Bright Smile & London Eye (Walker Brothers #2)

3. Chapter Three - Lexie

Lexie

Ever since that morning last week, Jackson comes by the bakery at the exact same time. At first, we’d only exchanged friendly nods, but when I noticed his longing look at the mug of coffee I had in my hand, I started having one for him ready as well.

We barely exchanged words. Only sitting in silence and enjoying our coffee, before he’d thank me for the coffee, try to hand me money for it that I kept waving off and leave.

“Did your crush come by again?” Bailey asks me as he arrives at Books and Bake, his hair tousled from the wind outside. He throws his bag into a corner on his side of the store before leaning his elbows on the bakery counter and batting his eyelids.

“Of course he did,” Alan shouts from the back, making Bailey burst into a chuckle, and I shake my head at the two of them.

“I don't have a crush,” I scold them and throw a piece of dough at Bailey, who evades it masterfully, then picks it up off the ground. “That’d be like having a crush on you. ” I point at Bailey and visibly shudder and make a gagging sound. “Just no.”

“Of course you don’t. Sorry, I forgot that no one can compare to Mr. Perfect Fiancé.” He throws the piece of dough back at me, and I catch it easily, putting it in the bin.

“Although I have to say, visually?” Bailey whistles and fans himself with his hand. “Listen, I’m straight, but for him?”

I shake my head at him. He’s not completely wrong. Both are attractive in their own way, both tall with broad shoulders and a disarming smile—Derek, with his buzz cut that makes his blue eyes and cheekbones pop, and then there’s Jackson with his long, curly hair and chocolate brown eyes.

As for personalities, I don’t even know Jackson, apart from the fact that he takes his coffee black. What I do know, though, is that Derek is a jackpot as far as fiancés go.

“The stranger is definitely hotter!” Bailey teases, and I'm just about to scold him when the little bell above the door rings and the first customer of the day struts in, making me freeze in my tracks before putting on my service-personality.

But I shoot him a glare, and when the customer is browsing the display with his back facing me, I stick out my tongue at Bailey, making him crack up silently.

It's almost noon when the day suddenly takes a turn.

During weekdays, there's usually a lull in customers just before noon. Everyone has gotten their breakfast order, but it’s still too early for the lunch rush. We usually take the slow hour to restock and get everything ready for it.

So I look up, startled, when the bell above the door announces a customer.

"Hi there!" I greet before I stare, dumbfounded.

The woman who just walked in is just strikingly beautiful—long blonde hair falling over her shoulders in artificial curls and a summer dress that makes her look like she’s just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Her eyes are hidden by big sunglasses, but despite the shades, I can see that she has a model face.

“Hi. I'm looking for Lexie,” she says, her voice sounding slightly hoarse.

Huh? My eyebrows knit together in surprise, and from the corner of my eye, I can see Bailey turning to us. Who is that? A friend of Jackson? Maybe his girlfriend. They look like they come from the same planet of beautiful people.

“That’s me,” I say, straightening my back and putting down the pastries I was just arranging in the display case to free my hands. “How can I help you?”

The woman tenses, then clears her throat, her hands scrunching the fabric of her dress, and rubbing it between her fingers. She’s nervous. Why would someone looking for me be nervous?

She pauses before lifting a hand to take off her sunglasses, folding and unfolding them nervously, and I'm even more confused when I see her red and puffy eyes. It looks like she’s been crying.

“Is everything okay?” I ask worriedly, my fingers subconsciously digging into the wooden counter. Anxiety makes all my muscles tense as I try to think of any scenario that would warrant this woman to look for me, all kinds of questions running through my head at lightning speed. Is there a problem with my visa?

“Is everything okay?” Bailey shouts from his side of the store, and I give him a small shoulder shrug, not taking my eyes off the woman whose hands are now starting to shake. She hurriedly crosses her arms in front of her chest, hiding her hands in the creases of her elbows.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammers, and I see her fingers digging into her skin, her nails leaving moon shaped marks. She has avoided looking at me the whole time, but now her eyes are turned right at me as she takes a deep breath.

