Kneading You

by Simone Belarose

  It was a chore not to roll my eyes at him. Instead, I reached out and put my hand on top of his. That tingle of excitement lanced through me, and looking into his eyes I could see my expression of delight and wonder mirrored there in his handsome features.

  Does he feel the same thing as me? That was no trick of the light. I saw the trail of goosebumps go up his arm, the way his eyes widened fractionally, the brief intake of shocked breath through parted lips.

  Putting on my best professional face I pushed past it. To say it was an effort would be an understatement. I wanted to sit on his lap like when we had breakfast. That was the sort of morning I wanted every day.

  It’s easy to be professional with a friend, even most boyfriends. This was killing me. How could I separate myself from my feelings for him? I rooted for him without thinking about it, thought up ways to make the bakery successful without moving or selling assets.

  The closer we got the more I wanted to help him. I became less logical and I was threatening to lose my objectivity completely.

  Thomas was still looking at me with that slight wonder and amazement that made me feel like I was the only girl in the world. I loved him for it, and I didn’t care anymore that I did. Losing my objectivity though? I did care about that, it scared me and I had to make sure I wasn’t making a grave error with our partnership.

  It wouldn’t help him or our budding relationship if I caused his business to run into the ground simply because I couldn’t tell him some hard truths or advise him to take a personally painful path that might save it.

  With a shake of my head, I got back on track, caressed his hand with my fingers and looked deeply into his eyes. I lied to myself and said it was to gauge his reaction to my words.

  It partly worked.

  “Is that how you see your business? Only as a means to gain profit?”

  His reaction was visceral and immediate. Rapid double-blink, eyes widened in shock, brow crumpling with the offense. I read everything I needed to know about his answer before he even formed the words with those beautiful lips of his.

  A Game of Scones wasn’t just a business to him. It was his passion. And that only meant it would be that much more difficult to save it.

  “No!” he said, then realizing he had raised his voice set a comforting hand atop mine. His features softened in apology. “No. I want to make a profit, of course, I need to eat and live like anybody else, but it’s not the most important thing to me. I can’t explain it. Ever since I started it up I’ve been happier. Even when the business began to tank I still loved it.” His shoulders sagged. “I guess that makes me a bad businessman.”

  I looked at his hands sandwiching mine and traced them all the way back to his face. “You are not a bad businessman,” I said sharply. I needed to curb that sort of thinking immediately. Even if true, it does nobody any good.

  “What you are,” I continued, “is a good man who makes fucking amazing food in a town far too small to support your operation. You have a big heart that puts your focus on your food and your customers, which also detracts from your bottom line.”

  Thomas sat there, silent. A thumb idly stroking my hand, occasionally sending chills up my arm. I tried to gauge this quiet mood. He was harder to read, but I thought he looked pensive and considering.

  This man was a far cry from the lean boy I used to have a crush on. That boy had been quick to accept defeat. I never understood why. He was always very bright, could have easily joined me on the honor roll. Yet, just one bad test grade and the rest of the semester would tank along with it.

  Any time I tried to ask him about it he’d get defensive and shut down on me. For a moment that’s what I was worried he was doing here, shutting down and shutting me out. It scared me, not just because it was a bad trait but because I wanted to stay inside that big heart of his.

  I didn’t want him to push me out. Which frightened me, because it gave him more power than I ever had let anybody have over me. More than anybody should have over somebody else. Pushing the thoughts away I tried to refocus on our meeting.

  “Each of these things, Thomas, has a solution.”

  He looked doubtful but had the good graces not to speak it.

  It was a look I’d seen a thousand times before. Nearly every time I spoke to a client, whether professionally or in my side business. People wanted somebody to come in with all the answers, but they also never believed it was true.

  “Trust me.” I squeezed his hand. “Not all solutions will work, and not all of them are going to be fun or enjoyable. In fact, a lot of them suck. And many of them will come down to how far you’re willing to go to save your business. What I need from you, is to draw me a line. What is too far?”

  Thomas’ dark eyes roamed the table then back at me. I could lose myself in those dark pools. “Losing you.”

  I rolled my eyes but could do nothing to stop the blush that heat my cheeks or the way my skin pebbled with secret glee. Sure it was a bit corny, but he meant it with every fiber of his being.

  “Seriously.” My voice cracked with emotion. I pushed on. “What is too much for you?”

  “Hurting other people, abandoning the town, being deceitful or underhanded. Basically being a sleaze.”

  Mentally I struck out a dozen different solutions. The most promising being selling the property and leaving town. I didn’t need to tell Thomas that all the signs were ripe for a catastrophe that could wipe the town off the map.

  Over the last couple of days I had done some cursory research and what I found wasn’t good. Depressed sale prices on numerous properties, all of which were on the market for longer than they should for the area and price.

  Numerous abandoned or foreclosed properties. And a steady, but consistent decline in population.

  Sunrise Valley was dying and nothing short of a miracle was going to fix that. Even if we could get the bakery making huge profits, it wouldn’t stop anything. Compared to the health of the town the bakery was like an upset stomach inside a patient with multiple organ failure.

