Sweet Cheeks

by K. Bromberg

  I’m not the only one with a tell.

  I used to see this when he would let down his guard and tell me little bits about the bruises he noticed on his mother’s body or about the loud crashes against the wall in the night that would wake him up.

  He’s not coping well. Something’s going on. What the hell is it?

  “My agent thought it might be a good idea to use this trip as a way to get some good press in my favor.”

  Unease tickles the base of my spine. “What do you mean by this trip?” While I’m smart enough to infer, I’m trying really hard to control my emotions and to ask instead of immediately assume, which is a new thing for me. And that in itself tells me how much I care for Hayes and I want to make this work.

  Patience has never been my strength and yet right now I’m trying like hell to hold on to it as tightly as I can.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he takes a step toward where I’m seated and explains. “I mean as in, Hayes Whitley really is that good guy you thought he was. Sorry, he can’t make your premiere because he’s out of the country, busy taking an old childhood friend to a wedding. That type of press.”

  I take in his explanation and let it settle while I try to figure out if I should be offended by this or just accept it. And regardless of whichever one I do choose, what does it have to do with what he’s so upset about?

  “Okay.” I draw the word out. “So paint you as the good guy again. Try to get you away from the image of cheating boyfriend before the press junket begins, right?” I nod my head all the while trying to put the puzzle pieces into place and figure out what I’m missing.

  “Something like that.” His eyes hold mine. Search them. Make me suspicious.

  “So did you offer to take me here with that agenda in mind or did you offer to come here and that became a side agenda once I said yes?” I hate that I have to ask. Hate thinking that maybe this whole thing was a hoax, and the selfless act was actually a selfish one.

  “My offering to bring you here, Say, has everything to do with you and fucking zilch to do with my reputation. You need to know that, hear that, and believe that, okay?”

  The sudden urgency in his voice confuses me. The tinge of desperation in it even more so.

  I nod my head. Let him know I hear him, but the feeling of unease intensifies.

  “What happened, Hayes?” It’s my turn to have insistence in my voice.

  “Believe me when I tell you I had no hand in this. No idea what was going on. My phone was off until just now and—”

  “Just tell me.” My heart pounds in my chest, an uneven staccato I suddenly hear pulsing in my ears.

  “Jenna pulled one of her bullshit, self-serving stunts.” He puts one hand on his neck and pulls down. His face a mask of regret.

  “What did she do?” My voice is barely a whisper but eerily even despite the feeling I have that the dam is about to give way.

  “Our first day here, she was calling me constantly then texting because she was pissed off that I wouldn’t come visit her. Like I should be at her beck and call. I was so fed up with her that I turned off my phone.”

  “That’s why you took my phone.” I remember the look on his face. The determination for me to hand over my cell.

  “Yeah. I didn’t want any of her bullshit to ruin the time we had together. She has caused enough problems for me and I just wanted to be here—with you. I know you never get away from work and I didn’t want her to distract me from what I wanted to get out of this weekend.”

  “And what did you want to get out of this weekend?” Curiosity has me asking.

  “Originally I just wanted to make amends. Be friends. I told myself you were off limits because we live in two separate worlds and you’d just come out of a long-term relationship.” He shrugs, a sheepish grin on his lips. “But I’m not that good of an actor, Ships. Even on my best day, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself being friends would be enough.”

  The smile on my lips is automatic despite the tension of untold truths floating in the space between us. “I told myself we had to kiss each other and get it out of our system. That we could be friends after that.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get you out of my system, Saylor.” His voice is resolute. Honest. But the concern in his eyes brings me back from romantic la-la land to the truth about what’s going on.

  “What happened, Hayes?” I implore.

  “When I turned on my phone, I had a bazillion messages. The press knew I was here at this resort. Not a surprise since I’ve thrown my name around so that Mitch the Prick and his family knew I was your date.”

  “Okay.” I nod my head. Try to think of worst-case scenarios. “So the press found out you were here. What are you not telling me?”

