I stood and walked over to where Chase was standing by my front door.
“You know that’s not true. Please don’t leave upset. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Maybe by then I’d figure out what to say. Part of me hoped he’d hug me and say he overreacted, but the rest of me just wanted him gone.
Chase sighed. “Goodnight, Avery.” He shut the door behind him, and my immediate feeling of relief drowned any remorse I might’ve felt for the way the evening ended.
* * *
My mood was still affected the next day when I showed up for work. I couldn’t get Chase’s words out of my head, about how I wasn’t making him a priority, and his sarcastic tone when he said he knew ‘my life was hard.’
Joy noticed my funk, of course, but wisely chose to stay out of my way and not pry. I was in the middle of viciously scrubbing one of my vacated booths when I felt someone behind me. Figuring it was a customer waiting for the table, I plastered a smile on my face and turned. I couldn’t conceal my surprise when I saw Fox standing there. Flustered, I dropped my dishrag, and he leaned down to grab it just before it hit the ground.
“Thanks,” I muttered. The man had superhuman reflexes.
His brow creased with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I really meant no. Or yes. Or I’m not sure, how much time do you have? I took the dishrag from him and started to turn away.
“Avery, wait.” He put a hand lightly on my bare arm to slow me, and I stopped dead in my tracks, both out of automatic courtesy and the tingly electric feeling of his skin on mine. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I looked down at my arm where his fingers still rested. Yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. What happened? Did he do something to me yesterday? All I knew about yesterday was that Chase had hurt my feelings, and today I didn’t want Fox to move his hand, ever.
“I’ve been told I have a rather intense work ethic. That’s probably putting it lightly,” he conceded after a moment. “It was my first day, and I don’t like to make mistakes.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. It was just food, and certainly not the most important job he’d ever had, but I understood wanting to take pride in your work. “Okay.”
“You’re kind of… distracting.” He smiled then, my favorite Fox grin, complete with dimple. I found myself grinning back at him before I could help it.
“Am I?” And suddenly, I was flirting.
“Yes. In the best way.” He dropped his hand from my arm but his eyes blazed with something that lingered on my skin just as strongly. “But that’s my problem. And if I was rude, I apologize.”
My grin widened at his sincere words. “Apology accepted.”
“Great.” He gestured over his shoulder to the kitchen. “I’m going to get back to work.” He quickly filled a coffee mug and headed back through the swinging doors.
I returned to setting the empty table with a little smile on my face. For the rest of my shift, Fox was friendly and open, efficiently handling the lunch rush and asking me questions about my orders to ensure he got them correct. Joy and I passed on the compliments from our regulars, who insisted they’d never had a juicier burger or such perfectly crisp fries.
Fox nodded and acknowledged all the praise, never ceasing in his rhythm and prep movements. He wasn’t kidding about the work ethic. As far as I could tell, Fox put his entire focus into whatever his job happened to be at that minute. We were lucky to have him. For how long, I wasn’t sure.
That thought nagged me that evening as I brushed out Annabelle’s hair and got her ready for bed. Chase was out with some of his friends, and I was looking forward to nothing more than taking a long, hot bath and turning in early. But once again, I couldn’t get Fox out of my head. I knew I wasn’t imagining the look in his eyes, or the electric current that shot out of his fingers when his skin met mine. He must feel it too. And he’d apologized sincerely for his brusqueness yesterday, admitting that he was distracted by me. In the best way – a tingle ran through me when I remembered his exact words.
I shoved the light sheets farther down on my bed and plumped my pillow, trying to get comfortable. The bath hadn’t helped me to relax; I felt more antsy than before as I replayed our conversation in my head. All I wanted yesterday was for him to notice me, and now that he’d admitted he did, I wasn’t sure how to react. I was with Chase, and although that wasn’t going spectacularly well at the moment, I felt I owed it to him to see it through.
