Against my better judgment, I checked my phone again and noticed that most of the posting dates weren’t more than a few hours old. Somehow that felt even worse. She must have sent them to somebody to post, which felt like an even greater betrayal of trust somehow.
Was I just blowing it all out of proportion, was I getting mad over nothing?
Sure didn’t feel like that. She’d tricked me. That was what hurt most of all. Claire tricked me. Was she even interested in all those questions she asked? Was it some elaborate game to her to get more likes and fake internet points so the business would get some viral marketing?
The least she could have done was tell me about it afterward, give me the final choice on what to do with it.
I would have been upset, but I would have seen reason. At least, I liked to think I would have. Even now, my rational mind found it hard to argue with the results. Just hours after being posted, hundreds of comments wanted to know where the shop was so they could see it firsthand.
Of course, most of them wanted to see me. Then there were the inevitable cruel comments, the ones objectifying me like a piece of meat, those that ridiculed the whole thing, and much worse.
And hundreds of memes. God, so many gifs and images with captions like, “I’d let him drizzle me with frosting” and, “He can pound my dough any day.”
I was a maelstrom of emotion when Claire sleepily sauntered into the kitchen, wearing my oversized sweater and nothing else.
She scrubbed half-heartedly at one eye and it was hard to stay mad. I just wanted to get up and hug her, to feel the comfort of her arms around me and her head on my chest.
Except it was her that made me feel this way in the first place.
“Everything okay?” she asked, finally noticing I hadn’t made breakfast and I was sitting at the table alone. The slight, worried quaver in her voice sapped the remaining anger I had.
The rest of my bad feelings evaporated. I put on a small smile and rounded the table to wrap my arms around her.
I wouldn’t let this get to me. Sure, I was upset. But the vulnerability in Claire’s voice shut down any thought of even raising my voice at her over what happened.
I’ll get it out on my run, I told myself. Vent my frustrations through exercise. “Yeah,” I told her with an extra squeeze. “C’mere and I’ll show you how I make eggs.”
“I don’t know how to make eggs.” Just a hint of an adorable whine.
“That’s exactly why I’m going to teach you. Everybody should learn how to make eggs.”
21
Claire
I spent every moment I could get with Thomas, which was never enough. I saw how hard he worked and how good he was with the customers. Something was bothering him, eating away at him bit by bit. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, he thought I didn’t see it but it was plain as day.
Was it because I didn’t say I loved him back? Or was it some other hurt that he didn’t want to burden me with? The business was picking up, day by day new orders were coming in. Online sales were booming, which was good because I didn’t have much time to manage his social media accounts.
I hadn’t even checked them since the night I sent over all the images to be uploaded across the various accounts. Aubrey had said she’d set them up to trickle-in over the week so it looked like we were posting daily.
What I did pay attention to was the sale volume and the number of new faces that began to show up in Sunrise Valley.
It didn’t escape my notice how many seemed absolutely smitten with him. We all know that sex sells, but I didn’t think it’d sell this much. Or make me this uncomfortable.
Hard to argue with the results, though.
More than once Thomas got a little defensive about it, insisting it was the quality of the goods and not himself that was the main draw. Still, he reassured me that I was the only girl for him. The thought that I was his girlfriend still sent a jolt of pleasure through me that radiated out to my fingers and toes.
Not to mention decidedly more fun places.
Every moment we could sneak away to hold each other close we took. It felt like we were back in high school stealing kisses in the hallway with our locker doors swung out, blocking our indiscretions so the teachers wouldn’t catch us.
I loved it, even as we got busier with our respective duties we always had time for each other. Sometimes all we had that day was a home-cooked breakfast and a decidedly steamy nightcap before bed.
Sunrise Valley was becoming more of a home to me than it ever had before and I didn’t know how I should feel about that. My thoughts chased back onto themselves like a dog at its tail. Why was I working a job I enjoyed the challenge of but didn’t care about the reward?
Here I could make a difference. I could change something that would have meaning. It wouldn’t pad another CEO’s bonus while they continued to pay their workers as little as humanly possible.
This place could be home again. Not just mine, but for so many other people who have given up and lost hope. People who Beth preyed on, leveraging that fear and worry of an uncertain future to sell their hopes and dreams.
Did it matter that her mysterious buyer was paying above-market? Not one bit. You can’t put a price on a dream, on a legacy you want to pass down through your family.
We’d both been busy the last few days. Thomas with running his bakery with all its new customers, and me with my dad’s funeral preparations, Jemma’s arrival, memorial scheduling, and organizing some help for the next stage of our business partnership.
After dealing mostly with local places and businesses over the course of the last few days it was a frustrating reminder of how different businesses in New York and elsewhere were run. Scheduling was an ever-evolving beast that changed at a moment’s notice.
I was playing phone tag with another consultant, a marketing savant, and a financial analyst that was short-listed for a VP position I’d helped him secure. All of which were integral for the plans I had hoped to enact.
