Page 39

Miri

C hoking on smoke, Miri threw the scorched baking sheet into the sink. She glared at the dark lumps that had once, for a brief shining moment, been perfect cookies. How the hell had the stovetop gotten turned on, anyway?

Miri took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The baked goods could sense her inner turmoil. That had to be it. They were absorbing her bad energy.

First the blueberry muffins had been drier than chalk.

Then she’d forgotten to put yeast in the loaf of brioche—and of course, only figured it out hours after the fact when it resembled a dense lump.

Now the cookies. What had started as perfect chocolate chip cookies had ended in charred lumps of coal.

Kicking open the trashcan, Miri dumped the ruined desserts into the garbage.

“A waste of flour,” she grumbled under her breath. The universe was clearly trying to tank her grocery budget.

She swiped her phone off the counter and tapped out a message.

Miri

The cookies turned on me.

Pretty sure I’m being punished for being dumb enough to lose four hot demons.

Tossing the phone aside, she started to clean up. There was no point trying again when the vibes were so obviously working against her. It was easier to order pizza and wallow in her misery.

“Friggin Kaz,” Miri growled.

He just had to snoop through her phone. Everything would be totally fine if he had kept his claws to himself and let her solve her own problems like a grown ass woman.

But noooo, he had to poke around and break her trust and make her feel like that the only solution was to throw them all out of her house.

Okay, that technically wasn’t true… but she was hurting, damn it. Logic was for people who hadn’t nearly started a fire in their own oven before lunch time.

Miri scrubbed at the stack of mixing bowls in the sink and cursed herself. She only had herself to blame and she damn well knew it.

If she had just told the four demons about her job right away, then Kaz and Nico would be sitting across from her right now—making comments about her ass and snacking on flawless golden brown cookies.

Duke would have already reworked her monthly budget, and Ace would be peppering her with alternate career suggestions and stories about some random job he may or may not have had in the past.

But Miri hadn’t told them. Her kitchen was empty, her cookies were burnt, and she had picked up and put down her cellphone one hundred times, just trying to find the words to fix this mess.

And to think, she had just given Nico a lecture about communication. Miri gritted her teeth and attacked a scorch mark on the ruined baking sheet. If that wasn’t some kind of bullshit karma, she didn’t know what was.

Her phone buzzed. Flicking water off her fingers, Miri ignored the knots in her stomach and tapped the notification.

Miri

The cookies turned on me.

Pretty sure I’m being punished for being dumb enough to lose four hot demons.

Ashley

Babe, step away from the oven.

Nicole

As someone whose house has recently almost burned down, DO NOT BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!

Helpful… and not one of her demons. Miri wasn’t even sure why she was hovering over her phone, hoping for a text. She had been the one to ask them for space. She had been the one to ask them to leave.

And she had been the one regretting it ever since.

Without their loud voices and heavy steps, the small house was just too quiet. Every time she turned the corner, Miri excepted to find on of them sitting on the couch or doing burpees on the patio. Instead, her house—and her heart—were empty.

“Why didn’t I just tell them?” she groaned.

It was so easy. Just open your mouth and spit it out. But she didn’t and now she was sitting along in her house, inhaling the smell of burnt chocolate.

If she was honest with herself, part of why Miri hadn’t told them about her job was because she was afraid to give them any reason to leave.

As much as she wanted to be a confident badass, there would always be some insecurity gnawing at her.

She’d done years of therapy, but no matter how much she tried, Miri could never quite seem to root out the problem for good.

A lifetime of shitty comments from boyfriends, flings, and even her own mother had made the foundation of her confidence shakier then she would like. She’d disappointed them, why not her demons too?

Part of her, the hateful little voice that Miri did her best to ignore, had wondered why they wanted her at all.

They were hot as sin demons. Every last one of them.

They could have any woman they set their sights on, and they had chosen her?

A bigger girl who baked too much, worried too often, and desperately needed her space to be as zen as possible?

Maybe it was for the best…

No. Miri quashed the unkind thought before it could take root.

Just because her ass jiggled, did not mean she was any less deserving of love.

It had taken several years of therapy to understand that and she was not going to backslide now.