Why was that, again? That doubting voice crept up on me and had me struggling to a sitting position amidst my tangled sheets. What exactly did I owe Chase, and why? The more time we spent together, the more I felt like I’d built our past into a fairytale love that was a far cry from the present reality. The storyteller in me loved the romanticism about the passionate reunion with the handsome football-player-turned-firefighter, but high school was long over. Maybe it was time for me to take Chase off the pedestal and reevaluate.
Chapter 8
Ear-splitting 80’s hair band rock woke me from my restless sleep the next morning. I lunged over to slap my ancient alarm clock and almost squished Annabelle, who had burrowed herself into my bed around three a.m. after a bad dream. Glaring blearily at the numbers, I cursed softly. Too early. I rarely remembered to adjust the alarm for weekends. We would both be zombies today, which was unfortunate because I’d promised to take her to the park to have a picnic lunch.
I lifted one of her little hands and let it drop limply down to the mattress. She grumbled something unintelligible and rolled over, tucking herself into an even tighter ball. Not even Def Leppard could rouse Annabelle when she was tired, so I decided to let her sleep in while I made breakfast.
After perusing the contents of my refrigerator, I was just about to settle for cold cereal when I heard a knock on the kitchen window and saw a shiny brunette head whiz by. Heather let herself in the front door using her emergency key, which most often came in handy for wardrobe crises rather than accidents involving life and limb. This time she was holding a pink bakery box, and I wasn’t complaining.
“Good morning!” she trilled. “I’m so glad y’all are awake!”
“‘Awake’ is a relative term,” I said, yawning. “Take it down a notch though, because Bells is still sleeping.”
“Oh, sorry,” Heather apologized in a stage whisper. “Want muffins?”
I gave her a skeptical look. “Who doesn’t want muffins?”
“Here. Freshly baked.” She shoved the box at me and twisted her hands excitedly.
I opened the lid and peeked in. The aroma of delicious blueberry and cranberry muffins poured into the kitchen and my knees almost gave out with bliss. I started to thank Heather and noticed her huge grin. No one got this excited about muffins. Something else was up.
“What’s going on?” I asked warily.
Heather’s eyes twinkled. “I’m in! I’m going to be featured at the expo!”
She pulled out a glossy program, open to a spread of decadent-looking desserts and an elaborate fondant wedding cake. “Heaven by Heather” spanned the top of the ad, along with her smiling picture. Two months before, Heather had applied to be a preferred vendor at a huge bridal expo in Dallas. Wedding professionals from around the country would be there, and the potential exposure was huge.
My eyes welled with tears and I dropped the bakery box on the table to hug her.
“I’m so happy for you!” I pulled back and noticed she was crying as well. “This is your dream, and you’ve worked so hard for it.” She nodded and reached for a tissue.
I thought about all the hours each week Heather spent driving to restaurants and coffee shops in the county, delivering her orders of cookies and pastries. Even just two or three special events per month would practically double her income.
Another thought occurred to me as we stood there crying and grinning at each other. “Will you move to Dallas?”
Suddenly, the idea of Heather moving on seem
ed like an immediate reality. We’d planned our escape from Brancher for years, exchanging ideas countless numbers of times, far apart in our ideal locations but always leaving together. Chase had been a part of those plans for a while, but lately he seemed content to stay where he was, on edge with his back to the wall.
Heather laughed at my stricken expression. “No, silly. Not yet, anyhow.” She smiled. “But it’s a good start.”
I smiled back. “You’ll dominate Dallas and move on to the Big Apple.”
“That’s the plan. Now can I go wake up my little sweet potato? I need to love up on her extra before I leave next week.” Heather wiped her eyes daintily.
“Sure.” I thrust a muffin into her hands. “But bring this. She’s cranky when she’s hungry.”
“Just like her mama,” she said, laughing.
I opened my mouth to retort, but changed my mind and took a huge bite of muffin instead. “Mmmph.” Heather would kill it at the expo. This muffin was potentially the best thing I’d ever eaten.