Unfortunately, any potential dates were at least a month out before I could cobble together a meeting of any kind. Their initial responses were hopeful. It was an interesting business proposition, to say the least, but one that I knew I could only pull off if I had their support.
It was a plan I didn’t dare tell Thomas about. It was too ambitious, too big, and I feared the weight of it wouldn’t sit well with him.
Besides, something was still eating at him. Without much time to talk between our trysts and stolen moments, I chalked it up to the increased workload and unfamiliarity with new customers.
Not that he was by any means weak or unable to shoulder the burden. I didn’t want it to distract him from doing what he was “on the ground” as it were.
And if the deal went through and I couldn’t get the help or funds I needed to steer Sunrise Valley away from the brink, then he wouldn’t get his hopes up for nothing. I don’t know if I could handle disappointing him like that.
There was a sneaking suspicion in my gut that told me I was wrong for not including him. That he deserved to know, but I pushed it down the best I could.
I trusted Thomas, I really did. What use was there in worrying him about a plan that quite honestly didn’t have much room for success?
I still hadn’t found out who Beth’s mysterious buyer was, and since I’d effectively burned that bridge there wasn’t any use asking the woman herself.
Quite frankly, it didn’t really matter. They could do whatever they wanted with the property and there wasn’t much I could do about it unless I found some ordinance or bylaw in the charter that prevented something like this.
Fat chance, I thought sourly laying in Thomas’ bed late that night after he’d gone to sleep. His solid, comforting arm wrapped around me securely. I idly ran my fingers over his knuckles thinking about the past week.
There was a solidness to Thomas that I never appreciated before. It was the sort of stability wild, rebellious girls realize they wanted all
along. A guy who will be there to weather any storm, to stand by your side and prop you up when you get knocked down.
I wanted to be that for Thomas too.
Lately it seemed he was always the one comforting me. He’d find me teary-eyed from some trigger that brought out a memory of Dad, and his massive arms would crush me to his chest. I’d feel safe. Like I could finally breathe.
“Grief is not weakness,” he said to me. He had found me out of bed in the middle of the night staring out the rain-spattered window in the living room. “It’s just love that has nowhere to go. Don’t shut yourself down to it, Claire.”
Naturally, that made me cry for the next hour straight until I was blowing my nose like a foghorn. Even in those moments, when I was the least beautiful I could be, he looked at me with such burning passion and love.
He took me there and then on the narrow windowsill, my ass pressed against the cold glass. It was a worrying trend of mine to use sex to disguise vulnerability. Whenever I felt low, I craved his touch. The smell of him, the taste of him.
It was a drug I used to numb the pain and uncertainty. In that moment of climax, we were together, my body melting into his until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
I wanted him more and more, and yet I still couldn’t tell him I loved him. The way he yearned for me, hungered for any and every touch made the words bubble up to my lips but I could never get them out.
I was growing increasingly unsure I could ever reciprocate his feelings. Not the unconditional love he radiated.
Even Jemma could see it, which was saying something. I loved him, but it wasn’t enough. And I knew it wasn’t enough because I couldn’t get him to confide in me.
Something in me just wasn’t enough for what Thomas needed, but in my selfishness I didn’t have the guts to say anything about it. I needed him, and because I needed him a part of me wanted to keep him around.
The sex was amazing, that alone would make me want to stay in the relationship but I knew something was off. Like he was seeing what I had to give and realized it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I didn’t want to lose our friendship, not when we’d just gotten it back.
I laid my hand across Thomas’ and tried to go back to sleep. I’m not sure how long I laid there before I finally gave up and slipped out of bed. Immediately I felt like I was dunked into the arctic.
The freezing rain of Sunrise Valley had come early this year. It made me nostalgic for the days of playing in the snow and when Jemma and I used to hose down the driveway hoping the cold would freeze it overnight so we could play on it in the morning.
Without Thomas’ heat, I felt even more alone. I couldn’t give him up, and I couldn’t love him the way he loved me.
In short, I was a mess. Slipping on my favorite sweater of his, I padded barefoot to the hallway closet off the living room to find a blanket to wrap myself in.
Instead, I found a mangled pile of silver-streaked blue metal and shiny spokes bent at awkward angles. The bike. The light turned on with a simple tug on the string and I bent down to get a better look.
Normally, a bike wouldn’t fit into a hallway closet. But it was so bent up and mangled that it fit rather neatly. I caught a glimpse of a faded Nirvana sticker and my breath caught in the back of my throat.
A chill of certainty dripped down my spine. I knew that bike. It had seen better days, but I knew it. I had given it to Thomas for this seventeenth birthday.
Why had he kept it? I shut the light off and flopped down on the couch, looking back at the hall to Thomas’ room. Beyond the oddity that he had kept it well into his adulthood, he kept it even after it was destroyed.
The thing was junk metal.
Yeah, which you made.
