by Lexie Ray
~~~
She dropped the children off – much to Lucas’s continual and obnoxiously voiced dismay on the ride to the hotel. Finally she seemed to get him to calm down, though. She promised she would come and get him in a few hours, if he wanted her to, and after he sadly agreed, she left.
And with that Marissa decided to be productive and go in to the bakery, even though she knew Joseph and Rachel were holding down shop. She had to get there though. She hadn’t had much of the chance to work since everything had transpired with her dad and now with Preston.
She took a long look around, taking it all in. She loved the environment; the atmosphere was something she had – in her own mind, at least – perfected over the years. This was her oasis. Her home away from home. Her dream.
She saw Joseph immediately. He was working the front counter, and as he handed an older man, dressed in a nice beige suit, his scone, he looked up at Marissa and smiled. She reciprocated the gesture, and bid the man he had given the scone to a “good day” when he walked past her towards the front door.
She could tell by the askew tables and chairs as well as a few littered tabletops that they had had a busy morning and afternoon. She was sure Joseph was welcoming the break as he wiped the obvious sweat from his brow with his apron and flew back into the kitchen. She knew where he was going. He was going to turn on the Bluetooth stereo now that the rush had simmered down. Seems like she made it just in time.
Now, they had a bit of a break. There may be a few stragglers in between, but they wouldn’t have a huge rush of people until after work hours. That was how every day went until the weekend – and then it was chaotically busy throughout their business hours. She smiled at his predictability when she heard the rock music begin to blast through the shop.
Before he came back out, she figured she would make her way over to the ordering counter and around the corner so that she could take a look at the glass counter’s shelves. It was her managerial duty to ensure that they had kept up a satisfactory pace for stocking their various baked goods. It looked like they had done well despite their busyness. There was still a few of every item left, and there was more likely being made. At least, she hoped so.
She smiled as she heard the kitchen’s door open suddenly and the music coming from within get louder. Joseph. He strutted out of the kitchen like a runway model and wrapped his arms around Marissa from behind. He smelled good. Spiced rum cake mixed with a masculine musk. It was almost intoxicating. It reminded her of Preston’s vanilla spice scent, and she warned herself not to store the smell away as a source of desire.
She didn’t heed such warnings, though. Instead she breathed in deeply and smiled at him. It was a nice smell. It wasn’t overpowering, and it wasn’t that of pure cologne. It was him. It was Joseph’s scent.
“I made something for you,” he said in a sing-song voice before she felt one arm leave her and instantly return with a piece of paper in tow. She looked at it, confused. It was an excel worksheet. “See, I took the liberty of creating a worksheet to show you a few little cutbacks that we can make – where we literally won’t even notice it – and make quite a substantial profit by the end of every quarter. What do you think?” he said, excitedly. She looked at the paper, wide eyed – she didn’t expect it coming from him – until she finally grabbed hold of it and took it from him.
“Oh, and all of this without messing up any of your precious recipes,” he added with a laugh, and his head reached above her shoulder so that he could ensure that she could witness him wink at her cutely. “I’ll look it over, hon,” she replied with a smile.
Honestly, she was scared to look at it. Joseph had never really shown any real initiative towards the business side of matters, if he had ever really shown true initiative at all. She wasn’t quite sure how good it could possibly be coming from him. After all, he didn’t really seem like the business savvy type to her, but she had been neglecting working on the proper paperwork and projections for the upcoming year. So what the hell? He may have something.
In truth, Preston had been her one true business advisor of sorts – and now, she had to think of doing things without him. Maybe Joseph’s ideas – even if they were terrible – would at least give her some sort of insight on where the bakery’s financial matters could go.
She felt his arms still wrapped around her, and she sighed from the touch. She loved the feel of a man’s arms wrapped around her. They made her feel protected even though she didn’t feel the need to be protected. Because she didn’t need to be protected. In this day in age, a lot of self-respecting women would cringe at the thought of being protected by someone else. But although she didn’t need to be protected, it was still a nice feeling, and she did feel secure in male embraces.
She heard the door open and the music get louder once again, and Joseph’s arms jutted away from her quickly, obviously not wanting onlookers to get the wrong idea. Even if it was just Rachel. But because it was just Rachel, she didn’t really know the urgency of him pulling away his arms – until she saw and heard the words that were to come from her sister.
“Hey, sis...” Rachel trailed, setting a tray of cupcakes on the counter. Marissa turned to look at her. Pity. Fucking pity. She hated pity. As if on an instinctual cue, Joseph made his escape towards the kitchen, likely not only to finish his daily tasks, but probably to hide as well.
Rachel’s puppy dog eyes looked upon her with sadness and sympathy, and she could tell her sister loved her greatly, but the pity masked behind the sympathy was completely unwelcomed at the moment.
It was as if she thought Marissa was as delicate as a fucking flower and the world was stomping on her with its spiked shoes. The urgency of Joseph pulling away from her was probably the right decision – it was obvious what everyone that saw her, thought; they all thought that she was in some sort of ridiculously vulnerable state. And any one of them – including Rachel – might think he was taking advantage of that vulnerability.
