Games We Play

by Cynthia Dane

  Leah continued to stare at the plain sheet cake she decorated. I knew it was you, Sloan. The part that desperately wanted to see her now froze with trepidation. “We?” she said. “Who is this ‘we’ building a bakery here?”

  Sloan did not leave the entryway. She may not be coming closer to Leah, but she also wasn’t allowing her ex-girlfriend to leave whenever she liked. “You would be a fool to not accept. You told me that you dreamed of having your own boutique bakery. What better place to make your fancy cookies and tea cakes than right in your own neighborhood?”

  “I didn’t want it like this…”

  “What? As a gift?” A cool breeze kicked up behind Sloan. She ran her hand across her head. It wasn’t until then that Leah realized her ex wasn’t wearing a wig. Is she growing out her hair? No, Leah didn’t care. She wasn’t allowed to care anymore. That’s what breaking up meant. “It’s not a gift, per se. I’m going to make you work as hard to impress me with the pitch as you would with other investors, but I know you can do it. I’ve seen your skills, and I know what you’re capable of.”

  Leah tasted a bit of the frosting now on her fingertip. It’s too sweet, because Enid cares more about mass producing to make more sales than creating a quality product that may not sell as much… but can command a much higher price. It was simple economics, as Leah had seen over the years. Sometimes a person could make as much – if not more – money with higher-priced stock with a lower volume of sales than the other way around. That’s what made a boutique bakery so attractive to her. She didn’t need to have a high volume of croissants, birthday cakes, and donuts to turn a profit. Hadn’t she been wanting to learn more about macarons? Those things went for a pretty price!

  “I can’t accept it. It’s not right.”

  Sloan sighed. “Because you dumped me?”

  Yes. Leah wouldn’t dare admit that out loud, though. “I don’t think I’m ready for this kind of responsibility yet.”

  “A wise man would say that’s a good marker of someone who is ready.”

  Leah said nothing.

  “Is it because you really don’t want to do it, or because you don’t think you can?”

  That got her attention.

  “Because I think you can do it. The only one preventing you from trying… is you.”

  “How can you say something like that?” Was this Sloan’s way of getting back at Leah? Hit her where it hurt?

  “Look, I don’t pretend to be an expert on your psyche…” Sloan entered the dark boutique and removed her sunglasses. “But if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you have a strong resolve and a maturity most people can only hope to achieve someday. Yet I also know that you’re way, way too hard on yourself. What responsibility are you talking about? You’re one of the most responsible people I know.”

  Leah shook her head. “How often did I drop everything to see you? That’s not responsible. That’s…”

  “You refused to see me unless you cleared your damned schedule. You never left anyone hanging. Except that first time. Because I dazzled you so much.”

  Blush tickled Leah’s cheeks. “I’m not ready for something like this.”

  “I know you have it in you to spearhead your own business. Not like you have to do it alone.” Before Leah could assume anything Sloan was about to say, she continued, “that’s what good employees are for. I wouldn’t throw this at you unless I thought you could really do it.”

  “You mean it’s not a ploy to get me back?”

  Leah wasn’t sure if she was heartbroken or relieved to see Sloan shake her head. “I’ve been wanting to invest in some proper small businesses around here. I spend so much time in the PNW that it’s only fitting that I start things up on my own. Perhaps I’ll relocate here. We’ll see.”

  “Relocate?”

  “Yes. I’m sure you saw that I’m divorcing my husband.”

  Leah nodded.

  “He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m also leaving the company and going solo. I’m taking a good chunk of our investors and other business associates, too.” Sloan stood before an old poster left by the previous tenants. Some goth-minded brand that advertised studded jewelry and jackets. “It won’t be enough for me to make it on my own. So, I better get to investing in long-term businesses that I’m sure won’t let me down.”

  “You would invest in me? Your ex?”

  “Honey, I worked with my bastard of an ex-husband for years. I’m not above working with people who do good for my bottom line.”

