Damon fished his phone out of his pocket. The screen was flashing with missed messages. Jared watched, not really paying attention as the other man thumbed through them. It was Damon’s low chuckle that brought him back from his weary desire to nap.
“What?”
Grinning, Damon turned the phone over so Jared could see the image of a very up close shot of Willa making a fishy face into the camera. Her blue eyes were enormous as she sucked in her cheeks and squeezed her lips together to create fish lips. The caption over it read: smile.
“She’s such a weirdo,” Damon mumbled with an affection that almost burned with how much he actually loved the girl.
Still smiling, Damon took the phone back and started writing her back. Jared watched his thumbs move over the keys and felt longing tighten his own chest. Not for Willa. But for the other blonde McClain.
Digging out his own phone, he started to pull up the keypad when he noticed the tiny icon at the top announcing one missed message. Surprise had him dragging the text open.
It was from Calla and it was only two little words: miss you, but they struck him square in the chest. His fingers moved over the pad before his head and heart had time to register what he was writing.
“Miss you, too.” He paused before adding, “Love you.”
He didn’t wait to see if she would write him back. If he let himself, he’d sit there and watch his phone like some love-starved teenager waiting for a message from their crush.
“How’s Willa?” he asked instead.
Finishing his message, Damon hit send and stuffed the phone into his pocket before answering. “She says all right, but she’s stressing out about all the exams coming her way before the Christmas holidays.” The swing creaked as he leaned back. “I want to go up for the day, see her, maybe take her mind off it for a couple of hours, but I know she won’t like that.”
Jared snorted. “Seriously? I think she’d love that.”
Damon bunched his nose. “No, it’s two hours she could be studying and I don’t want to distract her.” He paused, shrugged. “She’ll be home in a few weeks anyway and I’ll make it up to her.” He glanced at Jared. “How are things with Calla?”
Intense.
“Fine,” he said evenly. “We’re kind of taking it one day at a time.”
“How does it feel to be married?”
To that, Jared snorted. “Kind of feels like dating.”
They both chuckled.
“So things are okay?”
“I guess…” He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a white plume of hot breath. “She’s still not telling me something. I just don’t know what it is and I don’t want to push.”
Damon nodded. “Willa’s been trying to get her to spill for ages.”
Jared looked down at his hands after a long stretch of silence. “She said there was a guy.” The other man’s dark head turned in his direction, but Jared continued to study his interlocked fingers. “He cheated on her. Fucking douche.”
The low rasp of Damon scratching his chin filled between them. “I guess that makes sense.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” Jared said hotly. “I can feel it and it pisses me off that she won’t tell me.”
“Pride,” Damon said simply. “You know Calla. She went through nearly every boy in our high school before graduation. One finally went through her. Her ego’s probably bruised.”
“It’s not that,” Jared muttered. “It’s something else. He did something else. He broke her.”
Damon shrugged. “Maybe. But she seems happy now at least.”
It was ridiculous, but the statement actually lifted his spirits.
“Yeah?”
Damon snorted. “She’s not doing cartwheels down town square, or anything, but she’s smiling more and she almost reminds me of the old Calla, but a better version.”
Jared frowned. “What was wrong with the old Calla?”
“Nothing, but you have to admit she was a raging bitch.”
“Hey!”
Damon arched a brow at him. “You can get all outraged about it, but you know it’s true.”
Calla had never been the easiest person to get along with, not even as children. She’d always been loud and opinionated. True, there were times she could be mean, a little callous and thoughtless, possibly even selfish, but it had all been things that made her who she was. They had been parts of her and he loved all of her.
“I’d still do anything for her,” Damon went on. “She’s family, but there were days I wanted to run her over with a car. Like the time she put snakes in Willa’s locker on her birthday, or the time she switched Willa’s shampoo with dye and her entire face was purple for a week.” Damon shook his head. “She used to make Willa cry at least once a day and Willa always forgave her, which only pissed me off all the more. I won’t forgive her for that.”
“Jesus, D,” Jared muttered. “We were kids.”
Damon nodded. “I know. Hell, you and I did some really fucked up stuff growing up, but Willa’s different. She was never like other kids, like us. She’s soft and … sweet. She has this heart that just loves everyone without reservation and even when they hurt her, she still keeps loving them. And it fucking kills me when she cries. I just want to go ape shit on someone’s ass.”
Despite the intensity in his friend’s eyes, Jared laughed. “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell her that.”
“That I want to kill people for her?”
Jared laughed harder. “God, I hope not. Not sure she’d take it for the romantic gesture that it’s meant to be.” He sobered. “That you love her.”
Damon frowned. “She knows I love her.”
It took a great deal of patience not to roll his eyes. “I mean love her like you want to throw her down on the bed and make babies with her.”
Despite his deep scowl, there was a pink flush in Damon’s cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold.
“She’s not ready to hear that.”
Jared frowned. “How do you know?”
Damon straightened and turned his gaze into the back of the truck, which was directly in front of them.
“She’s just not. She’s still in school,” he snapped when Jared continued to watch him. “I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
“You think if you tell her you love her, she’ll drop out?”