I cringed a little at the memory of meeting Thomas again for the first time, running over his bike - and nearly the man himself - in the dark of Main Street. Now that I thought about it, did he even have a car? I only saw him walk places.
Sunrise Valley was small enough that you could, so I just assumed he liked to be green about things and go everywhere on foot. But that probably wasn’t it.
He walks on foot because you destroyed his bike.
It was the truth, no matter how much I didn’t want to look at it. What’s more, it must have been important to him. Which only made me feel worse. The depths of feeling Thomas had for me was well-hidden, but every so often I snuck a glance and saw how far down it truly ran.
It scared me. It thrilled me. It made me want to run and it made me want to leap on him and rip his clothes off.
I was hardly ready to commit to the vaguely defined relationship we had right now. I didn’t know if I was going to go back to New York or stay here and work remotely, flying or traveling to clients as needed. Jessie worked like that and it seemed to work out okay for her.
She was also on her third husband, so maybe she wasn’t the model of relationship health I should be measuring myself against.
I’d barely settled in on the couch when I heard his heavy footfalls. That man slept lighter than a month-old baby. The slightest noise seemed to wake him up.
He ran his hand over his face, clad in only skimpy boxer briefs that showed every delicious curve and line of his body. Just enough mystery to spice the imagination, but not so much that you were left wondering for long.
Thomas caught my lewd grin and gave me a smirk in reply. The couch sagged with his weight beside me. “Everything okay?”
As always I leaned into him, comforted by his warmth and how solid he was. An arm wrapped around me.
I shook my head, unable to trust my voice. It felt like a lie. I wasn’t ready for his love. He was hiding something from me and it was hurting not just himself but me as well. I had to protect myself, but I didn’t want to lose him.
So I said nothing and let him hold me until I fell asleep against him.
22
Thomas
Something was up with Claire. I could tell by the way she looked at me when she didn’t think I could see. There was a flicker of distrust in her eyes, gone in a flash so quick that if I hadn’t seen it a few times already I’d have passed it off as nothing.
I really wanted to give her space, to let her come to me with whatever was wrong but I couldn’t find the words to put her at ease. We were both so busy and with Richard’s funeral coming up next week I couldn’t bring myself to put something more on her plate.
Claire was making all the plans, and I was catering the event in his honor. Even though Claire had hired professional caterers, I insisted on supplying the pastries. For Richard.
The stress was getting to her. She looked like she was ready to bolt at the first startling sound. Meanwhile, the bakery was picking up steam, we had more guests in Sunrise Valley in the last five days than I could remember in the last ten years. And I was often too busy or tired to give her the attention she deserved.
It tore me up inside. Made me angry with myself. But there were only so many hours in the day. I didn’t have the free time I had when we first started dating and didn’t know how to fix it. If only I could have added two hours to each day, maybe that’d be enough.
But I couldn’t, and I could feel the strain it placed on our relationship. She must be disappointed I’m so busy. I should be there for her more.
The prices had been raised as per Claire’s suggestion. They were still lower than what you might find in a trendy part of New York City, but they were far more than I used to price them.
As a way of saying thanks to the residents that kept my bakery afloat in the beginning, I started a sort of loyalty rewards system. Just about any and all regulars got a laminated card that took off most of the new increase in prices.
It was still more than before because as Claire had mentioned I was nearly in the red from those prices and it wasn’t a sustainable model. I had only lowered them because business had been so bad and it seemed to have helped.
Once again, Claire and her spreadsheets had pointed out the
flaw. In order to make a profit - and in turn keep the business running - I would need to sell six times the baked goods in most cases than if I raised the prices.
I was also devaluing my own time and energy. I was effectively paying my own salary below minimum wage at those prices. It took Claire walking through the entire supply chain to make me see the harm I was unwittingly doing to myself and the bakery.
Despite my disapproval of her methods, the social media push had gotten some decent exposure for the bakery. Most of them were younger girls who more than not gawked at me and asked if I could show them how I made the goods.
I got more than one scrawled phone number on a card or slip of paper. I stuffed them into the trash can below the register and forgot about them. There was already a girl in my life who I hoped wasn’t about to run out on me. Again.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much time for such bleak thoughts. I was busy from dawn to dusk.
I was on my way back from the grocery one night after work when I saw Jemma pull up in her hideous station wagon that was more rust than paint. It rattled and rumbled as she pulled up to the curb. “Hey, want a ride?” she asked.
Arms laden with groceries for the next few days and the sky a leaden gray that warned of a torrential downpour any moment, I would have been stupid to say anything but yes.
“Thanks,” I said tossing the bags in through the rear passenger window. Apparently, the door latch didn’t work from the outside. It started to rain just as I slipped into the seat and buckled up.
“Anything for my big sister’s new fling.”
I thought we were a little more than that but kept the thought to myself.
“So how’ve you been Thomas?” She slapped my thigh, a thinly disguised grope of the muscle beneath my jeans.
“Been good.”
“Just as chatty as ever.”
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