  “So you’re really saying that this isn’t a ploy to get me back?”

  “Why? Do you want it to be?”

  Leah looked around the darkened boutique. “No,” she finally said. “Not like this. I need time to think about it.”

  Not once during this reunion did Sloan try to touch Leah. Her respectful distance was almost more off-putting than if she did attempt physical contact. Doesn’t she want me back? Wait. Did Leah want her back? No. This was too complicated. What was Leah supposed to do? Make all these decisions right now? Take Sloan back… accept her gift… move on with her life or become more entwined with someone else’s…

  “By the way,” Leah said, before Sloan took her cue to leave, “I’m sorry about Chicago. I was… shocked. That’s all.”

  “It was a lot to take in. We all have our secrets we don’t want to blab to everyone we meet, not even if we’re romantically interested in them.”

  That felt too much like a direct attack on Leah’s secrets. There’s no way she knows about Karlie… right? Sloan probably had the means, but if she knew the truth, why didn’t she try to bring it up? Maybe Sloan wasn’t as vindictive as Leah took her for. “Still, I’m sorry. You revealed all that about yourself, and my reaction was to hop the next plane to leave.” She picked up the cake. Might as well take it home. “I probably would’ve kept it secret, too.”

  “You were right, though,” Sloan said. “I was using you.”

  Leah flinched. “Don’t know if I’m grateful that you admit it or not.”

  Sloan hesitated before saying, “I’m an honest person, Leah, and I’ve always tried to be as open as possible with the people I date. I didn’t tell you about Aaron because it was a part of my past that made me too angry to think about. Finally getting rid of him will be like ridding myself of a hemorrhoid. It sucks right now, but I’ll feel better in the end.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Good luck to you as well.” Sloan returned to the doorway, where she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “The only reason we lasted as long as we did… and the reason I decided to take a chance on you… is because you’re so strong and you’re not afraid to demand what you want. Don’t let people push you over because they misinterpret your submissiveness for weakness. Suppose that means I shouldn’t let my need to out-alpha every man in the room excuse my aggressiveness.”

  Leah wouldn’t disagree, but at the same time, she wondered if what Sloan said was true.

  “Give me a call if you decide to take up my offer. I’d hate to give this place to someone else, when I had you in mind.” Sloan released the door handle in her grip and disappeared into the rare winter sunlight.

  Leah lingered a little longer. She wasn’t sure if she should worry about the place being locked, since she didn’t have a key, but the sight of Sean still sitting across the street let her release her pent-up breath. Sloan never let a detail go unnoticed.

  Chapter 30

  Sloan received confirmation that Leah was still at work before approaching the old house in Goose Hollow. It looked deceptively like the other old houses around it, except the background report showed that it was built two generations later and, at best, mimicked the style and architecture it chose to emulate. But this also meant that it wasn’t worth as much as the neighboring houses. Cheaper for the Vaughns to purchase thirty-five years ago, but they wouldn’t get much for it now. It was only worth the land it was on. That’s a pretty penny in downtown Portland, but wouldn’t
allow them to move anywhere else around the area.

  Sloan wasn’t in the market to buy Leah’s house, however. She was much more interested in ringing the doorbell and hoping the first person she saw wasn’t…

  Damn. It was.

  “Can I help you?” The teenaged girl looked fresh from school. Karlie Vaughn was the spitting image of Leah, all the way down to the dimples in her cheeks and the way the ends of her dark hair bounced in their natural curls. This really is her daughter, isn’t it? Sisters could look this much alike, but there was something about the mother-daughter genetic bond that made it stick out in ways sisterhood never could.

  Sloan had to keep her cool. She was, after all, on a fact-finding mission and nothing more. “I was hoping to speak with the woman of the house, Janet. Is she home?”

  “One second.” Karlie then called over her shoulder, “Mom! It’s for you!”

  Does she know that Leah is her mother? Probably not. This girl wouldn’t so readily call someone else mother if that were the case.