She was kind and thoughtful and baked like an angel, and she damn well deserved for that to be appreciated by a bunch of sexy demons.

And if she kept repeating that, maybe it would finally sink in.

Abandoning the dishes, she trudged into the living room and flopped onto the couch. Her phone screen lit up again as soon as her back hit the cushions. Miri glanced at it and shuddered. Her mother, again.

As if her day couldn’t get any worse, her mom had somehow learned that the guys weren’t staying at her house anymore and had pounced. Six voicemails and Miri hadn’t even had lunch yet.

Stabbing at the screen with her finger, she sent the call to voicemail to join the rest. Six—about to be seven—messages telling her to apologize to the board. Message after message about not throwing her life away.

The funny thing was… Miri didn’t want to go back.

She’d taken the job at Stoneworth at her mother’s urging.

Mere months out of college and she’d been locked into teaching bratty rich kids with even brattier rich parents.

The ink on her diploma hadn’t even been dry yet, but she’d wanted to make her mom proud.

Not that it did any good.

Miri loved teaching, but the academy had never felt like the right fit for her. The rules were rigid, the parents were entitled snobs, and the overcomplicated curriculum had been nightmare fuel.

The phone rang again. Clenching her teeth, she answered the call.

“Mom, I’m not going back. Stop calling me about it or else I’m blocking your damn number.”

Miri ended the call and silenced her phone. But even silencing the ringer and the vibration didn’t stop the screen from lighting up insistently. She snatched it off the couch and jammed it against her ear.

“Mom, for fuck’s sake, stop calling me!”

“Pardon?” an unfamiliar voice asked. “This is Ms. Brown, is it not?”

Ripping the phone away from her ear, Miri stared at the caller ID. Pineway Elementary School … one of the public schools she’d applied to a week ago. Oh, shit.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Miri apologized profusely. “I thought you were someone else and didn’t check the name on the call.”

“I see. Well, my name is Marilyn Fields and I’m the principal of Pineway Elementary.” At least she didn’t seem angry. Miri held onto her sigh of relief until after she was finished. “I’ve reviewed your application and was hoping you could come in for an interview this week.”

Thank fucking god, or Gaia, or whatever spaghetti monster was the running this shitshow.

“Absolutely! Did you have a date in mind?”

“Wednesday. After the final bell at 3 p.m.”

“I will be there,” Miri promised. Dragging her phone away from her ear, she fist pumped the air.

“Oh, and Ms. Brown?”

“Yes?”

“I suggest you check your caller ID more carefully in the future.” If it weren’t for the hint of humor in the voice coming through the speaker, Miri would have buried her head in her throw pillows and screamed.

She was never going to live that down.

“I’ll see you Wednesday.”

The call ended with a faint click. Miri dropped her phone on the couch and tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. An interview? Seriously? Where the hell was that phone call two day ago before her life had imploded?

Hands covering her face, she groaned. She had no idea where to go from there.

One problem at a time. Until it was time for her interview, the job catastrophe was on the back burner. That left the mess with her demons. Miri had demanded space to work through her feelings, but she was no closer to untangling the knot in her chest than she had been two days ago.

Did she want to lose them over this? Absolutely not. She had broken their trust by not telling them about her job and Kaz had broken hers by snooping through her phone. If they didn’t trust each other, what exactly were they supposed to do?

Miri dropped her hands from her face and snatched up her phone more time. This was a problem for the group chat.

Miri

I have a job interview this week.

Nicole

Yay!

Miri

Now I need to fix things with the guys. Thoughts?

Ashley

Send them some nudes

Miri

You are this close to being banned from the group chat

Nicole

No, she might have a point

Miri

Not you too

Nicole

Hear me out. Lasagna and sex.

Miri

Im gonna need a lot more explanation than that

Nicole

Lure them in with lasagna and sex. That’s what you did the first time

Just make sure to sandwich in some communication between the garlic bread and foreplay.

Ashley

Yes! Do that! Pasta, boundaries, makeup sex… and then more pasta.

Miri stared at the text thread. That might actually work… assuming she could actually bake something without burning it right now.