Sweet Cheeks (40 page)

And in this chaos, I can finally think. I can figure out which of the two ovens in the brochures on my couch I need and how I can make the monthly payments. I can avoid the looks by my brother downstairs who keeps shaking his head, asking me how I let this happen even though he knows I had no part in it. I can fight the humiliation over the newest round of insults printed. The ones about how I
supposedly
squirrelled away Mitch’s money—without him knowing—and opened the bakery of my dreams before dumping him at the altar.

Twisted lies. Mistruths believed by the masses.

I look to the vase of black roses on my table. My lovely gift from a Hayes admirer who threatened me for stealing him away from Jenna. They reflect the bazillion comments on social media this morning when I pulled on my big girl panties and decided to log on and brave the storm to see how bad it was. Cruel is an understatement. So I kept the flowers—despite Ryder begging me to throw them away—as a subtle reminder of the crazy I’m stepping into with Hayes.
If I step into it
.

So I woke this morning wearing the T-shirt he snuck in my suitcase—his welcome scent still lingering on it—before changing so I could bake to avoid my new unwanted reality. More importantly, to have the time to wallow in the empty ache in my heart that’s been burning a hole there over the past twenty-four hours.

I marvel at how the trip to Turks and Caicos was a mere four days and yet they felt like a lifetime with Hayes. How the heart can remember what the mind chooses to erase. How Hayes and I reconnected and slid into being an
us
without either of us discussing it. Void of overthinking. And how it just felt right.

Was it because we’ve technically spent more than half our lives together so the transition was seamless? Or was it because our hearts recognized our first love deserved a second chance?

Out of everything owning my thoughts, my mind keeps coming back to that.

But then I hear the noise of reporters in the bakery float up the open stairwell. The door is ajar so I can take the cupcakes down to cool quicker in the refrigerated case before frosting them. And then start the process all over again from behind the scenes while DeeDee and Ryder take care of the customers. The customers that have since doubled now that I’m back in town from my
secret rendezvous
with Hayes.

So up here is where I choose to stay. Away from the prying eyes and crazy assumptions of the assholes and their cameras and the looky-loos suddenly having an urge to buy a cupcake when they’ve passed by every other day of their commute.

And I bake. For the increased demand. To lose myself in my thoughts. To combat missing Hayes. To forget that if I opt to be with him, the two-dozen reporters outside might be my everyday norm.

The day drags on. I shower after my twelfth batch of the morning, then force myself to put on makeup and look presentable just to prove to myself that I can function if Hayes isn’t in the picture.

Yet I’m miserable. I hold his T-shirt to my nose and breathe in his scent. It makes me miss him more but also brings me a sense of calm.

And I wonder why I’m pulling the stubborn card and not talking to him.
Is it stubbornness or resilience?
If I talk to him, this craziness around us will disintegrate and I’ll only see him.
Us
.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that tells me he’s all I need, and if I’m with him, then the outside noise doesn’t matter.

But life can’t be spent joined at the hip with your lover. What happens when he goes on location for weeks on end or is so busy filming we see each other only in passing? There would be no blinders then. There would be no Hayes to shield me from the mistruths being said.
The lies being spun about once a cheater always a cheater
. Can I handle that? The curious reporter wandering into Sweet Cheeks to try and get an inside scoop on Hayes Whitley?
On me?

And hell, just because he was talking about ten years from now, that doesn’t mean us being together is a given. So why am I worried about forever when I can’t even give him today? Shouldn’t I take one day at a time, and see from there?

“Oh my God,” I groan with a shake of my head. I’m becoming one of those sappy, wishy-washy women I swore I’d never be. The one I’d roll my eyes at and tell to suck it up when she acts like it’s a problem to have a man in love with her who wants to make it work regardless of the outside influences.

I’ll give myself a few more days to see how long this kind of attention and chaos lasts. It’s weird how I’ve lived so long without him but in this short span of time, not having him with me feels empty, sad, and lonely. I’ve been through this before and don’t ever want to feel this way again.

This is more than missing him. This is knowing that without him I’m incomplete, as if half my soul is adrift.

“Saylor. You need to come down here,” Ryder’s voice calls up the stairs and every part of me bucks at the idea.

“What is it?”

“You need to get your ass down here to see for yourself.”

With resignation but grateful that I actually look presentable, I trudge down the stairs, my posture defensive, my attitude sucky.

“Ry? What is it?” I ask as I swing around the corner and almost run smack dab into the backside of a burly guy in the back area between the stairs to my studio and the bakery’s kitchen space. About the same time he mutters an apology, it dawns on me what he’s moving.

“What is this?” I look over to Ryder standing on the other side of the brand new, shiny, stainless steel baker’s dream of an oven that’s being maneuvered into the space.

“It’s a Baxter Rotating Rack Oven.”

“I know what it is.” I laugh feeling flustered as I stare mesmerized at the oven of my dreams. “I’m just trying to figure out how they’re delivering it to the wrong place.”

The guys moving it stop at my words and one of them pulls out paperwork from his back pocket. “Says right here: For one Ms. Saylor Rodgers, Sweet Cheeks CupCakery with a huge
paid in full
next to your name.”

Startled, I look over to Ryder who just shrugs with a slight smirk playing the corner of his lips, eyes narrowed as if he’s trying to figure out where it came from. A part of me knows the answer before I even ask to see the paperwork. And when I do, I know I’m right. That familiar signature I’ve known ever since he’d scribble on my homework to piss me off in high school. Then there’s the handwritten note next to the name.

She’ll argue or refuse to accept it. Don’t listen to her!

Hayes

I want to strangle him.