“No, but shit happens and I don’t want to be responsible for wrecking her future if they do.”
“Shit?” he mimicked dryly. “It’s called condoms.”
Damon glowered. “Shut up.” He lowered his chin and stared at his hands bunched between his knees. “It’s not that. It’s just complicated.”
“Why? You guys aren’t related, not by blood, or marriage, and you’re both legal adults.” Jared shrugged. “I mean, if you’re worried about what the town will say, I don’t think you have to. You were both old enough to know you were adopted into the family and the town knows. You don’t even share a last name.”
“I wasn’t actually even thinking about that, but thanks,” Damon muttered.
“Well, what then?” Jared threw his hands up.
“What if she doesn’t feel the same?”
This time, it took Damon’s fist slamming into Jared’s shoulder to get him to stop howling.
“Not feel the same?” Jared panted loudly. “Are you kidding? The girl is fucking crazy about you. Do you think what you guys have is normal? And I mean that in a good way. Not everyone finds what you two have. There is no other girl in the world who looks at a guy the way Willa looks at you.”
“Why hasn’t she ever said anything then? She tells me everything.”
“Because this is Willa we’re talking about. She’s shy and probably thinks the same thing you do, that you don’t want her that way.”
Damon said nothing.
Jared didn’t push him. The topic was getting uncomfortably feminine and he was afraid he might accidently offer to get mart
inis after work and get their toe nails polished, or something.
“Come on, we’re almost done.”
Together, they headed back inside the house and finished loading the items into the truck.
Afterwards, they went into Billy’s for beers. The pub was filling up with men just getting off work. Jared had two before heading back to his apartment to shower and dress. There was still an hour before Calla got off work.
She was standing behind the counter when Jared arrived. There was a laptop open on the glass and she was frowning contemplatively down at the screen. Her blue eyes lifted when he walked in. The crinkles between her eyebrows smoothed out as her face broke into a smile.
“Hey.”
The sight of that smile and knowing he was the cause of it filled him with an elation that trumped all else. His feet carried him forward in three long strides. Then she was in his arms. Her mouth was captured beneath his and he felt calm flow through his entire body.
“Hey,” he murmured once he’d had his fill of her.
“How was work?” she asked.
Jared shrugged. “Fine.” He skimmed his fingers along the side of her face. “How are you?”
She drew out of his arms and turned to the laptop. “Just going over the website Dad put together.”
Jared didn’t know much about business, which was why Lucas dealt with the majority of things over at Silver Slice of Heaven. Unless it needed to be repaired, painted, mended, or moved, he left it to his partner, which worked fine for both of them. When they’d first bought the place, it was because Jared had been so apt at what he did that saved them thousands of dollars in repairs. That money in turn was put into getting top of the line espresso machines and coffee grinders, and whatnot. Jared may not be there physically as often as Lucas, but it was just as much his place as it was the other man’s. Nevertheless, the website looked fine to him. It was simple, chic and elegant, and it worked.
“I like it.”
Calla smiled at him. “Yeah? Me too.” She closed the laptop and tucked it away under the counter. “He even added a shopping cart, which I wasn’t sure of at first, but I got to thinking, why not? I’ll add a few different sizes to the site and people can order our stuff online. I’ll have to open a shipping account at the post office, determine cost of shipping internationally, and maybe get some nice boxes made up.”
Jared chuckled and stamped a kiss to her temple. “I love when you talk business.”
Calla paused and chuckled. “Sorry. I get all excited.” She checked her watch. “I just need to cash out, but—”
His cellphone chimed in his pocket, drawing both their attentions. He dug it out and activated the screen with a sweep of his thumb.
“It’s from Lucas,” he mumbled, reading the message. “Need to talk. Can you come down?”
Calla frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Rubbing a hand over his jaw, Jared sighed. “No, it doesn’t.” He wrote Lucas back a text quickly before stuffing the phone into his pocket. “Want to come with?”
Calla nodded. “Yeah, let me just close up.”
It took her an hour, which it normally did, but Jared’s anxiety was at an all-time high by the time he finally got her into the truck. His mind was clouded with images of the Silver Slice of Heaven burning to the ground, or someone dying of food poisoning. He knew Lucas would call him if those were the cases, but he couldn’t help wondering.
Twenty minutes later, they were parked outside the coffee shop. He kept a hand resting lightly on the small of Calla’s spine as they maneuvered the icy sidewalk to the glass door. He ushered her in first and quickly followed.
There was no fire, or anyone lying on the ground dead, but the crowd making a line to the register was something to question. The rest of the place was swarmed as well with people sipping their drinks and reading the paper, or hammering away at their laptops. But the thing that didn’t belong was the tall, dark haired man standing behind the register.
Taking Calla’s hand, he led her past the line and around the counter.
“Lucas?”
Eyes the melted gold of honey snapped away from the fifty he was stuffing into the register and widened in relief.
“¡Gracias a Dios!” he exclaimed in Spanish, slamming the cash drawer shut.
He continued on rapidly in his native tongue, even though Spanish was not a language Jared knew, but judging from the tone and the anger in the man’s eyes, nothing he was saying was very nice.