But she wasn’t hearing of it. Not at all. She had strolled her unhappy ass into the bakery to put all of her troubles on hold and shift her thoughts elsewhere, if only for just a moment. She hadn’t come to receive sympathy, fate’s fucking horrible reminder that shit wasn’t right in the world after all. She didn’t want it, didn’t need it, and even despised it. So even if her sister’s intentions were well intended, they weren’t welcome.
“Don’t need your pity,” she found herself responding sharply. She hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, but as word vomit would have it, she spewed it all over in its vile state of acidity. She scorched her tongue on the words, and she knew that it scalded Rachel to hear them. She felt bad, but maybe it was necessary to move forward.
“I didn’t mean –” Rachel began, but Marissa merely held her hand up to shush her. There were no words necessary. Rachel took the hint and got back to work. She began stacking the cupcakes on their respective tiers and didn’t say another word. But, just so there wasn’t any confusion, Marissa laid a single hand upon Rachel’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. She wanted to reassure her. She wanted her to know she loved her. Because she did. She knew it was all in good nature, but dammit, she just wanted to forget.
She turned and went through the kitchen’s swinging door, past Joseph’s questioning gaze and into her office. She wanted to shut the world out for a moment. She came in to forget, and that was exactly what her goal remained to be. She was going to get productive and work. Because in that moment there was no Preston, there was no marriage, and there were no kids. There was nothing but work and productivity.
Looking over the papers Joseph had written up for her, as she reclined back in her leather desk chair, she found herself shocked. He had done a simple spreadsheet, outlining a few cutbacks and the cost effectiveness of each, ranging from the most cost effective to the least. All of which, when compiled, was projected to save a lot of money per quarter.
They were all small tasks and hardly took effort, but they each pai
d off in their own projected amounts, and they all seemed to be common-sense oriented, yet clever at the same time. Because, let’s face it – she hadn’t thought about it.
He had merely suggested small little cutbacks to everyday things such as: rather than giving customers a handful of napkins for one muffin – or any other variation of baked good – give them two; rather than pay freelance media specialists, as she had done for years now, each employee could take responsibility for a day of the week to advertise on the shop’s social media pages; and so on and so forth.
He had included fifty-five small cutbacks, and she was impressed with the data. She was captivated, actually – if it would all actually pay off, which she was sure it would. And if it did, he would definitely have just become her new favorite employee – if he hadn’t been already.
She laughed and had become even more enthralled with what he had done because of a realization. There were only three of them in the whole shop. It wasn’t like the pool of competition was very deep, and there was no ladder to climb. Thus, it wasn’t as if he was seeking any sort of incentive.
There was no promotion to be gained. There was just Joseph wanting to help. She couldn’t believe it, but she loved it. She had to ask where that sort of intellect came from. Not even Preston seemed to have this sort of ability. She was astonished.
“Hey, Joseph… I looked over the excel sheet,” she began as she walked through the door of her office into the kitchen. He was making some banana bread and was chopping the bananas until she had spoken. He turned his head to her and smiled. “This is really amazing; how did you know to do this? It’s as if you have a background in business management or something.”
“Well, I have a degree in it,” he replied flatly before going back to cutting up bananas. She ignored his flat tone. “But… that wasn’t on your resume,” she said, a little confused. She had no idea why he had hidden that for so long, but thought better than to prod too far. It was his business, after all, and he was entitled to his own secrets. But it just seemed like something to be proud of – at least to her, it was.
Her degree – even though she hadn’t used it – was something she was proud of. She loved education and felt very strongly about being educated. The fact that he was too would only seem to make him even more appealing than he already was.
Call her crazy, but she thought that Joseph was beginning to act a little strange. It was as though his demeanor had seemed to shift a bit as soon as she had spoken her praise aloud. He even cleared his throat almost suspiciously and grabbed a full dish of pastries – which had lain conveniently beside his workstation – and whisked it away as he quickly made his way through the door and into the front of the bakery. She stood there, confused, but instead of chasing after him – she turned around and went back to her office. She would inquire on this later; now was definitely not the time.
Chapter 5
Haley drove her trusty steed of a car in a seemingly aimless direction. Without her job, she had nothing to do. She never really realized how little of a life she had before she lost her job. Her job was her life. “How sad is that?” she scoffed. But probably what was sadder was that she missed it, dreadfully so. The fact that she felt so pathetic worried her a little as well. She was thirty-four years old and had nothing to show for her age. She had no job, no home, no family; she had nothing. Who even was she?
She was so preoccupied being the perfect nanny and big sister slash aunt type person to these kids, as well as the perfect homemaker to the family as a whole, that she had really just lost sight of herself. She lost a part of who she was, and who she was used to have vision. She used to have an ability to decipher her work life from her personal life, and though the two were somewhat intertwined, there was usually still a distinct line dividing some aspects of her life.