  Janet Vaughn was the type of woman Sloan knew how to handle, however. She was uptight, rigid, and so set in her ways that it took the changing of an age to convince her to update any of her opinions. No wonder Leah had turned out the way she had, teenage pregnancy or no.

  After a brief introduction, including Sloan’s line of work and commenting that she was there to talk about Leah, they sat at the large kitchen table. Janet offered coffee, which Sloan accepted purely out of politeness. Karlie remained in the living room, where she flipped through a magazine and watched reruns of an old ‘90s sitcom on TV. The volume was low enough for Janet and Sloan to speak – and for Karlie to eavesdrop, if she wanted.

  Sloan waited until Janet was firmly settled in her seat before discussing what brought her to the Vaughn household. Simply put, she wanted to invest in Leah’s dreams of her own bakery. “I’ve already purchased a location around the corner from here,” she said with her matter-of-fact demeanor that always served her well in the business world. “All that needs to be done is remodeling it in her vision and perhaps offering her a mentorship with an established businessperson in the city.”

  Janet sipped her coffee while keeping a steady eye on any of Sloan’s movements. Wiping a lash out of her eye. Crossing her legs. Sniffing. Rubbing her fingers together, because God knew the awkwardness was rising in that little kitchen.

  “Why are you telling me this, Ms. Sloan?”

  “Ah…” Well, that wasn’t what she expected to hear right away. “You’re her mother, yes? Leah’s currently struggling to accept my offer. She seems to be under the impression that she isn’t ready for this venture, and I was hoping you could…”

  “My daughter is bright, when she opens her eyes.” Janet stirred more milk into her coffee. “I don’t disagree that she’s not ready to start her own business. She now recognizes when her faults will get in the way of her life. One of my daughter’s greatest faults is that she can be quite the irresponsible girl. I’m sorry if you’ve been lead to believe otherwise.”

  Sloan was completely smacked with disbelief. “I actually do disagree with that, Mrs. Vaughn. Leah is one of the most responsible people I’ve ever met.”

  Janet glanced at the girl in the living room. Are you kidding me? You’re still holding a child’s ignorance and hormones over her head eighteen years later? No wonder Leah had so many difficulties accepting praise and believing in herself!

  Sloan didn’t need Janet to push her daughter into accepting the bakery. That wasn’t what this trip was about. I wanted to meet the woman who raised Leah. Well, here she is. Now I have most of the answers I need. That didn’t mean Sloan was on her way out the door, though. There were still a few more questions she needed to ask before her curiosity was truly sated.

  “My daughter has been learning a lot of life’s hardest lessons from an early age,” Janet said. “One of those lessons is knowing a bad relationship for what it is. It’s my experience that a bad relationship can lead to… unfortunate decisions. Are you not the woman my daughter was seeing until a couple of weeks ago?”

  Still flabbergasted, Sloan replied, “I was dating your daughter until recently, yes.”

  “The one flying her out to Chicago, no less?”

  “She told you that much, huh?”

  “My daughter and I have a genial understanding. I understand that she’s an adult with her own love life, and she understands that she still lives in my house and must tell me where she’s going so I don’t have to needlessly worry. So, yes, she told me that the woman she dated was flying her out to Chicago for choice weekends. I figured that such a woman must have some means, but I wasn’t expecting…” She pursed her lips. “Forgive me, Ms. Sloan. It’s not my place to judge appearances.”

  Sloan was about to choke!

  “I try not to judge appearances, either.” If she were to judge Janet’s appearance, though, Sloan would note that Mrs. Vaughn had a plain way of dressing and wore her hair as if she no longer cared about what other people thought of 1995 chic. Such women tended to be the biggest pains of asses Sloan could ask to deal with. Why? Because they’re allergic to change and things being out of order. Sloan loved to bring chaos to such women’s lives, but not when they might be a potential mother-in-law. “Leah is…”

  “Leah is who she is,” Janet interrupted. “Honestly, I’m not sure what you see in my daughter, Ms. Sloan. She’s not much to look at. Unfortunately, beauty is not a heavy trait on either side of her family, but I suppose she is good at following direction. That’s why she does so well at the bakery she currently works at. Enid runs a tight ship, but it’s not a ship I worry about my daughter jumping from.”

