The Awkward Path To Getting Lucky

Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)

The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky - Recipes (#litres_trial_promo)

The Best of Cup My Cakes (#litres_trial_promo)

Coconut Cuppies with Pineapple Curd and Candied Bacon (#litres_trial_promo)

Butter’s Legendary Crème Brûlée Cuppies (#litres_trial_promo)

Coopertown Ravens Red Velvet Cuppies (#litres_trial_promo)

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cuppies (#litres_trial_promo)

Strawberry Short-Cuppies (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

1 (#uab22ad16-deff-5c50-a72b-43434ffdf7d5)

I can’t frost this cupcake. My vagina is broken.

Get a grip, Kat, I tell myself. Nothing has changed in the last ten minutes. Nothing.

Nothing, except I looked at an invoice, saw today’s date and realized that in thirty-four days, it will have been exactly two years to the day since I’ve had sex. Two years. Two whole damn years. I don’t even see how that’s possible.

I mean, I’ve been busy! I was starting a business. That takes time. These cupcakes don’t decorate themselves.

And this one sure isn’t going to if I don’t get it together and focus. I’ve got about six minutes before the customer arrives to pick up his order, and I’ve got as many cuppies to ice in that time.

“You okay, Kat?” Butter asks, whooshing by me in a flurry of powdered sugar and edible glitter. Butter is all about the edible glitter. “Need some help?”

I shake my head. “Nope! I’ve got this!” Goddamn straight, I’ve got this. I’m a professional. I scrape off the shoddily piped chocolate buttercream and carefully squeeze out a perfect topper to the cupcake. I pick it up and set it in the to-go box before tackling the final five.

It’s not like I didn’t know it had been a while. I knew. But in my head it was maybe less than a year, because letting this go on any longer than that would be absolute madness.

The only reason I know it’s been almost two years is that the last time Ryan and I even attempted to have sex was on our second anniversary, and that was an unmitigated disaster.

Things had been stressful at the time. The shop had only been open for just over a year, still in that very manic sink-or-swim phase, and I’d been working nonstop. Then, on the night of our second anniversary, Ryan suggested that we move in together. Thanks to my eighty-hour work weeks, sex had become a sort of secondary thought for a few months leading up to the night, and even when we found the time or the ever-elusive mood, it just wasn’t working, physically.

That night, it became flat-out impossible.

Soon after, my gynecologist dropped the bomb: vaginismus. A disorder that sounds like a questionable Harry Potter spell, but the diagnosis meant that my jaunty bits had stopped functioning, muscularly speaking. Basically, it made sex really hurty, and it wasn’t something I was super in the mood for anyway, what with the promise of excruciating owies in place of sunshine and orgasms.

It made sense not to rush into cohabitation with Ryan while my junk was on the fritz, so we agreed to hold off until my nonfunctioning gal parts were back to behaving properly. Then, on our anniversary last year, he asked me again, but the issue remained, so we tabled the idea once more.

The plan was to try again this year.

This year on the anniversary that is coming up in thirty-four goddamn days.

How have I let this go on for so long? I don’t even remember the last time we talked about the issue. I suppose Ryan’s been waiting for me to take the lead. That’s sort of how our relationship works: I make plans, he rolls with it and fun times are had by all.

Except the whole sex thing, it would seem.

I guess it just sort of fell off my to-do list. There were more pressing issues to be dealt with. Like business plans and fondant sculpting seminars and scrambling with Butter and Shannon to get Cup My Cakes off the ground.

Two years, though.

I need to get laid. Like, yesterday.

I wonder if Ryan is freaking out about this as much as I am. Or, worse, what if he’s been freaking out about it for two years like I am right now, but I’ve had it pushed completely out of my mind? What kind of a hideous girlfriend am I?

I let him believe I’d handle everything, and now here I am—big fat not handling a damn thing.

I pop the last cupcake in the to-go box and seal it up just as the customer walks in. Ben Cleary, a regular who orders two dozen cupcakes every Wednesday for his coworkers. Always half chocolate, half whatever our special is, but prepared in allergen-friendly conditions because his assistant has a tree nut allergy. He’s a pretty awesome boss, I assume.

The front entrance opens, and in walk more customers. It’s our morning rush, when we get a combination of people coming in for coffee and muffins, and those who pretend they’re coming for muffins but are really coming for things covered in frosting.

I wonder if any of these people are dealing with broken bits... I remember my doc saying how common the disorder was, so the odds are good that there are some idle woo-woos in here on a fairly regular basis.