But all she could think about was whether or not Will would show up at 5:40 and what on earth she would say if he did.
“Rhetorically, I agree.” Julie ran hot water over the dirty dishes, then shut it off. “But technically, it’s not really true. You just had a bad experience.”
“Bad experiences.” Charlotte emphasized the plural.
“Every guy isn’t the same as Zoe’s dad.”
“I know.” Maybe. But Julie didn’t know the whole story. Didn’t know that Charlotte had been the other woman. Didn’t know about Will and the mistake she’d almost made—again.
Unless Charlotte was terribly mistaken, Julie didn’t have any major mistakes in her life that she was still trying to atone for. She wasn’t a single mom struggling to overcome a bad reputation—one so mottled she still wasn’t entirely sure which stories were lies anymore.
She grabbed the grater and pulled a lemon from the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. Zoe’s sing-song voice carried from the front of the shop as she made up a poem about her toy cupcake. My cupcake is big, my cupcake is yummy, my cupcake will go straight to my tummy.
Zoe deserved better than this. Better than a mom who still carried a Scarlet Letter of shame. Better than a mother who was still somehow drawn to the Wrong Guy.
My cupcake is glad, it never has a frownie, my cupcake is marrying the crumbly Mr. Brownie.
Better than a dad who allowed his fiancée to talk him out of his daughter’s life.
Her grater worked faster over the lemon. Would she and Zoe ever be able to settle down with someone predictable? Safe? Committed?
“Careful there, Boss.” Julie’s voice rang a warning as she started digging through their pile of bakery reject cookies. “Don’t want to add knuckles to the ingredient list in those lemon bars.”
Some days, Charlotte felt like a reject cookie herself. Good enough for someone to be attracted to initially, but not worth selling out for. “It’s just . . . you know Will?”
“From the Bridezilla wedding? Of course.” Julie popped one of the too-crispy-to-sell cookies in her mouth and mumbled around it. “Your very own Mr. Darcy.”
“Hardly. Mr. Darcy isn’t available. But you wouldn’t have known it from the way he flirted at that engagement party.” Just remembering that crowd of women gathered around him twisted her stomach. But not from jealousy—just out of respect for Melissa. That was all.
“Wow, really?” Julie reached for another reject, eyes wide as she absorbed the news. “You wouldn’t have known it from the way he interacts with you here at the bakery.”
Charlotte’s hand stilled on the next lemon. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t noticed the way Will looks at you?” Julie asked incredulously. “I thought it was obvious. That’s why I always tried to leave you two alone. I was playing cupid.”
Cupid aiming at the wrong heart.
Charlotte began to zest again, her thoughts racing. Was Julie right? She’d automatically assumed she’d been leading Will on in her attraction to him. Apparently, that was what she did, if the accusations of her ex and his fiancée had any merit. Was it possible Will had been coming on to her instead?
But Julie didn’t say flirting. She’d said “the way he looks at you.” Which to Charlotte, went a lot deeper than mere witty conversation or banter.
Eyes didn’t lie.
Either way, she didn’t want to be that woman. No, wait. She wasn’t that woman. Why did she keep forgetting that she hadn’t known about her ex’s fiancée? She definitely hadn’t been living a lifestyle she was proud of at the time, but she would have never cheated on someone she loved—or helped someone else cheat. Still, the accusations from years ago lingered. She was . . . stained.
Charlotte had to avoid any man the least bit like Zoe’s charming, attractive, flirty father. It was too risky, too complicated. Too dangerous.
She dropped her grater and grabbed a reject cookie for herself. “Cupid needs to quit fooling around and bring me suspenders and a bow tie.”
“What does that mean?”
“Suspenders and a bow tie. You know, a nice, predictable, stable nerd.”
Julie stopped chewing and stared at Charlotte as if she’d completely lost her mind.
“Doesn’t matter,” Charlotte said. She tossed the remainder of the cookie into the trash can. “Doesn’t matter at all.”
It wasn’t quite 5:40 yet.