“I was never gonna be ready for that, Brooke.” She handed me mine. “Thanks.” I reached for my wallet.

“Nope, I got it.” Brooke whipped a twenty out of her back pocket faster than Doc Holliday.

“Jeez. Prepared, were you?”

She smiled at me and shrugged. “I had it all planned out. We’re on a date, Mags! I can’t let my girl buy her own ice cream.”

I laughed as we took seats at a small table next to the window.

She licked her ice cream and watched me. “Are you gonna eat that or just stare at it?”

I looked down at my Billionaire waffle cone. “I’m afraid it’ll taste good.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

I sighed. “I should have gotten another flavor.”

She gave me a flat look. “God, Maggie. Eat the damn ice cream I got for you.”

I made a face at her, licking it lewdly for show, but the second it hit my tongue, I groaned. “Oh, God. That’s fucking heaven in my mouth.”

“Oooh, how good is your Billionaire?”

“So good. I could lick my Billionaire all day.” I stuck my tongue out and licked with a seductive flare. You know, for emphasis.

She cackled, and a lady with a toddler gave her a look. “Does it taste as rich as it looks?”

“So rich and creamy. And so thick. I can barely get my mouth around my Billionaire.” I closed my lips over the top of the scoop.

“Oh, my God, Maggie.” She giggled.

I laughed.

She settled back in her seat, her green eyes bright. “How are you feelin’?”

I shrugged and turned the cone for a better angle. “I dunno. Better. You were right. I needed to see Jimmy and tell him I didn’t want him. Say it out loud, not just for him, but for me. I feel … free.”

“Think he’ll leave you alone?”

“I hope so. I really think he got it. I mean, I told him straight up I didn’t love him anymore. I don’t know how much clearer I could be. But even if he does come back around, I feel like I’ll be all right. I know I can tell him no. I know I don’t want him at all. He tried to kiss me, but he may as well have been trying to feed me snakes. There wasn’t a single part of me that wanted to kiss him at all.”

“Good, because if you’d kissed him I would have slapped you.”

“I don’t doubt that. But now I know, you know? And if he comes back around, I know how to handle him. I figured out my DEFCON protocol.”

“He’d better not come back around. He’s done enough damage for a lifetime.” She took a lick. “Figure out if you’re goin’ back to New York?”

“No.”

“Heard from Cooper Moore?”

I gave her a look.

She raised her eyebrows and ignored me, sticking out her tongue to run her ice cream over it.

“No, I haven’t heard from him.”

“You gonna call him?”

My stomach sank at the thought. At least I was filling it with ice cream. “I dunno, Brooke. What would I even say?”

“How about, ‘Hey, Cooper Moore, you decadent billionaire hottie, I superlove you and really want to see you and your peen soon.’”

I snickered. “It’s definitely direct.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Mags. Just tell him how you feel.”

“I said some horrible things to him. Cruel and horrible things. I don’t know if he even wants me anymore, not after the way I treated him. I fucked it up. He’s probably already got a new girl, anyway. She’s probably a supermodel with mile long legs who can make up her mind and doesn’t treat him like shit.”

“He told you he’d be waiting. I doubt he bagged the idea in a week.”

My chest ached. “I’ve just been such an ass. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t mean to, you know?”

“I’d be more worried about the rest of it. I mean, he was begging you to believe him. To trust him.”

“But that’s the whole thing, Brooke. I did. I do. I said all that because I was hurt. Because I was afraid that it was true, you know? My head telling me not to listen to my heart. But now I know — that’s the difference between Cooper and Jimmy. Everything Cooper did was to prove to me that he was serious. That what I wanted or needed was more important than his feelings. Jimmy only cared about himself. Cooper only cared about me.”

She watched me for a moment. “You need to tell him that.”

I sighed. “I know. But I don’t want to fuck up again or hurt him anymore. I need to make sure I’m ready.”

“But that’s the thing about love. You’re not always certain. You’re not always ready. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard at least. I don’t have Billionaire myself.”

I chuckled and bit off a piece of my cone.

“Well,” she said as she tore the paper wrapper around her cone and angled it for a bite, “I think you should call him. You can’t hide forever.”

“Why not?”

She rolled her eyes and swallowed. “Because that’s weak as hell, and you’re better than that.”

“Am I? Because it seems to me that the only way I know to deal with real problems is to run away.”

“You faced Jimmy.”

“And Courtney too, that slag.”

“Fuck that bitch. I hope she gets vagina rot.”

“Gross, Brooke.”

She smiled. “Okay, treatable vagina rot. Better?”

I laughed and sighed, licking that ice cream like it was the last I’d ever have. It was seriously so good, it did things to my girly parts. “This ice cream really is like Cooper. Sexy and rich, so good that you’re sure you’ll never have anything as good. Like, if I came here every day and got ice cream, I’d probably always choose this one. Because why take a risk on Raspberry Chip when you can have Billionaire?”

She nodded. “Mine really isn’t all that great. I’m almost positive I don’t look like I’m having an orgasm every time I take a bite.”

I took another bite. “It really is so good.”

She extended her hand. “Gimme.”

I passed it over and she took a lick. Her face fell. “Motherfucker. I should have gotten some Billionaire too. God knows this as close as I’ll ever get to the real thing.” She took another bite.

“Hey.” I reached for it.

She swatted my hand away. “Greedy. Share.”

I giggled. “Get your own.”

She handed it back over with a sigh. “So if you had fifty flavors to choose from, you’d choose this one every time?”

I shifted in my seat, not wanting to answer. “Are we still talking about ice cream?”

She gave me a look.

“I can’t imagine picking anything but the Billionaire.”

“Well, then there you go. Pick the Billionaire. Get fat on all of his dark chocolatey goodness.”

I thought about calling him, and my heart bungee jumped into my shoes. “I’ve just got to be sure this time. I can’t play games with his heart.”

“You should have known from the start.” She sang it and made boy band hand gestures.

I snickered. “Seriously, though. I feel like my life’s a shirt that’s buttoned wrong. I’ve got to fix it before I go back to him. I turned into a monster and pushed him away. I just shut him down and ran.”

She gasped melodramatically. “Man, who knew you were such a coldhearted bitch.”

“I really am.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dumb. You got your heart smashed to bits and lit on fire and thrown off a cliff. So you acted like a dick. You didn’t do it on purpose. You didn’t even realize you were doing it until, like, yesterday. You screwed up, so just fix it.”

“I don’t know how to fix this, Brooke.”

“Well, I feel eating ice cream is step one. And then you need to grab hold of your ladynuts and call him.”

“I can’t reach my ovaries from here.”

She gave me a flat look. “Grab your metaphorical ovaries and call him, you wuss. What are you afraid of?”

“Everything.”

“Do you feel like it could be worse than what you’ve already been through?”

I thought about it, considered all I’d been through, everything I’d learned. “No.”

“Then stop thinking about it and just jump.”

“You make it sound so easy.” I smiled. “Can I just carry you around in my pocket to pump me up when I doubt myself?”