy, that was the amount agreed upon in the settlement. I have a promissory note to show the court. I’ve made the deadline. If you’re not happy with the payment, talk to the judge about it.”

More squawking on the other end of the line.

“No, you don’t have the right to ask that,” he spat. “Because it’s none of your—no!” He sighed. “No. I’m not sleepin’ with her. Lindy, she’s not even my type…

“She’s a friend!” he yelled in response to something Lindy had asked. “She’s just a friend. She’s a nice girl you took advantage of. I felt sorry for her after what you did, so we made an effort to get along. Stop gettin’ away from the point. I’m gettin’ the house fair and square. You need to deal with it…

“No, I don’t want to meet up to talk about it!” he barked. After a long pause, his voice softened as he said, “Look, Lindy, please don’t cry. Please, just stop. No, I don’t hate you. No, I’m not mad anymore… You know I do.”

I backed away from the door, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Was that really how he felt? I was just a friend? He felt sorry for me? Was I a “friend with benefits” now? A rebound lay? I didn’t want to be boxed into some “friend zone” category of women Sam liked enough to sleep with but not enough to date. And I wanted a relationship with Sam, a real one. I hadn’t realized that until I heard him describe me in such bland terms.

Why would he say I was “just a friend”? Because he didn’t want to hurt Lindy? Did he still love her, despite everything? Was he going to end up going back to his ex like Phillip? Would I get sucked into another bizarre cyclical marriage trap like my parents’ relationship hell? Would any progress I made die as Sam yo-yoed back and forth between the two of us?

My breath came out in a painful little hiccup as I found my shoes and purse. I threaded my fingers through the handle of my bag. I couldn’t be here for this. I couldn’t listen to him talk this way. I couldn’t stay in the house, knowing that he might come down the stairs and find some gentle, “friendly” way to ask me to go upstairs to my own bed. The rational, reasonable part of my brain seemed to be on vacation—again—while the more primal portions yelled for me to get out. Get out now! Get out before he gives us the “I need space” speech!

My keys jangled slightly, and I caught them before Sam overheard. I approached the living room. His back was turned to me as he growled into the phone, “Fine, call your lawyer! He wrote the agreement in the first place!” Hands shaking, I slipped from the kitchen to the front hall in a few steps, launching out the door as if I were on a catapult. As I revved my engine and sped down the drive, I glanced back in the rearview mirror and saw Sam framed in the doorway.

—

That night, I cried the whole thing out to Jolene, curled up on her couch.

“It’s just so embarrassing.” I sighed. “I don’t get caught up this way, all emotional and crazy and snotting all over my friends’ sofas. It’s not the first time I’ve slept with a man who didn’t love me. Hell, Phillip made it clear he didn’t even like me toward the end of our relationship. But it’s never hurt this badly before.”

“Maybe that’s because you didn’t care about any of those guys before,” Jolene said, offering me a tall glass of liquor, the origin of which I chose not to question. “And you may be overreacting, you know. You never actually heard him say he still wanted her around. All he said was that he didn’t hate her. It’s not exactly a declaration of love.”

“No one likes a smartass, Jolene,” I informed her, wiping at my wet cheeks.

Zeb, who had disappeared like a cartoon coyote when he’d opened the door and saw my tearstained face, crept quietly into the living room, placed a beer and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies in front of me, and dashed to the safety of the twins’ room.

“I hope that’s not true, for your sake,” she muttered. “So, what are you going to do now?”

I swiped at my cheeks. “Go ahead with my plans. This doesn’t really change anything, except that I need to move out of Sam’s place ahead of schedule. I think we both need to figure out what we want. I don’t think we can do that if I’m living in his back pocket. I’ll just have to find a new contractor. And a bank willing to give me a very low-interest loan—or maybe I’ll just rob a bank, I haven’t decided.”

“I have some cousins who work construction,” Jolene offered.

“Of course you do.” I snorted into a tissue. “So, Jolene—my best friend, my right hand, the only person I know who loves food as much as I do—would you like a job?”

Jolene frowned at me. “I will not track Lindy down and kill her for you. I mean, I know how to hide a body, but I’ve got kids now.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “I mean a job at the restaurant. Would you like to manage it for me?”