  He inhales slowly. Averts his eyes before bringing them back to me. “They took pictures.”

  My mind flashes to our time here. To patrons in the bar or at the pool with their camera phones sneaking a picture of Hayes and inadvertently, me. The thought doesn’t thrill me that I might be in some of those photos, but it’s not the end of the world.

  “Okay so pictures proving what? You went with an old friend to a wedding? That can’t be all bad, right?”

  “Saylor.” He shoves a hand through his hair. Shifts the balance of his weight from one foot to another. The man who’s always sure of himself is anything but.

  “Hayes.” My voice is a warning. A just tell me.

  “Some of the pictures are of us around the resort. The others are us in the ocean the other night.”

  Thoughts connect. My spine straightens. “When we were skinny dipping?” I ask the question with apprehension in my voice. I’m already running the night through my mind, figuring out my state of undress in and out of the water.

  He nods his head. His eyes are trained on mine gauging my reaction. “They’re grainy at best and I know that you have your suit on in all of them . . . but it’s hard to tell in the photos. They also have a few shots of our cupcake fight on the green. But those aren’t what—”

  “Oh my God. Last night. There are pictures of us last night on the back patio—”

  “No. No. There are none that I know of.” I sag in relief knowing pictures of us having sex won’t be going viral. “And I don’t think whoever was snapping photos was willing to weather the storm to take pictures of something they never knew was going to happen.”

  “Hayes.” His name again. A question. A statement. A placeholder for the rioting feelings I feel but can’t express.

  “If someone got pictures of last night, they’d already be sold and posted everywhere on the Internet and I’d currently be suing their asses, but there’s nothing so I think we’re good.”

  “Okay.” I draw the word out again, needing more time to see what I’m missing in the big picture of things. My first thought is what’s the big deal if there are a few pictures of Hayes and me out there. We’re adults having way too much fun in paradise. Big deal. “Well, maybe there being pictures is a good thing. The studio wanted to restore your image, and now your fans will see you with the sweet, safe baker outside of Hollywood. You can’t get any more down-home, salt of the earth than that, right?”

  “They spun the story, Say.”

  “What do you mean, spun the story?” Dread drops like a lead weight into my stomach. Twists it.

  “Jenna said that a reporter contacted her, fishing about why she’d been absent from her usual party circuits. Asked about the validity behind a rumor he’d heard stating she’d been in The Meadows facility and was asking what she had been admitted for. She said she freaked out and told him she’d only been visiting a friend there but he didn’t believe her. So . . . she tried to shift his attention away from her.”

  “What. Did. She. Do?” I close my eyes, hang my head, and wait for the rest to be said. Scenarios run through my mind and none of them are positive. I fear what he’s going to say next.

  “She leaked information. Said I was off in paradise with the
woman I cheated on her with while she played the victim card. She said she’d been admitted to the facility to battle the depression she’d suffered from our affair.”

  “What?” I laugh the word out like this has to be a joke. He can’t be serious. Because I just went from thinking so what, a few pictures of Hayes and me—childhood friends—having fun have been posted on the Internet to realizing those same pictures—completely innocent in nature—have been twisted with the help of Jenna Dixon’s little prompts to vilify me. I’m now the whore who broke up Hollywood’s cutest couple. Holy. Shit. “What?”

  “I’m sorry.” And the way he says it—the tone—tells me all I need to know about how bad it really is.

  I stare at Hayes but don’t really see him. I blink my eyes repeatedly as if the action is going to help me comprehend all of this and then I notice the defeat in his posture and that tells me all I need to know. It’s way worse than I think. The bottom drops out. Realization hits. And the bazillion images I’ve seen splashed all over the tabloids of every woman Hayes has been associated with since their public break-up flashes through my mind. I can only imagine what horrible things they’ve said about me. Hollywood’s cruel and unrelenting cycle of drama.

