by Cameron Hart
The thing is, fuck that voice. Time to be me, bravely.
I reach out for his hand, squeezing it softly. His eyes dart down to our connected hands, as shock covers his features.
“It’s ok, Cooper. I forgive you.”
He heaves out a huge breath like he’s been holding it since I first called him three days ago.
Cooper lifts my hand to his lips and presses the softest kiss over my knuckles.
“Thank you, sweetness,” he whispers into the skin of my hand.
I try to fight my smile at his endearment, but I lose the battle. At least I succeed in rolling my eyes at him.
“So, what can I do to help?” He asks, letting go of my hand. I shove away the feeling of loss when we break contact.
“Really? Don’t you have work in a few hours? You should go home and sleep or something before you go to the office.”
“Nah, I took a few days off of work. I’m the least important brother, so it’s fine.” He winks at me, but I can tell he’s not entirely joking. It’s weird seeing him insecure about something. I don’t like it.
“I’m sure that’s not true. You have the ability to boost businesses by sending one article into circulation. I’m sure that kind of pull gets you pretty far in marketing, huh?” I tease. Or, at least I mean for it to just be a joke.
Cooper looks like I stabbed him in the gut.
“Hey, I was kidding,” I tell him. “Too soon?”
He quickly recovers, shaking his head and smiling. Yes, this is the Cooper I know. I don’t like it when he’s not smiling. I want him to always be happy around me. I try not to dwell on that thought for too long, however.
“If you’re serious about helping, you can clean up the front. Wipe down tables, sweep, clean out the bakery case. Then come back to me for your next assignment,” I wink at him.
He grins and snakes an arm around my waist. I gasp as he hauls me into his chest and tucks some hair that came out of my messy bun behind my ear.
“You’re bossy,” he says, smiling down at me.
“You like it,” I grin up at him. I can’t help it. That smile of his is contagious.
“Love that smile, sweetness,” he murmurs before kissing my forehead.
It’s such a tender moment. Tears threaten to spill out of my eyes, so I reel it in and shove off of him, swatting him in his chiseled chest and telling him to get to work.
The two of us actually do make a pretty good team, and I won’t lie, I like bossing him around. For one thing, it gives me immense joy to order around a six foot three wall of sexy man, and for another thing, it warms me up to see him working alongside me, looking to me for his next instruction. He’s certainly not the arrogant man I thought he was.
We get into a good rhythm, even after the shop opens. Cooper hops on register and picks everything up in no time. The morning rush comes and goes, and Cooper heads out to the lobby to clean up again.
The bell rings at the door, and I turn to see a delivery man walking through. I step out to sign for the package and offer the delivery guy a cookie on the house. I catch Cooper smiling at me and fight the blush that threatens to creep into my cheeks.
I take the package back to the counter and grab a box cutter. The return address isn’t one I recognize, but the package has my name right on the front.
Not the bakery name, but my name.
My stomach drops even before I open the package.
With shaky hands, I lift the flaps of the box and dig through the packing peanuts. My hands discover something soft. I pull out a stuffed bunny.
I drop it and sink to the floor, unable to breathe.
She found me. She knows where I live, where I work. She’s tormenting me, something she was always very skilled at.
“Sienna? Baby, what’s wrong?” Cooper sounds like he’s shouting at me underwater.
I can’t hear anything other than a high-pitched ringing in my ear and my frantic heartbeat. Everything goes blurry. I’m vaguely aware of a warmth pressing against me. Then I hear another heartbeat, steady, calming, grounding.
I come back into my body and realize Cooper is holding me in his lap and stroking my back. My face is pressed against his chest, my hand over his heart.
“You’re ok, I’ve got you, Sienna, I’m right here,” he whispers over and over.
I’m shaking all over, tears streaming down my face as I snot all over Cooper’s shirt. God, I’m a mess.
“Sorry,” I squeak out.
“What for, sweetness?” He asks, peeling me off of his chest.