“I think my boyfriend is your fiancé.”

The world freezes, just like my blood in my veins. That can’t be.

“What?” I stammer, my mind going completely blank. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“My boyfriend,” she repeats, looking at the ceiling as she blinks away tears. “I’m Derek’s girlfriend.”

Shock washes over me like an ice-cold wave, and I look at her with wide eyes.

“What the fuck?”

Bailey walks over, stopping next to the woman. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears again, and honestly, I am too. I don’t know what to feel. Anger? Betrayal? Sadness? All wash over me in hot flashes and I don’t even know how to breathe anymore.

“Come with me,” Bailey says, quickly running behind the counter and grabbing me by the elbow to lead me away. “Dad, you need to take over!”

I follow Bailey, completely numb. This is a dream, right? I’m going to wake up any minute, in Derek’s warm arms, and all of this will have been just a nightmare. I’m going to tell him about it when I return tonight and we’re going to have a good laugh about it.

Right?

Bailey nudges me and I sit down when I feel one of his armchairs at the back of my legs.

Fuck. This feels very real. Too real to be a nightmare.

From the corner of my eyes, I see the woman sit down opposite me, Bailey staying right between the two of us. Whether it’s for emotional support or because he fears I might scratch her eyes out, I don’t know.

“What’s your name?” he asks her softly, and I fight the urge to snap at him. Who gives a fuck about her name right now?

“Olivia,” she mumbles, clutching her bag to her chest, and I startle when I realize she sounds completely broken. “I’m so sorry.” I turn my head to find her looking at me pleadingly, tears making her eyes shine. “I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. Fiancée. I…” The rest of her sentence is swallowed by sobs.

Bailey and I exchange a glance, and the knowledge settles in me like a rock falling off a cliff.

“Give me a minute,” I tell her, pinching the bridge of my nose and taking a deep breath.

I need to look at this logically. Anyone could trudge in here and claim to be with my boyfriend. Why would I believe her accusations without evidence? I have no reason to doubt Derek, but yet…

Either reading my thoughts from my face or being well-prepared, Olivia starts going through her bag, producing a stack of printed pictures and puts them on the coffee table between our armchairs.

A sob escapes me when I see the first one.

Yeah, that’s definitely Derek. Sporting a blissful smile that I thought was reserved for me, with his arms around her, his lips resting on her forehead while she smiles brightly at the camera.

I’m not sure if it’s masochism or the need to know more, but, on autopilot, I reach for the stack of pictures and go through it painstakingly, picture by picture, each new image, each date stamp like a dull knife stabbing my heart.

That time he told me he was visiting some aunt he hasn’t seen for a long time? He was in Brighton with her. I recognize that pier from when I researched it for a day trip we never got to take.

There are selfies of them from dates—even one at the park I’ve been telling Derek I wanted to visit, the one he said he never had time for. And they had a picnic there.

There’s even one of them on vacation, dated the exact time he told me he had to travel to spend a long weekend with his parents for a family emergency.

“That motherfucker,” Bailey whispers from behind me, and it’s like those two little words are what it takes to pull me back to reality.

I still feel like I’m breathing through cotton, tears blurring my vision, all sounds muffled as if I’m underwater. And I certainly feel like I’m drowning.

“How long?” I can’t help but ask, looking at Olivia, who’s biting her lip and nervously playing with the straps of her bag.

“Two years.” Her voice breaks and so does my heart.

I let my hand holding the picture sink into my lap and lean my head back, staring at the ceiling.

“Two years,” I repeat, and then I burst into laughter. It’s not amused laughter; it’s hysterical laughter. The kind of laughter that’s accompanied by tears, the kind that pushes anxiety to the surface.

Because how in the hell have I not noticed a thing for a whole two years? How could I be that damned oblivious? Did I not want to see it or was he really fucking good at hiding his affair?

Then it only really hits me—two years of betrayal.

Two whole years he’s been seeing someone else behind my back. Only a year after we’d gotten together. Hell, we were still in school two years ago. That was so long before we even decided to move here.