Gritting my teeth, I huff out in frustration although the scowl on my lips is betraying me and beginning to turn up at the corners. I look at Ryder. “Did you know?”

“No clue but by the look on your face I can guess who it’s from.”

“The asshole.” The comment is halfhearted and lacking any conviction. How can it when Hayes just purchased the Ferrari of ovens for me?

“Hmm. Definite asshole,” Ryder murmurs with a shake of his head and a half-cocked smile.

“Guess that’s his way of getting me to call him, huh?”

Each ring of the phone feels like an eternity. I’m irritated, grateful, confused, and overwhelmed over how he could buy me something so extraordinary—something that costs as much as a car—when I’ve pushed him away.

“
Ships
?”

“It’s too much. Thank you, but I can’t accept it.”

“Then I can’t accept you saying you need time and being away from me.”

His words warm so many parts of me. The parts that ache from missing him. The pieces that fear a love this strong. The unknown still swirling around us.

The want to know he thinks I’m worth fighting for.

My sigh must tell him how hard this is for me because he allows the silence for a moment. Knowing me like he does, he allows me time to process how far apart we feel right now, which makes me miss him even more.

“It’s only been forty-eight hours, and I miss you.” My statement is simple. The break in my voice reflects my struggle, the toll it’s taken and how hard it is to admit.

“I know. Me too. I’ve bought a plane ticket home a hundred times in my head today.”

“I can’t accept the oven, Hayes. It’s way too much.”

“But you asked for time, and I’m trying to give it to you even though it’s killing me not to be there with you,” he says right over me, ignoring my refusal of the oven.

“Hayes, you’re not listening to me.”

“I’m listening. I’m choosing
not
to hear you.”

My smile is instantaneous. The memories of how frustrated I used to feel when he used to use that defense with me when we were younger.

“I know you’re smiling, Ships. I can hear it through the line.”

“Maybe.”

“And I bet you’re rubbing your ear right now like you do when you have things you want to say but don’t know how to say them.”

His words make me lower my fingers immediately from their place on my ear. I hate and love that he knows me this well. Is it any wonder, despite the current chaos, I still love him?

“Perhaps.”

“Ah, so that means I’m right because you always give one-word answers when you don’t want to admit things.”

“Possibly.” He says the word the same time I do and we both laugh.

“See? I know you, Saylor Rodgers. Everything about you. And what I missed during those ten years without you, I want to spend time learning.”

My eyes well with tears and I can’t figure out how this conversation I wanted to have about how he can’t buy me a shiny new oven turned into him showing exactly how much he knows about me.

“You there?”

“Yeah.”

“You scrunching up that freckled nose of yours? Upset that the man you’re so madly in love with and you
need space from
has already helped you forget all the bullshit of the last few days with a simple conversation?”

I close my eyes and slump against the wall. His words weave into those holes I’ve worried into my heart over the past few days—the ones I know I’m stupid for having because he’s right. It’s been a few minutes, and he’s proven to me how, when I’m connected to him, I
can
handle everything else.

“Hayes.”
I love you. I’m sorry. I miss you. You’re right.

But nothing comes out, because maybe I’m scared. Maybe what I feel is so damn strong, which explains why I’m hesitating even though every single part of me is telling me to go full steam ahead. Maybe that’s why I can’t tell him to get here as soon as he can.

“Agreed,” he murmurs, followed by a chuckle that’s both seductive and heartwarming. “I agree to everything you just thought but didn’t say out loud. But, no.
Not yet
. You said you needed space.
Time
. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. So I’m going to give them to you, Saylor. Ten days to be exact. Two hundred forty hours where you can’t talk to me.” He pauses momentarily. “Fourteen thousand, four hundred minutes—yes,
don’t laugh
, I just had to do that math on my calculator—of time where I’m going to prove to you why you can’t live without me. Why the stories and tabloids don’t mean shit. And how public opinion can be turned when you try hard enough.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes.
I do
. This is as much my fault as it is Jenna’s. I’ve had a lot of time to think since a certain someone won’t return my calls, and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe I let it happen. Maybe I pushed Jenna’s buttons to prove a point.
I
was too selfish thinking about how badly I wanted to shut her up and figure out how to seduce you, to know what it would feel like to sleep with you again, that I didn’t give a thought about how she could retaliate. So, I’m sorry, Saylor. I fucked up. I played right into the studio’s game and perfectly into Jenna’s hand. So forgive me if I’m taking the reins when it comes to us, but I’m not taking a chance on this outcome. I’m giving you my A-game . . . I just hope you can handle it.”

I feel like I haven’t taken a breath during his entire speech. My chest burns and my heart hopes. My mind races with possibility while my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Hayes Whitley just told me he loves me
. I know he didn’t say the three little words, but he said them nonetheless.

“What if I already know—?”

“Nope. Don’t say it. Words are cheap. Action is everything. Ten days, Saylor. Ten days and then I’ll listen to you all you want. Until then, once this conversation is over, mum’s the word since day one starts now.”

My laughter sounds like relief. My heart feels content, which is different from two days ago where I felt lost, confused, exposed, and betrayed. We had both needed this time to evaluate what was real and what was not, and I’m so incredibly thankful we both concluded the same thing.
That we wanted there to be an us.
And yet I can’t resist . . .

“And what if your A-game is not strong enough to win me over?” I know he can hear the playfulness in my voice and that I’m throwing down a challenge.

“It’s good enough, sweetheart. Just you wait and see.”

“I’m a tough girl to please.”

He laughs again. The kind that warms my soul and makes me feel a little steadier in this world of chaos swirling around us.