“You’re welcome,” she sang, heading off down the hall.
* * *
Heather stayed most of the morning, playing dress-up with Annabelle while I got some chores done around the house. She left around lunchtime, but not before she helped me whip up a few treats for our picnic.
“Do you want to come? We could make it a girls’ day. Annabelle would be so excited,” I said as we packed up the basket.
“I’d love to, but I have so much to do. Do you think your parents would let me borrow the refrigerated van? It would just be four days, tops. Oh, and I need to decide on my tasting menu and…” she trailed off as she grabbed a pad of paper from the counter and started scribbling furiously.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, crazy lady. I can help you. And of course you can borrow the van. I’m sure all my dad will ask in return is one of your peanut butter cup pies to hoard all to himself.” And maybe share a slice with Annabelle. His heart wasn’t made of stone, after all.
Heather looked up at me, and then added “PB pie” to her hastily jotted list. “Done.”
* * *
I was still thinking of Heather and the bridal expo when Annabelle and I pulled up to the park by her preschool and got out of the car.
“Can I go on the playground, Mama?” Annabelle asked, swinging our joined hands excitedly.
“Sure, baby,” I said, shading my eyes as I looked around. For a weekend day, the park was fairly deserted, with just a couple kids Annabelle’s age playing in the sandbox while their mothers sat nearby.
I watched Annabelle run off and stop just before she got to the other children. She looked back at me for reassurance and I nodded encouragingly. “I’ll be right here,” I called, gesturing to our blanket and cooler. I recognized the other moms vaguely from the preschool, so when they looked over at me and smiled, I waved and felt more at ease. I settled our things a reasonable distance from Annabelle and her little friends, close enough that I could reach her in a few strides but far enough away to give her a small sense of independence.
As an only child myself, I realized how important it was for Annabelle to have the social interaction that can only come from her peers, and I tried to facilitate that as much as possible. I hadn't been sure if I’d ever want to have another baby, but once that choice had been taken from me after Annabelle’s birth, I knew I had to make sure she had lots of opportunities to make friends because she’d never have a sibling.
Heather had laughed at the stack of parenting books on my nightstand, but “Most Organized” wanted to have all her bases covered. Motherhood at a young age wasn’t in my original plan, but it still deserved my very best.
I watched Annabelle play with her friends for a few moments, and once I felt sure that she was happy, I opened a book and tried to lose myself in the story. On the somewhat rare occasions I got to read for pleasure instead of school I usually went for my old favorites, but today I was trying a recommendation from Joy. The long-haired warrior and heaving-bosomed maiden on the cover left little to the imagination.
“There he is again!” I heard a hushed whisper from one of the mothers to my right. Glancing up, I saw them staring across the park. I followed their gaze and felt my cheeks and neck start to flush before I registered who they were talking about.
Fox stood on the outskirts of the park near the old metal pull-up bars and climbing structure, where I usually saw him working out when I took Annabelle to school. His back was toward us as he stretched first his quads, then his shoulders and arms, before dropping to the ground and starting a set of pushups.
I raised my book a bit higher so I could watch him but still appear to be reading. When he worked his upper body like this, there was no evidence of his previous injury. Only when I saw him running could I detect a smidgen of that career-halting wound that had brought him to Brancher in the first place.
As I watched, my book moved lower and lower until it rested on my lap, all pretense of reading abandoned. Seemingly unbeknownst to him, Fox had a captive audience in the three of us. In one fluid motion, he rose to his feet and swung up onto a pull-up bar to begin reps. The bare muscles of his back glistened as the midday sun beat down mercilessly, but he seemed unaffected by the heat and instead doubled his efforts. The other moms gasped in appreciation, but I felt suddenly antsy and turned away.