“Oh shit,” I say through my tears, and my eyes dart between Bailey and Olivia. “You're the reason he wanted to move to London.” Bailey gasps, but I keep going. “Fuck, it all makes sense now.”

I force myself to take a deep breath, swallowing down my remaining tears.

Olivia seems almost scared, clutching her bag to her chest and looking ready to make a run for it.

“I’m not blaming you, just to be clear,” I assure her, and she relaxes the tiniest bit. “How did you find out?”

“I found out yesterday,” she admits quietly, angrily wiping away a tear. “He forgot his phone at my place, and your message popped up. I knew his pin code; I saw it before.” She sobs and I hear a clicking noise as her fingers are back to playing with her sunglasses. “I know it’s not right, but I just had to snoop.”

With a heavy sigh, I wipe the tears from my face. I believe her. She seems too broken, too much like… me. Like the ground has been pulled from under her feet and her whole world just collapsed.

“Thank you for coming here and telling me.” She nods

“So, what are we going to do?” I ask, looking between her and Bailey.

“I haven’t done anything yet. He doesn’t know I know,” Olivia admits, shoulders sagging in defeat. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“At least you're not living with him,” Bailey interjects, and I shoot him a sharp glance. “What? I’m right.”

“You are, but it’s not helping,” I scold him. He’s making a good point though.

Where am I even going to live? Even if he offered, our apartment would not be an option. Hell, I couldn’t even afford it by myself and all the memories in it? No way.

But where am I going to get a lease for the time left on my visa? And where can I even find a flat I can afford? Finding our current one was already a huge feat, I don’t think I could pull that off again.

I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. Fuck. What am I going to do?

“You can move upstairs,” Bailey offers, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. My head snaps up and I look at him, confused.

“Wait, what? Upstairs?”

“There’s a flat above this floor,” he continues. “Granted, it needs a good cleaning and maybe a paint job or two, but overall, it’s in good condition. It should even have a basic kitchen, although we need to check if the refrigerator still works. It gets a bit warm with the ovens, though.”

“Why-”

“It’s empty because Dad didn’t want to deal with renting it out.”

I shake my head. That’s just like Alan. But you know what? I’m not going to question it.

“Honestly, I’ll take it,” I tell Bailey, standing up. Betrayal is still a sharp sting in my chest, but I’ll be damned if I spend one more second with that cheater.

“He’s working until four today,” I say, checking the time, cursing when I realize that only leaves us with a few hours.

“Do you have a lot of stuff that we need to move?” Bailey asks.

“Let me think,” I tell him and close my eyes as I imagine me walking through our apartment. “No, it’s not much. Basically my clothes and documents like visa, ID, birth certificate. That’s all I need. He can keep the furniture and cooking utensils we both paid for. If it means I don’t have to look into his cheating face again, he can have all of it.”

“Good,” Bailey says. “Then I suggest we borrow Dad’s car and move our pretty asses over there to get your stuff. Once that’s here, we’ll get you a bed and a couch. You know, the essentials. And then we’ll go step by step, alright?”

“Thank you, Bailey.” I shoot him a sad smile, then turn back to Olivia, who’s been following our exchange with wide eyes. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I am,” she says, getting up and squaring her shoulders. As distraught as she’d been to tell me, I can see anger burning in her eyes. “My dad is changing the locks to my place as we speak.” She smiles at us, but it quickly slips off her face. “If it’s any consolation, I’m clean. I’ve made an appointment for an STD test nonetheless.”

My blood runs cold yet again. “You did it… raw?”

She gives me a sad nod, and before I can even say a thing, Bailey has his phone pulled up. “You’ve got one too, now.”

“Thank you,” I tell the two of them and pinch the bridge of my nose. Holy fuck, what did Derek get me into? It’s good that Olivia seems to be in the clear, but who knows how many more women there were.

“I hate to ask this, but could you do me a favor and leave him this letter?” She holds up an envelope, and I take it with a solemn nod.

“Of course. Does he have anything of yours at our place you need returned?”

“No, we always met at my place and he never left anything there either.” She shakes her head, and when her eyes meet mine, it’s a quiet understanding between us. “I appreciate you not blaming me. I promise I had no idea.”