  Which meant I needed to take some drastic measures. Methods so dire that I rarely used them, didn’t even include them in the possibilities because I never wanted to be tempted to use them. They were my ace in the hole, contacts, and favors traded throughout college and my career that could get me out of a tight spot if I needed it.

  And this was becoming a much worse situation than I thought possible. Selling was no longer a viable option, it would mean losing Thomas and as much business sense as that made, I wasn’t ready to let him go. I had no idea where things were going, but I would not do that to him.

  “You’re really tying my hands here,” I said, trying for levity and failing.

  He twitched a grin at me. “I’m sorry,” He hung his head. I wanted to reach out and brush his hair, run my hands through it and push it out of his face. Tell him everything was going to be okay and for it not to be a lie. But it would be.

  “For what?”

  “My stubbornness, bad business sense, bad location for setting up, take your pick honestly. I basically perched my shop on top of a dying carcass without realizing it.”

  I tried not to flinch at how right he was. “Well from what I’ve seen, you’re a hard worker. You don’t want a quick turnaround or a fast profit for investors. You want a stable and healthy company. That tells me you’re willing to work for it and put in the time and effort to see it through.”

  His head lifted, he was nodding along with me now following my words and every second I spoke his head got a little higher. His shoulders straightened. I was getting through to him.

  “If you’re willing to work hard, then I have a few solutions. They aren’t fast. Some of these may take a year or more. Fortunately, you’ve got a small operation, which means change comes faster than a corporation. The downside is a lot of changes we’ll be making initially may have a negative effect.”

  “Like what?” Thomas squeezed my hand in his and scooted his chair close enou
gh that our legs were touching. The feeling was electric and I instinctively leaned into it.

  If only the executives that hired me were this eager to make a change and fix their businesses, I thought wistfully. Well, maybe not this eager. I didn’t want an old man panting over me. I had enough problems being taken seriously as a young woman in the business world.

  Though it pained me, I pulled my hand gingerly away from his and put away four of the folders I had prepared. They were useless now that I knew his plans. I pulled the bottommost folder out and opened it up motioning.

  “I’ll walk you through the first steps, you might want to get some coffee. This is going to take a while.”

  16

  Thomas

  By the time we were done going over her first stage of saving the bakery my head was spinning and it was early morning. I hadn’t been lying when I said I wasn’t a good businessman. I tried, truly I did, but I didn’t have a degree from one of the best business schools in the country and as she laid out the first steps it showed.

  I barely followed everything she said. Some men may have been put off by a woman who knew so much more than them. Her scope of things was so vast, it dwarfed my own. It made me seem small-minded.

  More than one relationship had ended because the guy’s response to that was to lash out. For whatever reason, I didn’t. I was inspired by her clarity. Claire’s ability to see so many steps ahead and from such a wide-angle was breathtaking. Somehow it made her even hotter than before.

  Which, for the record, should be a crime. No girl should be that sexy. But she was, and she was mine.

  “What’re you grinning at?” she asked over the lip of her coffee mug.

  Had I been grinning? I shrugged. “Thinking about how nice it is to have you here.”

  She drank rather than respond right away. Which had always been her go-to response when something flustered her. The bright spots of color on her cheeks, however, was something she couldn’t hide so easily.

  “Well,” she said setting her mug down, resting her fingertips along the rim and shimmying it back and forth across the papers before her. “It’s getting late, but I think this was a great start. You wouldn’t believe how many meetings I generally have with people making ridiculous amounts of money before they even are a single percent as productive as this.”

  My heart soared with her praise. I helped her gather up the papers, put them into folders, most of which she put into a pack I hadn’t seen. She only kept the single folder in her hands, cradling it like it was precious.

  “Please believe me,” she said, placing a hand on my arm. “If you’re always this receptive to criticism and change, you’ll do very well. It may not seem like it for some time, but have faith.”

  “I do.” And I meant it. I had faith in Claire, and if she said I needed to trust in her plans then I would without a shadow of a doubt.

  For a moment I swore she looked taken aback by my ready reply. Had she thought I wouldn’t be? She covered it up a moment later by gathering the rest of her things. When we were done clearing up the bookstore backroom looked quiet and drab.

  I used to come here sometimes after school to do my homework. It got me out of the house, away from the cigarette smoke and the yelling. I could concentrate here, they always had great books, and it was so cheery.

  Of all the places in town, this was the one whose absence I missed the most.

  Something must have shown on my face as I looked around the room because Claire was staring at me with a strange look on her face. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

  Scanning the room again I nodded. The front of the shop was worse, I knew that Richard hadn’t been able to sell all the books and that they were still in the boxes packed and stored in front of their empty shelves.

  “It really is.”

  Claire hugged the folder to her chest and hoisted the strap of her black messenger back on to her shoulder. “I always thought I’d end up running this shop.” Her eyes were distant like they could see to another timeline.

  I wondered if we had made up sooner in that timeline. If we had those eight years back and were happy together. Claire managing her dad’s bookstore and me with my bakery.