“Where’s Hayley?” Jared cut in.
That seemed to be the wrong question to ask. Lucas’s eyes narrowed to furious slits.
“Why don’t you guys take this into the back?” Calla interjected, eyeing the curious, and slightly irritated, customers standing in line. “I can handle this.”
Jared didn’t ask how. He motioned Lucas to follow him into the office.
“What happened?” he demanded the moment the door was shut behind them.
Lucas answered … in fast, angry Spanish.
“Dude, I don’t speak Spanish!” Jared snapped.
Lucas’s nostrils flared, but he calmed himself down enough to switch to English. “You need to talk to that girl. This is the fifth shift she has missed in a week. And when she does come, she is belligerent to the customers, doesn’t clean up her messes, or gets the orders wrong.”
“Hayley?” Jared guessed.
“Yes, ‘ayley!” Lucas snapped.
Jared sighed, shaking his head. “Why haven’t you fired her?”
“Because you hired her!” Lucas barked. “You fire her and if I talk to her, I will say things that…” He broke off in a series of Spanish profanities.
Jared put up his hands. “Okay, I’ll handle this.”
To prove it, he walked to the phone on Lucas’s desk and found Hayley’s number. He dialed and waited for someone to answer. No one did. His call went to voicemail.
“Hey, Hayley,” Jared began. “This is Jared from Silver Slice of Heaven. I regret to inform you that due to your behavior the last week, we have to let you go. Your last check will be mailed to you. I’m sorry things had to end this way and we wish you success in the future. Thank you. Bye.”
He hung up and turned to Lucas. “Machine.”
Lucas exhaled, and seemed to relax with the air he released. “She was my best employee. Always fast. It was why I put her on during all the rushes, but now I have no one to fill the spot and it has been madness here.”
“Can you call someone else in to cover until you hire someone new?”
Lucas stared at the phone. “Chelsea, or Ashley,” he mused. “But they are both easily flustered.”
“What happened to Link?”
“School. He can only work weekends.”
The metal desk groaned slightly as Jared propped a hip against the corner. “Maybe call Ashley and Chelsea for the next few days. One can man till, the other the drinks.”
Lucas nodded. “It was what I was thinking.” He shook his head. “Hayley never needed help. There was never a line with her.”
Guilt pulled Jared’s gaze to the ground. “It might actually be my fault. We got into a fight a few nights back and Hayley left pissed.”
Lucas’s dark, dominating eyebrows furrowed. “Fight about what?”
“I brought Calla here.”
Jared went on to explain his life the last few weeks. Lucas listened until he was no longer talking.
Finally, when he spoke, there was skepticism in his voice. “You’re married?”
Jared nodded. “You briefly met her. She’s outside … shit!”
He’d forgotten about leaving Calla alone in the middle of a crazy rush. He yanked open the door and hurried out, expecting to find customers rioting and Calla huddled under the counter. But there was nothing. There was no line. People were sitting around the room with their drinks and Calla stood behind the register, smiling as some fancy-pants douchebag leaned far over the counter towards her.
Rich, was t
he first thing Jared summarized about the guy. Expensive gray suit with thin, white lines, shiny, black hair swept back from a rugged and naturally tanned face and sparkling blue eyes that were riveted on the blonde watching him. He had both forearms folded on the counter. The sleeves had drawn up to reveal the shiny, gold Rolex on his wrist as he flashed Calla his million dollar smile.
Calla laughed at something he was telling her and continued to smile when she caught sight of Jared.
“Baby, come meet Sabastian,” she said without missing a beat. “He was just telling me how beautiful the Bahamas are this time of year.” She turned those pretty blue eyes back to the man. “This is my husband.” She slid her arm around Jared’s and drew him tight into her side. “We just got married and haven’t even decided where to go on our honeymoon.”
Sabastian’s smug little smile faded as he glanced from Calla to Jared and straightened. His gaze flicked to the hand Calla had rested on Jared’s forearm and Jared knew he was searching for a wedding band.
“I didn’t realize,” he said stiffly, as he took up his coffee cup and edged backwards. “Thanks.”
Calla smiled and waved and watched until Sabastian was out of the shop before tilting her head back to peer into Jared’s face.
“I worked at a bistro for a couple of months during university to pay for my shoe habit,” she told him, still grinning with every tooth in her mouth. “I used to get assholes like him all the time. They helped perfect this smile.” She batted her eyelashes. “It’s my eat-shit smile.”
Jared burst out laughing. He took her upturned face between his hands and kissed her hard.
“Did you think I’d run off with Sabastian?” she asked against his mouth.
“No.”
Her smile curved against his. “Good.”
“I’d kill him before you could,” he finished.
Her chuckle vibrated between them before she pulled back and faced the woman that had walked into the shop.
Jared watched as she seamlessly took the order, punched it into the register, and made the drink without faltering once. All the while, she chattered on with the woman as though they’d known each other for ages. The woman stuffed a generous tip into the cup in front of the register, laughing the whole time before taking her latte and leaving.
Be My Baby Page 15