Free Hometown Girl by Robin Kaye Page B

blinked in the bright sunlight. It should be pouring down rain and thundering to match her mood—not the perfect day it was. The cloudless blue sky mocked her. Hell, there was even low humidity—it was a freak of nature, just like her and Simon.
    She found herself staring into the open freezer of her corner market—not quite sure how she ended up there—and tried to erase everything from the time she walked into Simon’s kitchen, well, everything after their last kiss, from her memory. She wouldn’t want to forget that or their first kiss, or anything in between the two.
    Obviously her mental delete button wasn’t working, so she put back the single serving of Chubby Hubby she’d been holding for God knows how long, and tossed two quarts of Ben and Jerry’s into her cart.
    This disaster called for some serious comfort food. After all, she was stocking up for her first broken heart sob-fest. She ticked down her mental list. Movies—check. Tissues—she strolled the paper aisle and grabbed two boxes of Puffs before she found the candy aisle and grabbed every piece of dark chocolate the store carried. Still, she had no real comfort food. Hmm . . . she tossed in a few cans of Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup and called it good. If she needed anything else, she’d have to rely on take-out.
    She slogged her way to the checkout. The weight of guilt and pain crushed her, making it feel as if she were walking through quicksand. The tears that threatened to fall were getting more and more difficult to ignore.
    The clerk shook her head and took one look at Elyse and her purchases. “Bad morning?”
    Elyse nodded. “You have no idea.”
    “You forgot to get something to wash all this down with. Can I run and grab something for you?”
    “Coke?”
    The girl smiled. “I’ll be right back.” True to her word, she came back with a twelve-pack.
    “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it. And remember all men are idiots. If it was meant to be, he’ll come back to apologize for whatever it was he did.”
    Elyse nodded, unable to say anything more. It was all she could do to stifle the sob that threatened to escape.
    The closer she got to her home, the harder it was to keep the floodgates up. By the time she unlocked her door, she lost whatever grip she had on her emotions and sank to the floor of her studio apartment, pushed the door closed, and let the tears fall.
    After five minutes of digging through grocery bags, pulling out tissues, and stuffing chocolate into her mouth between sobs, she remembered the ice cream.
    Elyse picked herself up, took the five steps into her kitchen, and put her ice cream away. All the chocolate she’d eaten wasn’t helping the sick feeling she’d had ever since she saw the recognition and disgust in Simon’s face.
    She grabbed one of the Cokes hoping it would help settle her stomach, plucked the stack of the movies and a box of tissues off the counter, and tossed the lot onto her bed before stripping.
    Her phone rang. It was Mel, so she let it go to voice mail and crawled into bed wearing one of her oldest, threadbare T-shirts before realizing it was one of Simon’s she’d saved all these years. Shit. Wouldn’t you know her favorite shirt would be one of his. She rolled over and let the tears flow.
    * * *
    Simon sat at his easel, pulled off the sketch of Elyse done in the style of Picasso, and set it beside the one he’d done in the style of Salvador Dali. Definitely not his best work.
    He finally gave up. It wasn’t helping him get over her any faster, if at all. His art had always been his outlet; it never failed—until now.
    He rose stiffly from his stool. He’d been working since he closed the bar in the wee hours of Sunday morning. He thought it was Monday morning, but then he wasn’t sure. He needed to find out though, because he had a meeting with Pete at the Crow’s Nest at noon and it was almost eleven. He looked out the window. Yeah, definitely eleven a.m. He just hoped