  Were we married there? Kids? The thought would have once scared me, but now it makes me weirdly nostalgic for a life I never had. A time that never existed.

  With a shake, Claire came back to our time and our worries. Whatever she had seen left a faint smile on her tired features. She let out a long, jaw-creaking yawn and without saying a word came over to wrap her arms around me. I felt the folder she was holding press against my back as I squeezed her against me and she responded in kind.

  Lights shut off, we walked outside where she shut the door. “I’ll make some calls first thing in the morning, and I think Jemma is going to be coming into town so I don’t know how much time I’ll have…”

  I wrapped my arms around her and swept her up into a spinning hug, forcing a smile larger than I felt onto my face. I didn’t have to fake it for long, seeing her squeal with girlish delight was enough to make it completely genuine.

  “It’s all right,” I told her, setting her onto her feet. She looked a bit dizzy, so I kept my arms around her. “I’m not the only thing in your world and I’m okay with that. I understand, Claire.”

  She looked a little unsure, biting her lip and watching me warily like she expected me to drop her and run away just because she might be busy. I knew she still had Richard’s funeral to plan, she had to set all that up and not to mention I’m sure she had to call relatives and friends.

  It couldn’t be easy.

  I gave her another squeeze. “I’m here,” I said. “Really. Any day, any hour. I’m here. And to make sure you can get a hold of me-“ I pulled out my phone and motioned for her to do the same. “We’ll finally have each other’s number and you can call me or text me if you want some company.”

  We traded numbers and I slipped my phone away into my back pocket, feeling as excited as if I just got her number at the bar. Knowing that I could call her and hear her voice, even if she wasn’t at home, made me feel giddy.

  With a force of effort, we pulled away with a parting kiss that sent a spark of life spiraling from my lips down into the deepest parts of me. It sparked the deliciously recent memories of her body beneath.

  “Goodnight, Thomas.” She was out of my arms and halfway up the stairs in the blink of an eye before I could say it back to her.

  The words fumbled out of my lips and into the empty night air. “Goodnight.”

  Normally, I would have taken that to be a portent of something worse. A bad omen, if you will. With Claire it felt different, I had faith in her. I trusted and believed in her. Maybe she was scared, I told myself as I trudged up to my apartment. Her door already closed.

  Halfway into my apartment I stopped, shut the door and marched over to her apartment.

  No, I wasn’t going to let it go like that. Wasn’t going to stew in intrusive thoughts and worries that somehow all of a sudden something was going wrong with this fragile, beautiful new thing we had.

  Despite my brave thoughts, it still took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to actually knock, when I did a very surprised Claire came to greet me.

  “Thomas? Is everything all right?”

  “Stay the night with me,” I blurted out. There was no way in Hell I could be smooth and suave at a moment like this, better to be blunt and straightforward.

  My words hit her like a gust of wind and she staggered back but caught herself on her heels. “S-Stay with you?”

  I extended my hand to her, hoping she’d take it. “You’re already doing so much,” I said staring into her bright green eyes. “I can’t imagine what it’s like sitting in this place while you try to manage everything. The least I can do is open my home to you. If you think it’s moving too fast, we can sleep in separate rooms.”

  The shine of fresh, unspilled tears glittered in her eyes and she took a moment to wrap
her arms around herself. A look at my arm extended towards her, did I read that right, was that longing I saw?

  Claire looked back up into my eyes, a forced smirk on her face despite the sparkling drops leaving starry trails on her cheeks. “You’d really do that?”

  Keeping my arm outstretched towards her, avoiding the awkwardness of it I raised my free hand in a Boy Scout’s salute, three fingers raised, thumb and pinky curled into my palm. “Scout’s honor.”

  That brought a snort of laughter and broke some sort of tension holding her back. Claire latched onto my arm like it was a lifeline thrown to her at sea. “You quit the boy scouts when they stopped having snack time,” she reminded me, but she came forward and pressed herself hard against my chest.

  I closed the door behind her with my free hand and pulled her into a tight hug. The swell of her breasts against my ribs gave me some rather dirty thoughts and I tried to push them out. I was being honest about wanting to help her, this was more than just incredible, life-altering sex.

  I swept her off her feet and cradled her against me. “Fair point.” I gave her my best wicked grin. “I guess I just want to see you more, can you really blame me?”

  She pressed her lips together, tears trickling down her cheeks. A brief sob escaped her lips and she buried her head into my chest. Back in my apartment, I kicked the door shut and slipped out of my shoes.

  Sinking into the couch I cradled Claire against me and tried to soothe her by rocking her back and forth. It broke my heart to hear her cry. To hear the way her gasping sobs choked out of her despite her best efforts to stifle them.

  I wanted to be here for her. She needed to know that I wasn’t running away, and this wasn’t just a physical boyhood crush. I needed her to know that, and so I stayed and rocked her without saying a word.

  What she needed was a safe place where she could let her guard down, not somebody asking if she was okay - clearly, she wasn’t - or offering her empty platitudes.