“Well, I already work part-time for Beeline, and I work some days at my uncle’s shop.”

“Exactly. You know how a restaurant works, and you know the people here much better than I do. If you see me doing something stupid, you’ll tell me, loudly.”

“Would you actually listen to me?” she asked dryly.

“At least half the time,” I promised. “Come on, how would you feel about dropping the part-time jobs and working for me? I can offer you a pitiful salary and all of the free food you can eat.”

“You may want to rethink that!” Zeb called from the back of the house.

“I don’t think my uncles would like me working for the competition.”

“That’s just it. I don’t plan on competing with your uncles’ place. They do beautiful sandwiches and deli selections, mostly lunch and breakfast. I’m aiming more for comfort foods, slightly upscale, but not so much that you wouldn’t be comfortable there in jeans. A lunch and dinner crowd.”

“I’d still want to check with them first. And my dad.”

I raised an eyebrow.

She nodded. “We’re a close family.”

I muttered, “Must be a Southern thing.”

—

Jolene helped me get the apartment above Southern Comforts into a somewhat livable condition over the next few days, cleaning and making small repairs. After retrieving my stuff from Sam’s house, Jane and Andrea showed up with an enormous care package stocked with housewarming gifts such as a new shower curtain, cleaning supplies, and a great big bottle of vodka. I loved Jane and Andrea. I really did.

Sam called, but I didn’t pick up the phone. His messages were increasingly apologetic, which just made me feel worse for hurting him. He was sorry I woke up to his conversation with Lindy, he said. He didn’t know what I’d heard, but he wished I would talk to him so we could work this out. One message had him sounding so worried, so lonely, that I nearly hit “end” so I could dial Sam’s number, but then he said, “I thought we were friends.” And that kept me from checking my messages for the next two days.

By day three, the words “just a friend” kept running through my head on a loop, making me cringe and cry and occasionally throw a pot at a wall.

I was really going to have to stop doing that.

On October 28, the day Sam was supposed to reclaim his house, I sat in my new restaurant with a perfectly nice lager resting on the bar in front of me. Jolene had finally agreed to take the job at Southern Comforts. But her uncles had warned me that if they caught me duplicating from their menu, I would be in for an old-fashioned ass-whupping. But I hadn’t had any luck finding a contractor to do the repairs I needed. I was having trouble narrowing down which human and vampire menus I wanted to use for the restaurant. I couldn’t even decide on a color scheme for the menu.

For the first time in my life, I truly had no clue what to do. Even when I had my meltdown, I’d had a plan—visit Chef Gamling, get my life back in order. But now, even though I knew what I was doing in the long term, I was completely paralyzed by indecision over what to do in the next few days, in the next few hours.

I toyed with the cap from a Faux Type O bottle. There were so many things I could do with this place, but I wasn’t sure of any of them now. Did I really want to save the tabletops as wall displays? Could I refinish the bar to its original oaken glory? How much additional storage space could I allow myself in the kitchen? I wanted Sam’s input in these decisions, his sensible contractor’s brain. But it seemed that John Lassiter’s curse had killed my pseudo-relationship before it even got off the ground, taking my construction plans down with it.

I took a deep breath and a deeper draw from my beer. This stopped now. The time for useless pouting and self-flagellating was done. I was a homeowner, sort of. I owned my own restaurant. I had friends, real friends who liked me, despite my basket-case tendencies. I’d managed a semifunctional relationship for a few days, which was a personal record. My life was so much better than it was when I’d rolled into town.

The first order of business was turning off this playlist, because Adele’s gorgeous emo postbreakup music was killing me.

I scrolled through the lists on my iPod until I found some Lynyrd Skynyrd and filled my kitchen with the sounds of “Sweet Home Alabama.” I pulled out a notebook and pen and began painstakingly writing text and printing instructions for the menu of my new restaurant.

Coda

10

Jolene, put the green down, and step away from the wall.”

“But it’s so cheerful!” Jolene protested, holding up the paint can labeled “New Leaf.”

“It’s neon!”

“It is rather, er, bright,” Chef Gamling told her gently.

Jolene chucked a fork at my head. “It is not!”