  “Yes.” Sloan could hardly contain her true opinion of this exchange. “Well, I’m not here to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Mrs. Vaugh.” As if. Sloan would abscond with Leah to Vegas and be done with it. Not until my divorce is finalized, though. Assuming Leah would ever say yes. She was the only one who had to say yes, after all. “I was merely prodding you to think of Leah’s potential. I would love to invest in her talents. You say she’s doing well at her current place of employment, but I think she’s stagnated. She has so much talent, and little opportunity to express it.” Sloan had seen Rose City’s website, particularly the portfolio. Enid was kind enough to label which baker did what design, but there was something… withheld… to Leah’s. Probably due to the constraints Enid put on her. Oh, the cakes and cookies were perfectly nice to behold, and Sloan was sure they were worth how much they cost, but why should Leah be so limited? She was born to make delicate macarons and create cupcakes that were twice their size in frosting alone. Leah’s defunct baking Instagram showed plenty of dormant talent. Why shouldn’t she be given the proper opportunity to hone her craft and share it with the world?

  “Stagnated… Ms. Sloan, Leah is the type of girl who does best with routine. I’m afraid that running her own bakery would prove… a struggle in adjustment.”

  Why does she keep calling a thirty-year-old woman a girl? Leah was a woman, inside and out. Sloan would know. She had inspected both.

  “By the way,” Janet continued, “I would like to apologize if my daughter has been a handful in any way. She’s been known to make brash decisions from time to time.”

  “She is hardly a handful.” I wouldn’t mind her being a bigger handful. Sloan wasn’t generally interested in prim and proper ladies who rarely spoke their minds. She much preferred a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to vocalize it – like herself. “She’s one of the most agreeable people I have ever met.”

  Sloan chose to take her leave then, but not before stopping halfway across the living room to glance at Karlie, who stared back at her with reverent awe.

  “Are you the woman Leah was dating,” she timidly asked.

  “Yes.” Sloan lowered her sunglasses and straightened her jacket. “Was.”

  “I saw you in the news recently. About your… never mind.”
>
  “Indeed. That’s why she broke up with me.”

  “She broke up with you?”

  “Like I said,” Janet interrupted on her way by, “she makes brash decisions. Particularly when it comes to matters of the heart.”

  I think you and I have very different definitions of brash. Leah followed her heart, but not hard enough. She loves me, after all. A fact Sloan hadn’t taken seriously until it was too late. And a fact she never mulled over for herself until Leah was long gone.

  “You’re crazy,” her financial adviser had said, when Sloan asked for real estate suggestions in Portland. “Why are you wasting your money on this? You’re going through a divorce and about to dump the company you’ve helped established. Now is not the time to frivolously spend!” No, her investment into Leah’s bakery would not make her millions. She would’ve been better off investing in medicine or bike repairs, but it was important for her to see that Leah was set up with one of her dreams coming true.

  Because… well… perhaps she loved her as well.

  That wasn’t easy for Sloan to admit. The last time she allowed her heart to swell with love, she ended up in a fucked-up marriage that left her unable to tell the difference between sweet surrender and abusive misgivings.

  ***

  Leah had barely settled into her room that evening when she heard a knock at the bedroom door.

  It was Karlie, entering with a mug of her mother’s favorite decaf tea and looking like she had something serious to say. If one can look serious in a Victoria’s Secret Pink dress-shirt. Karlie had recently washed her hair, and her curls had yet to return. Her flattened, slightly matted hair was a far cry from the locks Leah kept protected in a ponytail when she took a shower five minutes before.

  “Can we talk?” Karlie asked.