  And to think they even have real pictures to substantiate the rumors. Of us slinking around in the dark of night like we’re having some secret rendezvous, when instead we were just living in the moment and skinny dipping. I can only imagine the headlines accompanying the pictures.

  I know I should feel something. Rage and disbelief and confusion and vulnerability and every other gamut of the like. Yet as I sit here and stare at Hayes and comprehend what he’s just told me, all I feel is numb. I just want to go back to the dream world I was in a few minutes ago where the only thing wrong was the broken oven. When I was still comprehending everything that was happening with Hayes was real, and all was going to be perfectly fine.

  I was going to get my happily ever after with the only boy and man I’ve ever truly loved.

  And yet right now, all I can imagine is the potential fallout. The damage. My name drug through the mud to help some petty, selfish starlet get the attention she needs to feed her ginormous ego.

  I had thought the repercussions of leaving Mitch were bad. Hated being known as the girl from the valley who left Perfect Mitch Layton. But this is global. This time I’m the whore who violated Hollywood’s picture-perfect power couple.

  And in both instances I was innocent.

  “Say something.”

  I can’t. The only response I can give is to shake my head from side to side because I’m still trying to figure out how a woman can throw another woman to the wolves like Jenna has done to me.

  Then comments from the reception last night come back to me. Mitch’s. The other guests’.

  Oh my God. Oh. My. God. They all knew.

  They all knew and believed what was being said. And then there’s my conversation with DeeDee earlier. Her mention of the people outside the bakery. Her apologies for interrupting me with everything that’s going on. I had no clue.

  And then there were Ryder’s texts. He was talking about wanting to kill Hayes. Not Mitch.

  How about the requests for interviews?

  Here I was thinking someone was coming to do a feature on the bakery, when in reality they were waiting to twist any words I gave them to paint me as more of the home-wrecking whore they already believe me to be.

  “I need to go home.” It’s all I say as I stand, turn my back to him, and head down the hall. This is not his fault. I know that. Way deep down in my heart of hearts, I know that and yet right now, I need to go take care of the one thing that has gotten me through everything else. Go to the one place where I feel safe.

  Ryder. My baking. My salvation.

  “Saylor.” His footsteps are behind me. His voice a plea laced with concern. “Talk to me. Please?”

  “I just need to get home.” I start throwing whatever’s left to pack into my bag: the swimsuit I took off that night on the beach, the little magnet with the turtle on it Hayes bought me after snorkeling, the cover-up I bought after he told me how pretty he thought it would look on me, his T-shirt—the one I slipped on when I got out of bed this morning because it still smelled like him.

  I fight the urge to throw it in my suitcase. I want him with me. Instead I toss it at him where he stands in the doorway with puppy-dog eyes begging me to say something to him. I don’t want the reminder. But I can’t talk to him because I don’t know what to say. I simply feel violated. He catches the shirt with my name on his lips again.

  The tears burn, but the rage burns brighter. The anger I can’t direct at anyone other than him. “So I came here to redeem myself in the eyes of the assholes affiliated with the Laytons—people I don’t give a rat’s ass about but wanted to try and give my business the best damn shot possible—and end up being sacrificed to the masses as a home-wrecking whore. Talk about achieving life goals.”

  He sighs. Resigned. Defeated. His eyes truly reflect the pain of watching me suffer at the hands of his fucked-up world. “Yes. No. Yes.” He nods his head. Hating that he has to admit it. “I’m so sorry, Ships.”

  And for some reason, hearing that nickname proves to be my breaking point.

  “Don’t you Ships me!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “You used me. You knew all along and used me. You dropped the plane ticket off. Offered to take me. And all along, a part of you deep down invited me into your shitstorm without even warning me what was going on.” My voice breaks. The weekend had already been a whirlwind of emotion to begin with. But this? “You are just as guilty for not telling me.”