I panic, like the stupid, weak little girl I am, and grab his shirt, pulling myself back into his warmth. I bury my face in the side of his neck because apparently I can’t function without being in his arms.
“It’s ok, sweetness, you’re ok,” he says, his hand moving up my back to massage my neck in calming circles.
Before I can process what’s happening, Cooper stands up with me in his arms. I cling to him as he pulls me closer. I should tell him I’m ok, that he needs to leave so I can pack up my life and get the hell out of Dodge. But the thought of leaving Cooper has a fresh wave of tears coating my lashes.
He carries me upstairs, where I forgot to lock the door to my apartment, and walks inside, setting me down on the couch. I still feel numb and in a state of shock and confusion as he leaves me for a second. Coldness sweeps through me when he’s no longer touching me.
And then he’s back at my side with a glass of water.
“I’m gonna go close up, ok? I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he says in a warm, calming voice.
I nod and curl up on the couch. Cooper looks so worried. Normally that would piss me off, but right now I just want someone to be with me, to tell me it’s going to be ok. He looks torn between hugging me again and going downstairs. Eventually, he kisses me on the temple and runs downstairs to lock up.
By the time he returns, I’ve gotten myself together a bit. I’m embarrassed that he saw me lose my shit. I have to put up a strong front and get him to go away. I can’t afford to get any closer to him if I’m just going to leave.
Cooper sits down next to me, but I refuse to look at him. He makes me feel so many vulnerable things, and right now, I need to be tough.
“Sienna,” he starts. “You want to tell me about this?”
I don’t mean to, but I look over at him. More specifically, I look over at the faded purple bunny he’s holding in his hand. It’s missing an eye and all of the stuffing in its left leg came out years ago. I grab the bunny and run my fingers over the thread-bare fabric of its belly, and then up to circle its cold, shiny nose.
Seeing the stuffed toy up close breaks something open deep inside of me. This bunny has soaked up so many of my tears. We moved from trailer to trailer together, endured drunken fights between mom and her boyfriends. We’ve suffered more than our fair share of bruises. It all comes bubbling up to the surface in this moment, the unfairness of it all, the secrets, the shame, the bitterness, the fear.
“This is Tulip,” I whisper. “I’ve had her since I was four.”
Chapter 6
Cooper
Sienna is lost in a memory as she toys with the purple bunny’s ears. She looks so fucking fragile right now, though I can tell she’s trying to be brave and detached. I have to know what the hell is going on, but I don’t want to push too hard and have her shut me out completely.
I wasn’t lying when I told her I’ve hardly slept the last few days without her. It took everything in me not to beat down her door and demand her to accept my apology. I figured that wouldn’t win me any points towards convincing her I’m not a steamrolling control freak.
I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t see Sienna this morning. Yeah, I’m exhausted, and I ache without her, but more than that, I was going out of my goddamn mind with worry. Thank fuck she saw something in my eyes when I apologized this morning. The way she looked at me, like no one had ever worried about her or cared about her… It just
about broke my heart. I want to know every single thing about her, why she has these walls, why she thinks she needs to push good things away. But I’ll settle for why an old stuffed bunny sent her into a tailspin.
The late morning sun steams through the window and lights up Sienna’s features in a warm glow. Her delicate brow furrows as she studies the stuffed toy in her hand. I want to ask her a million questions, but I don’t want to scare her off. Instead, I sit back and wait for her to gather her thoughts. I can only do so much to make her trust me. At some point she has to be the one to take the leap.
“This is Tulip,” she whispers. “I’ve had her since I was four.”
I lean closer but resist the urge to touch her. She needs space and I’ll try to give that to her. Hopefully my presence is enough to calm her, to make her trust that I’m here, that I’ll always be here for her.
“My mom…” she trails off and closes her eyes. I notice her fingers digging into the bunny as she grips it tightly. “I was an unwelcomed surprise when my mom was barely eighteen, and she never missed an opportunity to remind me of that. I was always too clingy, or too awkward, or too annoying. I was too much, always too much.”
