Best Served Cold

But that still didn’t change the fact I was still totally fucking in love with her.

Call me pathetic, call me a loser, call me lame. Whatever. I didn’t care. I knew how I felt. You didn’t get over someone overnight—and getting over someone you loved more than life itself wasn’t something that happened easily.

Closure wasn’t something Rae and I had ever had. Her excuse for breaking up with me had been bullshit, and she knew it. Still, she’d long refused to talk to me unless she absolutely had to.

Like earlier, with her thank you.

At least she hadn’t looked like it was physically painful to speak to me this time.

For the most part.

I sighed and stood up. The freezers whirred as I walked through the back. The sound grated on me—I’d never found it as comforting as Rae had. I hit the button on the radio to drown it out. There was nothing remotely comfortable about the sounds of a freezer.

I got it. Some people could listen to white noise. Some people needed it to sleep.

I needed it to fuck off.

There was nothing more unsettling than constant, repetitive noise.

I pulled out tub after tub of ice cream, ripping the stickers off each one as I went. While I didn’t think my customers gave a shit that I didn’t make it, something inside me felt dirty that I was buying it. Probably because Rae made hers from scratch.

When we were dating, nothing made her happier than standing in the kitchen with four ice cream machines going to speed up the process. For her, new flavors had always been important. One a month, at least.

She’d stand there, covered in sugars and sprinkles and fruit juices, oblivious to the outside world. Flavors and colors were everything to her. Getting it just right was an obsession.

I’d gone downstairs in my house and found her mixing flavors at two in the morning. I’d woken to sprinkles coating the floor more than once. I’d found torn up recipes stuffed in kitchen drawers more times than I could count.

She was a visionary, and I was a fraud.

But it felt like that was how success went to a higher level. The people who imagined stuff and created it all got no credit, while the people who stole it got all the credit and the success.

That was how she viewed me.

She was wrong.

I hadn’t stolen her ideas. I’d been inspired by them, but not stolen.

The neon barstools she’d wanted in her store were primary colors in mine. The floor was black and white, but mostly black. There were no vintage posters like she’d wanted. The tables were white and simple, the chairs metal and painted white with multi-colored cushions to sit on.

It was nothing special.

It was nothing close to the neon, psychedelic vision she’d had.

But she’d never know that. She’d never step foot in here.

I didn’t need to be Einstein to know that.

The woman I was in love with hated me with every bit of her soul. And I didn’t blame her at all.

If I were her, I’d hate me, too.

CHAPTER FOUR – RAELYNN

It was a glorious mess of colors that all mixed together in a weirdly magical, galactical display.

Pink and purples and blues and even greens. They mixed together like marble, and when I ran a scoop through the colorful mix, it made something even more amazing.

Unicorn ice cream.

I’d made it.

It was my fourth attempt, sure. It’d taken more than one try and a few trips to the store to replenish the ingredients, but I’d made it work.

Finally, I’d found the magic ingredient.

And that was not giving a damn fuck.

Make the ice cream, but not care about the colors. Throw them in like you’d throw a chip packet in the trash. Give them a careless mix and freeze.

It was the laziest way to make ice cream ever, and I loved it.

I put a scoop of the ice cream onto the chocolate and sprinkle dipped waffle cone and looked at it.

I wasn’t an Instagram fiend. I could barely take a selfie that didn’t include my worst angle, an extra chin, or a blur. But if I was, would I Instagram this?

Maybe. It needed work.

I set it down in the holder and looked at it. Every ice cream cone that used this ice cream would be different. That was what was so fun about it.

I grabbed a cone I’d decorated with edible glitter and scooped ice cream into it. Setting it down next to the other, I quickly grabbed my phone to snap a picture and send it to Sophie before they melted.

Then I ate one.

What? It was quality control. That was what I was telling myself.

Also, it was lunchtime, and I was hungry. The quality control thing just sounded more professional. Not that I had to justify my eating it to anyone, but still.