That One Summer: A Collection of Steamy Contemporary Romance

Chapter 13

A week until the wedding

Hailey

“OK, listen up. We haveliterally a dozen graduation cakes to make today,” Heather told me as we carpooled to work and she drummed the steering wheel with the flats of her hands, excited. “First thing, I need you to get in and set up the mixers. I’ll cross-check stock...”

She continued with the day’s schedule, pressing on the gas as she wove through traffic. I was excited too—business had picked up in the past month, and we’d been working all day every day to keep up with orders. Plus side? Rent was getting paid this month. With the big wedding and groom’s cakes Ella’s family ordered, we’d be flush.

I told myself I was glad. Getting paid to send Ella off into Good Riddance Land was fitting. But unexpectedly, I had to turn my face away from Heather so she wouldn’t notice me getting twisted up about it.

“You OK?” Heather definitely noticed.

“Fine. Got a text.” I fake scrambled to pull out my phone.

I thumbed through the unanswered texts. All from him, of course. None from her.

Jack: Pick up.

Jack: Hails, I love you. Let’s talk this out.

Jack: I can see you, making that face at your phone, not wanting to talk, wanting to die mad about it, but.

Jack: Haillllllzzzzz come on

There were six unanswered calls from him. I had my phone on mute. Soon he would show up on my doorstep, I knew. And then I’d have to face what had happened. I just didn’t want to deal with heartbreak right now.

Jack had stayed with Ella after I’d left, and I didn’t hold a grudge about that. In fact, I’d held onto this childish, ridiculous hope that he would change her mind. It had always been that way with the three of us. I was too hot-tempered, Ella too aloof. Jack was the warm, kind, empathetic glue that kept us together.

In the days after we’d gotten together, I had foolishly—OMIGOD, SO FOOLISHLY I CRINGED OVER THE MEMORY—hung around the bakery with my ears perked, waiting for Heather to answer her business phone and get super disappointed about the Stewarts canceling their order, because “sadly, SO SADLY,” I had gleefully imagined Mrs. Stewart saying to Heather the wedding was off. For me, that meant joy: Ella would be coming home to us.

By the fourth day, I had started to feel pretty... I dunno. Tired. Reality was sinking in. Ella and Charlie’s Wedding Cakes were still up on the giant whiteboard calendar in the back room of Three Birds.

Then Jack had called, and I knew we’d lost her for sure. I knew all his moves. He’d be kind. He’d be cautiously optimistic. He would promise as I cried that either Ella would come around or one day she would realize what she’d lost, but he would never, ever leave me, because I was the best person in his life. And I’d be reduced to a big blubbering mess.

Which was exactly what I was turning into in the car, without him even being here. NO THANKS. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“I love you, but don’t let me catch you ever doing that at work, OK?” Heather side-eyed me. “Bakeries are places of joy. Also, no one wants snot in their foodstuffs. You will literally scare people away.”

I grunted, nonverbal with disappointment. Another message came in from Jack. Heather went back to her excited recitation of the day’s schedule.

Jack: Listen. You don’t want to talk, but I need to say this, so... I dunno. Save this text for when you’re ready.

Jack: I’ve thought a lot about what the three of us are to each other. I know I’ve made mistakes in my life. Big ones. Especially when it came to you and her. I feel a lot of guilt because...

Jack: Shit

Jack: OK. Here it is. Ella said she was into you, and I wanted that. I was attracted to you. And I was curious, that bro fantasy of having two girls at the same time. I knew it was risky to invite you in, but the shitty thing is

Jack: It was risky for you two. Not for me. I made that calculated appraisal of what might happen if things went to shit, and I knew that because I was the guy, I would come out of it OK. So I took the risk, and I encouraged Ella to act on her attraction to you. But I knew from the jump, I was getting what I wanted at less of a cost than you or Ella would pay.

Jack: I wanted you. Even back then, when I was only supposed to want Ella. You know, I tried so hard to act reluctant, to try and spell out to her what the dangers were. But I was an asshole, because the whole time, all I wanted was for her to say yes.

Jack: I didn’t protect her like I should have. I didn’t protect you. I got what I wanted.

Jack: I don’t regret it. The two of you are the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.

Jack: So I counted the cost for you two if the truth of us came out, and I took the risk anyway. But I didn’t ever once think about how goddamn torn up it would leave me to lose you. I was wrapped up in making sure you two were covered, but I never once considered that getting together with both of you would mess me up.

There were bubbles still going on his side, but I had to look away, out the window. My blood was too hot in my body, pumping so hard it hurt in strange places. Like my tits, the rims of my nostrils, and my face. Omigod, my face stung from blushing, tears leaking down my cheeks. I had literally never felt this way before in my life.

Actually, I felt kinda...

“Jeez, slow down,” I complained to Heather, woozy from having been reading long texts as Heather treated traffic dodging like an Olympic sport.

“Have you not heard a word I’ve said? We are on a literal time chart to get everything done today. That includes working over lunch.”

Lunch was not the right word to add to swerving through traffic and emotional upheaval. My phone buzzed.

Jack: I’ll never regret you and me and Ella together. You’re the best part of my whole life. But I sure as shit hurt you both, and I knew it from the jump. You gave me half of everything you had when you got the scholarship from Mr. Stewart. That’s the person you have always been even though you try to act tough. Please.

Jack: I don’t want to do this by text anymore. I need to talk to you. There’s something I want you to have. Something that I think will help you and Ella find each other again.

Jack: I love you.

Jack: Please. Call. I need you in my life

I rolled down the window, letting fresh, summer-scented air gust in. June was here. School was nearly out. Maybe if I had some free time and a little money, I could go hang out at the public pool a few afternoons this month. That was the absolute worst about graduating from school into the adult world: summer came, but you didn’t get to celebrate. You had to cram your enjoyment into stolen snatches as the heat index rose around you and the sun beat down.

I took a deep breath that sounded a little like a sob, and when Heather barely slowed for the sharp right turn on a green light, the whole car lurched. And then my stomach lurched.

“Pull over!”

“What?” She was still doing like thirty miles an hour. Up ahead, I could see the little strip mall where we worked.

Too late. The best I could do was unclip my seat belt and stretch my neck out the window before I yarked.

She did pull over then, slowly coasting to the curb. “Are you OK? Omigod, are you sick!? We are so fucked. Who’s going to help me make these cakes? I can’t do it—”

“I’m fine,” I said, almost yarking again as I saw the remains of breakfast sliding down the car door’s paneling.

I was covered in a cold sweat, but almost as soon as I pulled my head back into the car, what I’d said was true. It was just food poisoning or something, and once my body’d hit the old “reject and eject button” I was getting back to normal.

Heather slapped her palm against my sweaty forehead. “Ew.” She pulled back immediately and wiped her hand on her pants. “You’re not running a fever at least.”

“I’m telling you, I’m fine. I was reading traumatic texts while you drove like a maniac. It wasn’t a surprise puke so much as a predictable outcome.”

Heather gave me a supremely skeptical glare, then said, “You are wearing gloves and a mask at all times, do you hear me? And before you touch anything, you scrub up like a surgeon. God help me, if we make a bunch of high school graduates sick because of your cakes, it will end Three Birds.”

“I’m fine. I’m telling you,” I said irritably.

“Well, maybe what you have isn’t contagious,” Heather said as she threw the car back into drive.

“What?” I asked, but I think even then part of me knew. I mean, I’d never felt emotional in my tits until this morning.

“Come on, after all the mattress thumping you’ve done with One Hit Wonder lately?” This was her name for Jack. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were—”

“Don’t say it.” Maybe I was gonna puke again.

“Pregnant,” Heather said primly.