Her voice is quiet and unsure. I’ve never seen her so vulnerable. This is Sienna with all of her walls down. This is her showing me all of her painful parts. I swear to fucking Christ I will cover her with my strength and protect her always. I’ll make sure she knows she’s not too much, that she’s perfect, and worthy, and mine.
“She resented that she had to spend money on me instead of drugs, though there were plenty of those around too,” Sienna continues, laughing bitterly. “And it’s not like she didn’t have her pick of men who wanted to load her up and use her body.”
There’s so much to unpack in those two sentences. I want to ask about the loser boyfriends, what the money situation was like, if she got enough to eat, if her friends or teachers knew about her home life, and if so, how the hell they could have let her stay there. I try not to say anything, but one question slips out of my mouth.
“Drugs?” I choke out.
Sienna nods. “Mostly fentanyl and oxy. Anything to make her pass out, you know?” She shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. Like it’s totally normal. I guess for her, it was. “Anyway. My mom might have hated me, but my Grams and I got along. Like I said, she taught me to bake. She was so patient with me, teaching me both the chemistry and the art behind baking. I used to spend weekends with her in San Francisco until my mom stole a bunch of jewelry from her. Our visits became less and less, and eventually she just sort of… I don’t know. We lost touch.”
Her shoulders sag. I can see it still hurts her to think about. Jesus, the one person she counted on, probably the only person who really knew what went on behind the closed doors of her home, abandoned her over some stupid family drama. No fucking wonder she doesn’t want to depend on anyone ever again.
Sienna is quiet for a few moments, her grip easing up on the stuffed toy ever so much. It seems once she actually started talking, it got easier for her to find the words.
“My high school graduation present was a mountain of debt from cards my mom took out in my name. I worked as many jobs as I could find trying to save up and get the fuck out of that shitty trailer, but it was on set back after another. When I turned nineteen, mom said I should have been paying rent since the moment I turned eighteen, so I owed her a year’s worth of back rent. I snuck out that night with what little money I had in tow, but she caught me. Or, well, her boyfriend, Derek, caught me. Broke my arm so I couldn’t waitress for a few weeks. I lost that job and got stuck renting my room in the trailer.”
“Jesus,” I grunt, trying to swallow down the string of curse words and death threats just on the tip of my tongue.
Every muscle in my body tenses as my veins fill with more rage than I knew I was capable of. I’m the chill brother, the easy-going brother, the one who cracks a joke and breaks the tension. But hearing Sienna talk about her childhood, her manipulative mother, and now some fucker laying hands on her? All of my calmness is gone. I want to make him pay for what he did. I don’t just want to physically fuck him up, I want to ruin him and anyone else who caused Sienna harm.
Taking a deep breath, I scrub my hands down my face and try to focus on my kitten. I still don’t know the connection between what she’s told me and that bunny she’s currently petting absent-mindedly in her lap. Right now, she looks like a little kid again. Scared and lost and clinging on to some semblance of safety and familiarity.
“A few months later, I got a letter requesting my presence at the reading of Deborah Carmichael’s will.”
I raise an eyebrow at her.
“My Grams,” she whispers. Sienna turns her head and I pretend not to see her wiping a tear from her eye. Soon my girl won’t be shy about showing me all of her emotions, but for now, I can give her some privacy.
She clears her throat and continues on. “Turns out Grams left me everything. Her house, her savings, all of it. There was a letter for me, too, she…” Sienna stops short, like she suddenly revealed too much. “Anyway. The point is that Grams left it all to me. It was enough money to move across the country and start a new life. I knew right away I’d open a bakery and I always wanted to live in New York.
“I spent the next few months dealing with my grandma’s estate, working with the lawyer, researching and trying to make well-informed choices when I sold the house and her things. I thought I was being careful with my outings and my phone calls, but mom’s boyfriend found out.”
“This the same dead man who broke your arm?” I growl.
