Sweet Cheeks(100)

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.