Even before the affair, she had seemed to blur the line between her personal life and her job. Hell, she was in love with her male employer– how much more personal could you get? Even still, a part of her wished she had either kept the two worlds separate, or at least had more of a personal life outside of her job.
It was probably the same principle as having friends outside of relationships, or having a relationship or friends outside of a family. It’s better to have other people – because relationships and friendships fail every day. Sometimes it happens even when one party didn’t fuck the husband or father of the people she held relationships with.
Sometimes it was no fault of anyone’s. This time it may not have been, but it would have been nice to have a backup of sorts. Now, she had nothing. She was a lonely thirty-four-year-old divorcee with no friends or family to speak of. She was alone.
She saw a café up ahead, and decided a cup of coffee might bode well with her in her current state. As her car yielded beside a parking spot in front of the restaurant, she nervously looked behind her shoulder– a bit frightened to parallel park. She sighed sadly – it was another thing that reminded her of how shitty she had made her own life.
She had always gone to Marissa’s bakery to get her coffee or baked goods, and she always had parking behind the shop. Most downtown shops didn’t. It was either street parking or no parking at all. She loved Made with Love by Marissa. She adored their food, the environment, and the sense of ease it brought her to drive there – especially parking without being anxious.
It was then that she noticed a young boy across the street, running, arms flailing like windsocks, with several young boys trailing behind him. She squinted to look more closely, but was honked at by the car behind her. She had to move. Taking a deep breath, she whirled the back end of her car into the space and straightened it up so that the front was as even as she could get it within the space. She was proud of herself, but that pride didn’t last long.
Looking back to the running boys she saw that the leader of the group – the one farther ahead of all the others – was a very familiar scrawny blonde boy. He was the boy she had looked after for twelve years. He was none other than Lucas Lancer. But were they chasing him? Were these the boys responsible for the bruises he had as of late? Were they bullying him?
Anger rose in her cheeks, causing them to become as red as blood. She huffed quickly before making her way out of the car. She hadn’t even fed the meter before she quickly tried to cross the street. She stood there, her feet aching to take off without her, to the other side. But the bustling cars wouldn’t allow for it, and by the time she had made her way to the crosswalk to hit the button, all of the boys had disappeared. Where had they gone? She had no idea, but she knew she had to find them.
She pulled out her phone and called Lucas, hoping with everything she had that he would answer. She knew he was angry, and a bit preoccupied – but she still hoped. She wanted him to be safe, and somehow she felt that if he answered, he would be. It was all she could do. But when the phone rang, no answer ever greeted her. She panicked a little and ran, with great motivation, back to her car.
She spun out of the parking space quickly, avoiding the traffic just by mere inches. She rounded her car to turn completely around, aiming towards the direction she saw him running. She even disregarded all suggestions of speed limit as she traveled in pursuit.
This was different than the last time she sped, though. This was for a reason other than her own self-destructiveness. This was for Lucas. She was panicked, and didn’t give a damn about the law. She gave a damn about the safety of the little boy she had loved for so long.
The only way she slowed was when a car was in front of her, and that was only if she couldn’t swerve around it. She felt like a character in an action scene once again, but knew in reality that she probably just looked like an asshole of a driver – rather than the suspenseful star she wanted to believe she looked like.
She caught glimpses of all the boys running through alleyways and swerving onto the sidewalks, and she followed them all the while. That was until she realized she was starting to head farther away from the areas that she fre
quented, and she had no idea where she was.
She saw the graffiti-ridden buildings and the trash blowing along the street, and she wondered if this area was safe at all. She feared, not or herself, but for the little twelve-year-old boy that was likely running through the area, with a gang of boys running behind him.
When she caught another glimpse of him, she rolled down her window and screamed out to him. She could only hope he would hear her and slow down. She hadn’t seen the other boys for quite some time, so she hoped that he would hear her and get in. When she screamed, he stopped immediately and leaned against a building, gasping for air.
There he was. She found him. She sighed a sigh of relief before turning off the ignition and leaping out of the vehicle. Lucas's breath was ragged from the running, and he leaned against the painted wall of the run-down building. He watched her as she walked over to him, and she felt the uneasiness he felt and knew right away that she was walking on dangerous ground.
She saw that he had finally let his muscles relax against the vandalized wall. With his breathing finally in control, he pushed himself off of the side of the building. Anger coated his face and he spoke, “Why did you stop me? Those guys are going to kill me, and you slowed me down.”
“They haven’t been around for a while. I think you lost them,” she replied calmly, reaching for his body to steer him in the direction of her car.
“Don’t touch me! That’s child abduction!” he screamed before he made his way down the alley away from the street where her car was parked. It was a dark alley for daytime, and she scowled at him for walking into the darkness. She quickly found herself returning back to her car, and was ready to follow him until he decided to walk himself home, or get into her car – whichever came first. But she couldn’t leave him there. There’s no way her mind or body would allow her to do that.