Page 84 of Shortcake
We hung up and I looked up at Addy as she crawled across the couch toward me. “Sixteen minutes,” she repeated, with a tug on the drawstring of my pants. “I can work some magic in sixteen minutes.”
And holy fuck, was it magical.
ChapterFifteen
Addy
I dreamt about Conrad Meyer every night for the past week. Not even my cold shower this morning could calm my hormones down. After almost two weeks of nonstop, secret hookups, this week was a series of unfortunate timing.
We were passing ships all week. I was usually already at the bar, working by the time he got home from his shifts. I even tried to wake up early this morning to start the coffee maker before he went for his six a.m. run. Unfortunately, after I filled the paper filter with fresh grounds and pressed start, I fell back asleep on the couch and found an adorable love note tucked into my hands from Conrad.
Thank you for the coffee. Sorry I missed you. Save Saturday brunch for me, okay?
Truthfully, I was grateful to cancel my brunch plans with Enzo and Haylee. After learning that Haylee had met with my sister on Zoom, I hadn’t quite sorted out my feelings about that yet. And I didn’t want to talk to her before I was ready and say something I didn’t mean and couldn’t take back.
I tended to do that when I was emotional.
Just ask Finn, Neil, and Liam. I’d had, on multiple occasions, told them I wish they’d never been born or that we weren’t siblings. I never meant it once I cooled off… and thank God they knew me well enough to not let my outbursts affect them anymore.
Butstill. It was a character flaw that I was working hard on fixing. And the only way I knew to avoid it was to not put myself in the situation to talk before I was ready and had fully worked out the script of what to say in my head.
On my way to the bar that night, I texted Enzo and Haylee asking to cancel our monthly Saturday morning brunch.
I didn’t feel too badly about ditching them for a guy. We used to do brunch weekly. Then they each got boyfriends and it shifted to monthly. Since then, we’d been doing this brunch almost every month and never once had I canceled on them before, even though they had both ditched me for Simon and Finn on more than one occasion.
Unfortunately, their texts came in rapid fire with all the speculations asking why I was canceling and if I was okay. And after the tenth question came through giving me the third degree trying to find out why I was canceling our plans, I stopped answering them altogether, silencing my phone and shoving it into my back pocket and fully immersing myself into work at the bar.
Two hours later, I was bussing tables and cleaning up amidst the insanely busy crowd while Tim managed the karaoke, and Keith was taking orders behind the bar. I had to admit, for not owning the place very long, the crowd was bigger and busier than I’d ever seen it.
My county fair-winning watermelon gazpacho didn’t hurt and neither did my strawberry shortcake cream puffs.
“Addy!” I looked up to see Marty, one of my mom’s friends, come in on a date with her boyfriend, Chris. Although, the word ‘boyfriend’ felt a little trite for their relationship. Maybe partner was the better term. “Please tell me you have the cream puffs left,” she pleaded, grabbing one of the open high tops I’d just cleaned. “Elsa was in earlier and told me they were to die for.”
“You’re in luck,” I said. “I’ve got one more left, if you don’t mind sharing.”
Chris, or rather, Dr. Foster gave her a kiss on the nose. “We don’t mind.”
“Then it’s yours.” Smiling, I plated the final cream puff and dropped it off at their table. Then I pulled my phone out to post on social media that we were officially sold out.
Note to self, make the cream puff more often.
When I swiped up to open my phone, I was met with dozens of texts. Some from the group chat with Enzo and Haylee. Some from just Enzo. Some from just Haylee.
4:02 p.m. Haylee: Are you okay?
4:17 p.m. Enzo: You’ve been quiet lately.
4:59 p.m. Haylee: Speaking of quiet…
5:27 p.m. Haylee: Helloooo, Earth to Addy.
5:43 p.m. Enzo: We’re just worried.
6:05 p.m. Haylee: Addy, are you mad?
6: 19 p.m. Haylee: Please, talk to me. Whatever it is, I can’t stand the radio silence.
6:35 p.m. Haylee: If you don’t text us back, I swear to God I’m coming down to the bar to talk this out there.
