What did a girl do after spending a wild night with her ex?

Escape from her own place without being noticed.

Obviously.

At least, that was the plan.

Okay, so it wasn't my finest hour. If we wanted to get technical about it, I probably deserved props for the fact I resisted Broadrick for so long. I wanted to give in the first night, but I'd made it for days.

Days!

I deserved credit. Half a point at least.

Anyway, when I woke up and rolled over the next morning, I found Broadrick's half of the bed empty. The sheets cold.

It made for a simple escape, but really? What asshole snuck out on me in the middle of the night? Wimp.

Forget the fact I planned to do it to him. That wasn't important.

I showered and changed into another pair of jeans and a t-shirt featuring a unicorn with a knife taped to her horn and a written stabbing threat at the bottom. It fit the mood.

"Good morning, babe." Broadrick's early morning pip caught me off guard.

I came to a complete stop a few feet from the kitchen and clutched my heart. "What the hell? Have you been here this entire time?"

"Entire time," he said with that stupidly adorable smirk.

Damn it. The whole time I'd been cursing him out under my breath, he was in my kitchen doing...

"What are you doing?"

He passed me a tall teal-colored metal coffee mug with one of those fancy slide tops. "Making hot chocolate."

"You made me hot chocolate? In my kitchen? Did you poison it?"

Broadrick rolled his eyes and did that thing where he talked to the ceiling about me in mumbles. I ignored him. It was a perfectly valid question.

"Can't you just say thank you?" he asked.

"Thank you." I guess. I spun the mug in my hands, letting the warm metal heat my cold palms.

"You're welcome," he said all smugly.

"Wait a minute," I said after spotting the logo on the mug's side. "These things are like thirty dollars."

He handed me a chocolate-covered doughnut from a bag of them. My favorite cheap breakfast.

I glared. How dare he try to bribe me with chocolate and more chocolate?

Also, it was working.

Damn it.

This is why you should never date a SEAL. The government trained them in counterterror measures, torture, and all that psychological mind shit.

And they knew how to use it.

"We're not dating," I said but took the doughnut from his outstretched hand.

Broadrick smiled as I took my first bite. "Nope."

Hmm. He was up to something.

I didn't like it.

We felt out of balance. Like he had all the aces, and I had a pair of twos.

I pointed a finger at him, but it didn't do anything to wipe off his smile. "Are you going to tell me why you're selling United States ammunition to obvious criminals?"

Did he think I forgot about that?

It would take more than one chocolate-covered doughnut to make a girl forget she saw her boyfriend-um ex-boyfriend-helping unload government weapons.

His grin fell with my demand. "You still want to talk about that?"

My mouth fell open, and a crumble of doughnut hit the floor. "Yes!"

Was he kidding? Did he think I'd momentarily lost my eyesight? Were the three, no, four amazing orgasms supposed to cause memory loss?

"Are you going to tell me?" I popped open the top of the mug to let the liquid cool. Regardless of what he said or how fast I kicked him out, I was keeping the mug.

He tugged on the hem of his camo green t-shirt with Navy in big, bold, dark blue letters. "No."

"No?"

Broadrick sighed and leaned against the small section of counter, tucking the bag of doughnuts behind him so I lost sight of the bribe. "Vonnie, I was working on something, and that's all I can say."

My eye balls dried out from how wide they were as I stared at him. "That's all you can say?" Was he for real? Obviously, yes, since he didn't keep talking.

I took a sip of my hot chocolate so I didn't kill him.

Shit. It was still hot.

I did my best to cool off my tongue without making a fool of myself in front of the infuriatingly hot guy liar.

I had one question to ask. "Did you only come here for a job?" Was he using me this entire time? He'd never shown up to Pelican Bay while we were dating, and now he turns up, telling me he's left the military when, clearly, he hadn't.

Did it all mean nothing?

Or he'd left the military and turned rouge by selling off arms shipments.

Either option didn't sound great.

Honestly, he didn't have a great way to answer on any of it. Regardless of what he said, his answer made him a lying asshole.

Still, I wanted to know. It'd make it easier to say goodbye when he left and broke my heart again. I hadn't even realized any part of my heart still had faith in him, but from the way it hurt, I guess I did. What a whore of a heart.

Broadrick didn't answer. I waited, but in the end his silence told me everything.

Holding back tears-I was a bad bitch and wouldn't cry for a man-I found the dog leash. "Come on, Not Brent."

I clipped the leash to his collar and grabbed Katy's box.

Broadrick didn't move. "Vonnie..."

It was too late. There was nothing for him to say.

"Just leave before I get back."

I struggled to open the door while carrying the box, Not Brent's leash and my mug.

Broadrick opened it for me. "I can't tell you everything. It's the nature of the job."

I walked through the doorway.

"Don't be this way, Vonnie," he called as I made the first step.

With the cup held above my head, I said, "I'm keeping the cup." I needed to get something from our failed relationship.

Not Brent peed on each bush as we walked to my Camaro. At the last bush, I made him stand cutely, and snapped a picture of him. My life might have been crumbling around me, but I still had jobs to do.

"Come on, buddy. Let's face the day." It sounded so easy when I said it.

Not Brent rode to the office licking my car window. I thought the shape resembled a distorted Christmas tree. Maybe he had artistic talent.

The office was quiet when I walked in, and while it should have improved my mood, it didn't. I could have jammed out to some angry heavy metal. Maybe become their new lead singer. It's not like being a private eye was going so well for me.

It took over an hour for the hot chocolate in my new fancy cup to get cold enough for me to drink and that only happened because I eventually took the top off, helping to speed up the process. I sipped on the delicious brew and stewed.

Not Brent chewed on his tail, his head hitting Katy's box-my foot rest-every time he actually bit himself and yipped. He wasn't the yellow crayon.

"I feel you, buddy," I said, tapping Jimmy's mother's Christmas card against my desk.

I sucked as a PI. For the first time, I had multiple cases and couldn't solve a single one of them. Not a murder, not the missing Brent.

Plus, I slept with Broadrick. That didn't damage my PI reputation, but it definitely screwed with my brain function.

I sucked.

Not Brent yipped and then gave his tail an evil expression.

I couldn't solve Jalinda's murder or find the real Brent, but I could finish one case.

Finding Not Brent's owner.

I tossed the Christmas card to the corner of the desk and pulled out my phone, opening Facebook. Pelican Bay had a killer phone tree-at 7 p.m. every night the phones lit up as each person called their contact to spread the daily news around town. It'd worked great for years.

After Katy had the great idea to create the Facebook group, you'd never seen so many anti-technology women agree to create a Facebook account in one day. Pearl even made her husband, Roland, go out and buy her the latest iPhone.

I uploaded Not Brent's post-pee photo and asked if anyone knew who he belonged to. With the whole town helping, I'd find his owner in no time. Once it warmed a little, I'd head into the woods again to search for regular Brent.

"Knock, knock." My mother's voice carried from the hallway against her actual knocking.