My Ex Cheated, Then I Fell for the Wrong Man

(Avery POV) The bags are going to kill me before the stairs do. I drop them on the third-floor landing for the second time, press my back against the wall, and tilt my head up at the flickering fluorescent tube overhead. It buzzes like it's dying. I feel that. Fourth floor. Brooke had to pick the fourth floor of a building with no elevator, in a Wicker Park walk-up with staircases so narrow they were clearly designed as a form of cardio punishment. I love her. I do. But right now, standing here in my own sweat with plastic bag handles cutting grooves into my palms like I'm being slowly filleted, I'm reconsidering that love. I should have taken a cab. I knew I should have taken a cab. I walked right past the rideshare pickup spot outside the Whole Foods, looked at it, mentally high-fived myself for choosing to walk, and started my twenty-minute death march back to the apartment. Five minutes in, I already knew it was a mistake. Did I call Brooke to come get me in her Civic? I did not. Pride is a disease. "I need to get a gym membership," I wheeze at nobody. I pick the bags up again. One final push. The handles of 4C are warm from my overheated hands when I finally drag myself down the hall. I kick my sneakers off before I'm even through the door, shove it open with my shoulder, bags dragging behind me— And walk straight into a situation. My brain takes exactly two seconds to process it. Brooke is on her knees on the living room floor, gripping the back of the sectional. Her leggings are shoved to mid-thigh. Tyler is behind her, hands locked on her hips, pants around his ankles. Oh. Oh no. "Oh my God—" The words fire out of my mouth before I can catch them. I spin around. Too fast. One of the bags swings wide and clips the entry table. I hear the vase—the little ceramic one Brooke got at the Andersonville street fair last summer—teeter, then hit the hardwood. The sound is catastrophically loud. Shards scatter everywhere. "I'm sorry!" I'm already hopping, trying to jam my right sneaker back on without bending down, refusing to turn around. "Don't stop, I'm not here, this isn't happening—" "Avery—" Brooke starts. "I'm leaving!" I get the shoe on, abandon the left one entirely, and flee. The door bangs shut behind me. I stand on the landing in one shoe, breathing like I just ran a 5K, heart slamming against my ribs. My face is on fire. Tyler's face had been so red. I am going to need at minimum three business days to recover from what I just witnessed. I start down the stairs. Get to the third floor. And stop dead. The ice cream. Three pints of Ben & Jerry's. I'd paid full price for all three—Half Baked, Cherry Garcia, and the limited-edition one I refused to feel guilty about. Not on sale. Not with a coupon. Full price, because job hunting in a new city for three weeks straight earns you the right to full-price ice cream. I cannot let three pints of $6.49-each ice cream melt on my living room floor. I close my eyes. I breathe. I turn around. When I knock on 4C the first time, nothing happens. I knock harder. There's a thump from inside and then a sharp yelp—someone stepped on vase shards—and then the door opens. Brooke is flushed from her roots to her collar. Her dark hair looks like it's been through a wind tunnel. She's got her leggings back on but her shirt is inside out and she doesn't know it yet. "Avery, I'm so—" "Ice cream," I say. "I bought three pints. I need to put them in the freezer or they're going to melt and I will genuinely cry." Her expression collapses into something between guilt and relief. "Oh God. Yes. Come in, come in—Tyler's just going to—" "I'll give you an hour," I say, already brushing past her toward the kitchen. "Maybe two. Tyler—" I don't look at him on the couch, just wave somewhere in his general direction— "no hard feelings, that was entirely my fault." There's a strangled sound from the living room that might be acknowledgment. I move fast. Milk in the fridge, eggs, the Greek yogurt Brooke stress-eats. Ice cream in the freezer—tucked in the back, safe and sacred. I grab my purse off the counter, and I am back at the door in under ninety seconds. "Have fun," I call out, and I pull it shut before anyone can respond. ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆✥⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ It's 3:12 on a Thursday afternoon, which means Chicago has the specific dead energy of a city between things. The lunch crowd is gone. Happy hour hasn't started. The streets in our neighborhood are half-empty, the late October air sharp enough to remind you that you're not in September anymore. I need coffee. I need somewhere to sit that isn't a hallway. I need to not think about Tyler's face. The Press House is ten minutes from our building, tucked between a vintage bookstore and a dry cleaner on Milwaukee Ave. Brooke took me there my first week here, back when everything still felt shaky and new and I hadn't quite admitted to myself that moving to Chicago without a job lined up was either very brave or very stupid. I still haven't decided which. The bell above the door announces me to a room that smells like dark roast and brown butter and something warm with cinnamon. My whole nervous system sighs. This is what I needed. The afternoon light comes in low and gold through the front windows, and the place is quiet—just a few people on laptops, a couple in the corner not talking to each other, the hiss of the espresso machine behind the counter. I head for the pastry case first, because priorities. The display is a full crime scene of things I want. Croissants. Lemon bars. Some kind of frosted cookie in the shape of a maple leaf. But it's the self-serve station to the right that pulls me up short. A cake stand. Under a glass dome. And on it— A caramel brownie. The thickest, most architectural slice of salted caramel brownie I have ever seen in my adult life. Multiple layers. Glossy top. Probably illegal. I actually feel my pupils dilate. I reach for the dome lid, tongs in hand, already locating one of the small plates from the stack beside it. The bell above the door chimes. More people coming in. I register movement in my periphery—a man, tall, stopping beside me at the self-serve counter— but I'm focused. I've earned this brownie. Three weeks of applications, two rejection calls, and one very traumatic interruption of my roommate's s*x life. This brownie is mine. I turn to grab a plate. One second. One. When I turn back, a hand in my periphery is lifting the brownie—my brownie—from the cake stand with a pair of tongs and settling it cleanly onto a plate that is not mine. The word comes out before I can stop it. "No." It comes out with real feeling. Involuntary, raw, almost grieving. The man goes still. He turns. And the look on his face—like he's surprised to have been caught, but not sorry, not even a little—sends a sharp flush of heat straight up my chest.