“You’re not slutty.”

“I slept with a guy on the first date.”

“Twelfth date. And I thought you said your life wasn’t going to change?”

Jenny missed a stop sign and sucked in a shocked breath when she realized what she’d done. She was a careful, conscientious driver. Fortunately for her, there was no cross traffic.

“Maybe you better pull over,” Emily suggested in a worried tone.

“Yeah,” Jenny agreed. She eased her car into the gravel parking lot of the Royal Diner. She kept a death grip on the steering wheel until she came to a complete stop.

“What happened?” Emily asked gently. When Jenny didn’t answer, she put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Jen?”

“This morning…” Jenny swallowed. She wasn’t going to cry. She was an adult, and she would not cry over a cad like Mitch. “When he got to the office. He told me he was sorry, and he hoped we could forget all about it, carry on as usual, as if nothing had happened.”

“I can’t imagine Mitch-seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“That I deserved better than him.”

It was Emily’s turn to go silent. They both reflexively watched while a car pulled past them and turned into a spot near the diner’s front door. The car doors opened, and two teenagers hopped out.

Jenny was pretty sure she knew what Emily was thinking. It was what Jenny was thinking. It was what any reasonably intelligent adult would conclude.

“Yeah,” she voiced it out loud, her tone mocking. “He gave me the old, ‘it’s not you, it’s me, babe’ brush-off.”

“Ouch,” Emily whispered.

“I can’t believe I was a one-night stand. I’d have bet money against that ever happening. To me of all people. I’m not stupid, Em.”

“Of course you’re not stupid,” Emily staunchly defended. “I never would have guessed that Mitch of all people-”