“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.