“I believe you,” I tell her, reaching out my hand. “I didn’t notice a thing either. Thank you for coming here and telling me.”

We shake hands, a warm feeling of solidarity filling the room, before she lets go and walks to the front of the store, high heels clacking on the ground as she puts her sunglasses back on.

The sound of the doorbell echoes like a dystopian alarm siren as the door clicks shut behind her.

“Dad, we gotta go,” I hear Bailey mutter, and when I turn to him, I see anger etched into his face.

“If he comes here, I’m going to beat his ass,” Alan says with suppressed anger, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Make it look like he attacked you first,” I tell him, managing a sad smile.

“What she said. I need you to stick around and that motherfucker is not worth it going to jail for,” Bailey points out and snatches Alan’s car keys from under his counter before he links his arm with mine and leads me outside.

“Let’s go leave that son of a bitch.”

“Where is she?”

I flinch when I hear Derek's voice from downstairs, just as we unpacked all the components of my new bed. Bailey and I exchange a worried glance. “I need to talk to her.”

“Fuck what he needs,” Bailey hisses, but I put my finger to my lips to shush him. Even though we can only hear Derek because he’s shouting, I’m scared he will somehow sense where we are and facing him is the last thing I want to do right now.

My eyes dart between the piece of wood that’s part of the headboard in my hands and the door to the apartment. Bailey immediately starts shaking his head vehemently when he notices.

“You are not going downstairs,” he whispers harshly, looking me up and down with a don’t you dare kind of vibe.

Quietly, I set down the board and lift my hands in a defensive gesture.

“Okay, okay,” I whisper back, but I can’t help myself. Moving slowly, making sure none of my steps make a sound, I inch my way closer to the window, pressing my back against the wall next to it, and peek outside to see the top of Derek’s head in front of the entrance to Bake and Books.

“You need to leave,” I hear Alan’s booming voice and sigh in relief. I wasn’t feeling too great about either Bailey or me having to go downstairs and shoo him away, I completely forgot about Alan.

“No. I need to see Lexie, please let me talk to her,” Derek says again, and a lump forms in my throat when I hear his voice break with emotion.

Biting my lip, I feel tears well up as I shoot Bailey a helpless look. I hate him. I hate Derek with my whole being, but hearing him sad or helpless fucking hurts.

“Don’t you dare,” he hisses, pressing his back to the other side of the window. “He doesn’t get to play the emotion card now. He cheated on you, Lexie, for years. Don’t you even fucking consider going back to him.”

His words are the wake-up call I need, but they don’t make the pain hurt any less.

“I know,” I say weakly, my voice breaking with a sob. “I know he did, but it’s not exactly easy to just turn off my feelings. Even though I want to. I want to hate him, trust me.”

A part of me wants to claw his eyes out, but there’s still a part of me that holds onto hope. My brain knows Olivia told me the truth and it also knows that there is no way I could stay with him, but my heart hasn’t quite gotten the memo yet.

It’s still in denial, still beating for the asshole downstairs—the man I imagined my whole future with. The man I thought I’d have children with, watch them grow up and become the cool grandparents. Together. Now my whole future is one giant question mark instead.

“I’m saying it one more time,” Alan says, and I take another peek through the window. “Leave. This is still my bakery, and you are not welcome here. So don’t even bother coming back, because I’m going to send you away every single time.”

“Lexie!” Derek shouts once more, and I angrily wipe away the tear that runs down my cheek. “Tell me where she is!”

Alan’s booming laughter sounds cold; it even sends a shiver down my spine. “Yeah, I’m not going to do that. Boy, you need to leave. I am not above calling the cops for trespassing. Do you think I’m kidding?”

Silence settles between the two of them until Derek mumbles something, and I watch him trudge down the street away from the bakery, shoulders hunched, steps slow and heavy, like the weight of the world is on his shoulders when in reality it’s just the consequences of his actions.

“Well, let’s continue setting up your bed, shall we?” Bailey says, his voice back to its normal volume as he tears open one of the packages containing my furniture.