Sienna raises her eyebrows in shock, like she can’t believe someone is upset on her behalf.
“Uh, yeah. Derek. At first, they were really sweet. Too sweet. I didn’t know they knew about the money at the time, but Derek and my mom were being so nice to me and I guess… I don’t know, I guess some stupid part of me wanted to believe maybe my mom loved me after all and that we could be a family. Pathetic, right? I was even considering moving them out here with me.”
God, I want to touch her so bad right now. I want to hold her and shield her and love her in all of the ways she’s never been loved before. I hate her mom, though I will always be grateful she gave Sienna life.
“You’re not stupid or pathetic. Everyone needs love, sweetness. Especially those of us who went without it for so long.”
“But I had nineteen years of experience showing me that I’m unlovable. How did I not put two and two together? They just so happen to start being nice to me once I became worth three-hundred and fifty thousand dollars? I mean, fuck. Wait. You said us?”
“Huh?”
“You said, ‘those of us that went without it for so long.’”
“I did, didn’t I. I want to tell you everything about me, and I will, in time. Right now I need to know why this bunny made my kitten cry.”
Her lip ticks up just a little bit in one corner, helping to ease the tension a bit.
“It’s not so much the bunny, but what it represents.”
“Oh, great, that answers all of my questions,” I say sarcastically.
She glares at me and hits me in the chest with the stuffed toy, grinning the whole time. I grab the bunny and pull Sienna into me, wrapping her up in my arms and kissing the top of her head. God, it feels good having her here. The best part is, she doesn’t fight me. Not one bit. In fact, she sighs and snuggles closer.
“I heard my mom and Derek talking one morning when they thought I was still asleep. Mom was saying how she was going to take me out for a girls night and get me drunk and ask for a bunch of money. I was so pissed and, and, and… just fucking furious with myself for falling for their shit.”
She’s shaking in my arms, and what she doesn’t say is that she was more than pissed, more than furious. She was cut deep and it hurt more than she wants to admit, maybe even more that she’s able to realize right now.
“I decided enough was enough. I
booked a flight for New York then and there. When I refused to go out with my mom and instead started packing, she sort of… she sort of went ape shit on me.”
“What did she do, sweetness?”
“It doesn’t matter. She just made it clear she’d get the money from me one way or another.”
I squeeze her tightly and drop another kiss on top of her head. “It matters, baby. You matter. Tell me what happened.”
I need to know the extent of what I’m dealing with here so I know how best to protect her and her business. I also need to know the damage that was done to Sienna. Despite her wanting to be strong and write her mother off, I know from personal experience that words and actions from parents hold so much more weight than those of others. Whatever her mother did and said cause some scars, whether she’s willing to acknowledge them or not.
“She just… Cooper, I’ve never seen her like that. I don’t even know how to describe it. She was unhinged. Rabid. Literally clawing at me and ripping my clothes off. At some point Derek grabbed a knife. There was so much yelling. Sienna, you selfish cunt, you owe me for your life. Ungrateful bitch. Stupid whore. Worthless piece of garbage…”
Sienna sniffles into my chest as my heart is torn in fucking two for my girl. I’m more determined than ever to shatter those lies and build her back up. I’ll tell her every day how strong and precious she is to me.
“My mom told me if I wouldn’t give her the money, she’d kill me and it would all default to her since she’s my only living relative. I don’t know if I believe she’d actually do that, or if she can even get it together enough to form any sort of plan, but Derek is no fool. He’s more capable than people give him credit for.
“I relented and told them I needed a few days to finish up liquidating the assets or some legal bullshit mumbo jumbo I heard the estate lawyer say. In a show of good faith, I gave my mom five-thousand dollars that night, knowing she’d use it to get super fucked up. When her and Derek passed out, I left for the airport and never looked back. They don’t know where I went, and I’ve been trying to keep a low profile this last year. I should have just disappeared and taken some waitressing job or something, but I just… I wanted to open a bakery. I wanted to do something with my life that I could be proud of, you know?”