"A diner."

"What did you have?" she asks. Her expression is accusatory like a lawyer questioning the defendant.

"Pie."

"What else?"

"Coffee."

"And?"

"Carrick." I clap my hand over my mouth, concealing my dimpled smile.

Her eyes widen.

"That's not what I meant. We met up. We had pie. We had coffee. We talked."

"What else?"

I hide me eyes behind my hands. "We kissed."

She lets out a sound I'm not sure how to describe and could certainly never replicate: a yelp mixed with a whoop, combined with shock, joy, and curiosity.

I cover my ears.

"I knew it. I knew," she says, parading through the kitchen.

"That was a quick recovery," I say.

"And yours was slow, but you did it, Navy. You healed." She grips my arms and sort of hugs and shakes me.

"I don't know about that," I hedge.

"You redeemed the night with Carrick and you restored your faith in men. Well, one man, two if you count Omar, even though he's gay."

"Spencer wasn't bad."

"No, Spencer was good." Her cheeks flame.

This time I give her the interrogative stare. "Spill."

Her lips remain sealed shut.

"Cat got your tongue? Usually you're so forthcoming with tales of your trysts," I tease.

"Trysts?" she asks with a giggle.

I shrug. "It works in fiction."

"Well, in real life it was just a hook up." Her slow turn with sleepy eyes toward the door suggests otherwise.

"Well..." I ask, waiting for her to explode with details because that's what she does.

"Well, what?" she asks.

"Katya, what happened?" I ask.

"You're not mad? I mean, I figured there had to be a statute of limitations on that kind of thing."

"No, Spencer was fun, but you know me, hopeless romantic over here," I say, thumbing myself. "Swan, pigeon, whatever."

She exhales. "I don't know how you stay in and hang out, just reading for hours... I was bored last night and thought maybe we could, you know," she twirls a piece of hair, "amuse each other. And I had to find out if he was the total package."

"I thought we decided Omar was."

"He's gay!" she exclaims.

"Right. So, was he the-?"

"First, let's talk about his package..."

I'm only half listening because it's strange and slightly uncomfortable to hear her talking about someone I've been with. My mind flits to Carrick. The way his warm fingers grazed my chilly skin. The way his lips dipped against mine as gentle as a whisper. The way my heart pounded in answer. How a kiss turned into hunger, into us breathing each other instead of oxygen, into the simple movement of two mouths providing all of our bodily needs.

"Earth to Navy?" She clucks her tongue. "No one is perfect, but Spencer is deliciously close. He makes me feel a little drunk. And not because I was drinking wine."

"You're okay with booty calls?" I ask.

Her hesitation is long enough for me to wonder, but then she says, "What about Carrick. He's pretty perfect. And pretty, in a masculine, Marine-like, all-man kind of way."

Beyond the window, the snow continues to fall, blanketing the world in winter white.

"He has flaws." He definitely has flaws.

"But you can overlook them. There's no such thing as prince charming. He's a myth. You're finding something wrong with all of the guys. You're scared."

I brush a few crumbs from breakfast into my hand. "I am. It's true, but even though there might not be the perfect guy, there has to be the perfect guy for me."

Kat takes my hand. "You're right, you're definitely right. And it's best not to settle, but," she inhales, "it's also good to forgive."

The silence that follows isn't awkward, but thoughtful, with me thinking about Carrick. And maybe, just maybe Kat's thinking about the possibility of a relationship of her own, at least someday.

"So what are we going to do all day, shut up with Blizzard Bob raging outside?"

I look longingly at the stack of books on the counter.

She tugs at her hair and gazes at the ceiling in desperation.

"Blizzard Bob?" I ask.

"That's what Spencer said the meteorologists are calling it."

"Hmm. Spencer, huh?" I say, glancing pointedly toward the door.

She ignores me. "You're going to read?" she asks. "Maybe he and I can watch a movie and chill." She bites her lip.

"He's totally the chilling type," I say suggestively.

Kat cackles on her way to shower while I clean up the kitchen, not at all opposed to a day lounging on the couch, reading, watching a movie, catching up on my blog, and checking in with UBoss all with the backdrop of the sparkly scene out the window, quilting the city in a snowy hush.