Tossing my book aside, I stretched as I rolled onto my back to look at the sky. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Fox these days. We’d progressed from barely acquaintances to coworkers, which was a big change. I was undeniably and inappropriately attracted to him, and he’d basically admitted the same a few days before. But it was more than that. It was a sudden feeling of excitement, an electric charge that swept me up into his eyes and his words that made me feel alive, like the possibilities were endless. And it was noticeably lacking whenever I was with Chase.
I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the look on Fox’s face when he told me I was distracting him, and a tingle swept through me when the sun was suddenly blocked by a looming shadow. I vaguely heard the buzz of the moms in the distance but that was just background noise, because when I opened my eyes I was overwhelmed by Fox.
He stood over me, his bronzed torso gleaming and beaded with sweat. A pair of bright blue basketball shorts hung low off his narrow hips, just under an incredibly impressive set of abdominal muscles that I’d previously only seen in a Calvin Klein ad. Was that stomach for real? It was perfectly sculpted without being overly muscled, and I caught myself ogling him before I could manage to look away. My face reddened as I looked up at his grin. And then that dimple. Well, sue me for staring. I’d be willing to scrub away my shame on his washboard abs.
I mean, if it wasn’t for Chase. Of course, I can’t touch Fox’s positively edible stomach because I’m in a happy and fulfilling relationship with Chase.
My body sagged as I closed my eyes again, and I sighed heavily. Even in my head that didn’t sound true.
“Avery?” Fox’s voice caused me to jump, and I realized that since he’d been standing there I’d stared, wilted, and sighed, all without saying a word.
I struggled to a sitting position. “Fox, hi,” I said cheerfully. “I didn’t see you there.”
His grin widened at my lie, and he ran a hand through his sweat-darkened hair. “Sorry if I startled you.”
My peripheral hearing picked up a few fragmented statements from our audience. I registered know each other? and so lucky! as I watched Fox pull a white tank top over his head. With his chest mostly covered, my head cleared a bit.
I debated only a second before my next sentence. “Would you like to sit down?” I gestured at the blanket. When I glanced over my shoulder to check on Annabelle, she looked up and waved. Fox waved too, and her smile hit megawatt status.
“Hi Mr. Fox!” she called. Her playmates’ mothers watched the entire exchange openly, not even attempting to conceal their curiosity.
Fox made a move to sit down o
n the edge of the blanket, but then hesitated, hovering in a half-crouch. “I’m sort of… damp,” he said apologetically.
I laughed at his unexpected awkwardness. “It’s just an old blanket, Fox. It’s fine.” How was it possible for someone so sweaty to still smell so good? I breathed in his unique combination of fresh air, cedarwood, and soap. His proximity usually made me slightly nervous in a heart-racing, adrenaline-junky sort of way, but after the initial shock of his bare chest, I relaxed easily.
We sat in comfortable silence for a moment, watching Annabelle play with her friends. The day was quiet, a languorous breeze rustling softly through the small trees. The children’s laughter blended with the faint sound of birds chirping, and suddenly the old park seemed idyllic and serene. Fox turned to me, his eyes a brighter green than the grass beneath the blanket.
“I saw you when you pulled up,” he admitted. “I was finishing my run and your car has a distinct sound.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I guess my ‘new’ muffler wasn’t such a great deal. Chase won’t even ride in my car, he’s so embarrassed.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wished I could take them back. Mentioning Chase meant acknowledging reality, where Fox and I were only ever meant to be casual friends and whatever spark existed between us needed to be extinguished permanently. And honestly, after the week I’d had dodging Chase’s feelings and demands, that reality pretty much sucked.
Fox looked mildly surprised when I referenced Chase, but he recovered quickly, quirking his mouth up into what I’d come to think of as his trademark half smile.
“So, what are you ladies up to today?” he asked, stretching out on the blanket. I wasn’t sure how he managed to look so indifferent when I knew for certain that something in the air had once again shifted between us, all due to a statement I couldn’t erase.
Hey Sunshine Page 7