  “You have to believe me when I tell you this was not supposed to happen. I expected an article here or there about me accompanying an old friend to a wedding in paradise. Anywhere I go, pictures are always taken. I never expected this, Say. How was I to know that turning off the phone and ignoring Jenna and her huge ego was going to cause her to lash out and try to hurt you? There’s no way I could have known.”

  I swallow over the lump in my throat. Know what he’s saying is true . . . and yet, anger reigns. “She threw me, my reputation, my business, and my name to the sharks. When I talked to DeeDee, I thought the reporters out front of Sweet Cheeks were having a slow news day and wanted some old dirt on you—innocent stuff about how you were as a kid or something. Cute stories. I thought the texts on my phone asking for an interview were to highlight the bakery and in turn get a glimpse of the woman in your life. I should have known how bad it was when I got Ryder’s text saying he wanted to kill you. That should have told me everything I needed to know and yet I’m so damn stupid for looking at it through Hayes-jaded eyes.”

  “Don’t do that, Saylor.”

  He takes a step forward and I take one back. I don’t want to be touched right now. I don’t want to be coddled. I just want to be left alone to try and figure out how I feel. I know he can sense me shutting him out but it’s not intentional. It’s just what I need to do to process everything when in reality I have absolutely no clue how bad the story is beyond these tropical walls.

  “She sounds like a real class act.” My voice is loaded with spite. Hurt. Accusation when it’s not his to wear.

  “Say, she prob—”

  “Don’t defend her.” My voice is quiet steel issuing a warning.

  “She’s the last person I’d defend after this.” His voice is grave. Eyes serious.

  “How do you live in that world, Hayes?” My eyes fill with tears. My chest constricts as the realization hits me that this is the world I’d be stepping into if Hayes and I were to work out.

  “It comes with the territory . . . but it’s never mattered before like it does right now.”

  The sob catches in my throat as I turn back to my suitcase. To my everyday life that seems so very far away right now. How will my normal be affected by this? By the hints DeeDee dropped, I fear it’s not going to be good.

  Do I want to live in
that life where pictures can be misconstrued and reputations are ruined over nothing but a rumor? A lie? A misconception?

  “Will you stop packing for a second and look at me?”

  “No. I need to get home.” That’s easier to focus on than the look of defeat in his eyes, and the riot of fear ricocheting through me. This morning I woke up sure about our future, and now I’m unsure if I can live in his world.

  “Saylor.” His hands are on my shoulders. I try to shrug out of them and he holds them still. “Don’t pull away from me. We’ve been through too much for you to pull away from me.”

  He knows me well enough to assume what I’m thinking. The tinge of fear in his voice—the same one that is echoing in my heart—tells me this. So while he might think I’m strong, I don’t think I’m strong enough for this.

  “I’m not pulling away. I just need . . .” I hang my head and fight like hell to keep the frustrated tears from falling. “I just need to get home. I need time to think with a clear head, Hayes. Need to sort out the mess I fear my life now is.”

  “Turn around.” And it’s not like I have any choice when he turns my shoulders himself. His fingers are under my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I know you’re upset. Angry. You have every right to be. I am too. I’ll do whatever I can to fix this. Whatever it takes, but I know as well as anyone that I can’t control what people believe or don’t believe. And so it only matters what we know. What we believe.”

  I nod subtly to let him know I hear him. The words he’s spoken and the unspoken ones in his eyes that tell me he thinks I’ve been scared away. And a part of me has. I just don’t know by how much.

  “The oven died at the bakery. I need to get there to figure out what model will fit and its pricing and payment plans and . . . I just need to get back there.” I let the lie fade off because I know what those answers are. But what I need is space to think. To breathe.

  “I’m going home with you. I’ll do an interview and explain our history. How we reconnected. Make it right again. Get the bastards to retract the stories.” I know he means what he’s saying, but I also know he can’t undo what has been done because he’ll be on the defensive. And the defensive is never a good place to be. I traveled all this way here to avoid just that.