The main character in my book Sweetie Pies and Queen Bees makes bad decision after lousy choice. She has me frustrated and disappointed and more than once, I want to throw the book across the room or sit her down and talk to her.

Love Letters by C.K. Flynn, resting on the table, seems to glitter and flash. I turn back to my book and read another page, giving the main character a second chance. However, she goes back to her crappy boyfriend, who's a despicable cheater. I glance at Love Letters again.

"Oh, fine," I say, tossing down Sweetie Pies and picking up Love Letters, "One chapter."

Two chapters in and I'm about a paragraph away from doodling C + N 4Ever in the margin. I can hear him narrating the text in his husky, sexy voice. After a few more chapters, I lose track of time and place when Kat brushes in, her cheeks flushed and her hair mussed.

I tear myself away from the page.

She bites her lip, gazes at the ceiling, and says, "He's definitely the total package."

I raise an eyebrow. "Then what are you doing back here?"

"I got overwhelmed," she says. "I mean tired. We... It was...I-"

"You're flustered," I say, sitting up.

She doesn't deny it. "We watched a really great movie. I'm going back over to watch another one soon. I just didn't want you to get lonely over here all by yourself."

"Movies? Is that what you're calling fun now?" I ask, sensing she's having sex along with the start of feelings, emotions...Katya! "And you don't have to worry about me. I'm hanging out with C.K. Flynn and his characters," I say, waggling the book at her.

"C.K. Flynn and," she looks at the cover of the book, "is a fictional author and those are paper people."

I stick my tongue out at her.

"I'll just sit here and remind you that humanity exists outside your bookish world."

I return to my page.

She mumbles, "It must be a really good book."

I ignore her because I'm desperate to find out if the main character finds the third letter, which was lost in the mail.

Kat reads over my shoulder and then fans herself. "Wow, hot scene. " She asks, "Who writes this stuff?" She flicks to the cover. "Oh right, C.K. Flynn."

"Carrick Flynn Kennely," I say without tearing my eyes from the page.

"But that would be C.F...." she takes a deliberate pause. "Wait, you're not kidding are you?"

I shake my head.

"Carrick, the tall, dashing, muscled Marine is a romance author?"

"Yup."

"So Carrick is your actual book boyfriend."

"No, he's not my boyfriend. He's not even my friend. He's something else."

"If by something else you mean a sexy beast who you want to sex up-"

"Katya," I say.

She holds her hands up in innocence. "I was just reading over your shoulder. That scene is hot. I imagine if he can write with such burning detail..."

I shoot her a bitch brow.

"Ooh. You're getting good at that."

"And you're just horny. Why don't you go back over to Spencer's?"

Her sigh is fluttery. "Well, you don't have to twist my arm."

I settle in for a few more chapters of romance in Rome, hardly believing Carrick wrote with such compelling intensity. I hardly noticing Katya singing in the other room.

Then the book takes a turn. After a minor rift in their friendship, the main character and the love interest finally have their moment-a sexy, blissfully big one-but then he leaves her to struggle through a crisis on her own. My eyes flick from word to word, sentence to sentence. I see myself in the main character, Olivia and Carrick in Xavier. I see us in the story, and I'm humiliated all over again.

Tears I don't want to shed stream down my cheeks and I sob, lamenting all that happened in the past and last night. Carrick is an asshole, a betraying bastard mongrel. He had no right to write about this, even if he changed the names and identities of those involved. I share the same stinging guilt with the main character and that's all it took to read between the lines.

Warm fingers grip my hand. "Navy, what is it? What's wrong?"

I meet Kat's eyes, holding me steady, keeping me from sinking back into the brokenhearted void that nearly dismantled me. The eyes belong to my best friend, a woman who's always been here for me. She deserves the truth.

I inhale, choking back the cries as words I've never spoken aloud organize themselves on my tongue. "I was best friends with Claire. After she died, Carrick and I got close. Very close."

Katya wraps her arms around me.

"We had a moment. Well, more than a moment. It was wrong. It was right." I lost my virginity and something I can never get back. Trust. But he gave me something too. The confirmation that I can't trust guys, at least the ones that aren't the love interests in books. I also came away with a burning desire to kiss him on the lips and punch him in the mouth.

Chapter 30.