Six
L auren set a cookie on a plate and brought it around to the single table in the shop’s front. At some point since opening, that little table had migrated from the back of the shop where she’d planned for a seating area and had been claimed by Jake and her friends. No one else sat there, not even the tourists who stopped by during the summer months.
“Any plans for tonight?” She asked Jake as she set the cookie down in front of him before joining him at the table. Nothing had ever happened between her and Jake. He was more brother than friend. They tried the romantic thing once, but it was so awkward and uncomfortable neither one of them ever spoke of it again. But that didn’t mean they never spent time together.
“Nope, not yet. Why?”
“Thought maybe you’d want to watch a movie with us. Lizzie’s coming over and we’re going to help her grade papers.”
“Elizabeth teaches second grade, how does she have papers to grade? Does she take points off for coloring outside the line?”
“It’s for her fourth-grade English class.”
“How are they screwing up metaphors and similes? Even I remember that if it uses like, it’s a simile. That’s the first thing they taught us.”
“Melody recommended she put the tip in big block letters across each quiz since none of them seem to remember it.”
“Will she be there?”
“Who, Melody?”
“Yeah, Honey Badger, is she coming to movie night?”
“Yeah, why?”
“So, it’s going to be a chick flick fest. I think I’ll take a pass tonight.” Jake’s eyes widened as he looked over the top of Lauren’s head.
“Well, if it isn’t Lauren Somers.”
She recognized that voice. She hadn’t heard it in forever and a day, and she never expected to hear it again, but she’d never forget it. That meant the body the voice belonged to was standing in her bakery.
“Scott, didn’t realize you were coming back. Thought you forgot all about us little people when you became an agent to all the big-time athletes. Speaking of which, what’s our favorite quarterback going to do? Retire or go to another team?”
Lauren hopped to her feet, handed Jake his cookie and snatched the plate up, then hurried back to the counter where she washed the plate. Five times. After the fifth time, she found Melody staring at her, obviously wanting to ask questions, but thankfully remaining silent.
“I sort of had to come back.” Scott sat down across from Jake in the chair Lauren vacated.
“I heard. Sorry.”
Except Jake didn’t sound sorry. He said the word because it was what was expected, but he’d never been a big fan of Mr. Brandonson. Lauren never heard the reason Jake disliked Scott’s dad though.
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
Jake looked over at Lauren with a tilt of his head toward Scott. “How about one of those quads and a cookie for our friend? And maybe a plate for me?”
As much as she wanted to ignore Jake’s request she couldn’t. Not only because Melody was already making the drink, but she hadn’t been fair to him when she took the plate away. She’d panicked and grabbed it as an excuse to not stay at the table.
Lauren looked over the selection of cookies for all of ten seconds before racing off into the kitchen. She’d baked a new kind of bar, a St. Louis gooey butter cake. It was mostly made from butter and sugar, and was incredibly rich, but so so good. She tweaked the recipe a little, making it not quite as rich and a little less sweet, and she still needed to give it a name. She planned on cutting them up tomorrow for a trial run on Saturday, when there would be enough customers to buy a few of the bars because she wasn’t sure how long they’d last once cut.
She’d make an exception for Scott, but she wouldn’t tell him. He didn’t need to know. Lauren slid the tray from the rack and grabbed a knife to cut a piece out for Scott. Instead of using the yardstick to cut out a perfectly sized bar, she eyeballed it and made it slightly bigger than usual. By the time the butter cake was on a plate, Melody had the coffee finished, and Lauren delivered the treats.
After glancing over her shoulder to make sure Melody wasn’t getting overrun with orders, which hadn’t happened since the first week she opened her doors or on holidays like the 4th of July, Lauren stood by the table. She couldn’t put off talking with Scott for much longer, but she wouldn’t sit down.
That was the line she drew in the sand. Until she crossed it. Which she totally would. But until then she could pretend the line was there.
When Scott left Iron Creek, he didn’t just not come back, he walked away from everyone who lived there. He didn’t call anyone, at least not that she was aware of. Lauren knew Jake hadn’t ever received a call, and neither had Trent. She couldn’t say for sure whether Olivia had, but assumed not. It was as though Scott did the out of sight out of mind thing to an entire town and the people who lived there. She couldn’t risk wondering about her feelings for him if he was just going to leave again.
Of course, that was easier said than done. Just like the line in the sand.
Scott hadn’t changed over the years except to get even more attractive. He had grown from charmingly cute to straight up handsome. Barely over thirty, but he had a maturity that none of the guys who stayed in Iron Creek had. The one thing that hadn’t changed was the little twinkle in his eye. The same twinkle that caused Lauren to hang off the train trestle that went over the highway. Scott stayed one step ahead of the adults and one step ahead of trouble. The worst he did was always done intending to cause laughter, even if the adults couldn’t ever let the kids know they were laughing. And if you were lucky enough to join him on one of his exploits, like Lauren had that night, it was the best feeling in the world. But the trestle wasn’t even their first attempt at graffiti. When she was maybe ten, Scott and Jake tasked her with holding a can of paint and moving along with the boys as they painted a walking bridge bright pink. Lauren had added some rhinestones so the pink would really sparkle, but she’d never admitted to the deed, not even when Scott and Jake took credit for it.
She shook her head, as though that would shake free the memories of a better time. Before she said anything stupid, like how handsome he looked, Lauren returned to the counter under the pretense of needing to check the display case and not wanting to leave Melody alone for too long.
Why was she thinking about Scott and what was never going to happen between them?
She was a childhood friend to him. Nothing more. She’d always be the childhood friend. Scott would never see her as more than the little girl who tagged along with his friends. Off limits for all of eternity.
“Where are you going, Lauren?” Jake called out.
At that exact moment, she hated Jake even though he had been the one to comfort Lauren when Scott bailed on Iron Creek. She always wondered if it was because of everyone in town, Jake felt as abandoned by Scott as she did? After all, Scott left Jake behind too.
“I have a business to run, Jake. Not all of us get to paid to help famous athletes make more money and have to work to pay the bills.”
The rest of the afternoon alternated between creeping by at a snail’s pace and speeding by so fast, Lauren was tempted to check and make sure the clock was working. At five after three, the chimes above the front door announced the arrival of another person.
“Melody, give me a double, there’s no way I’m going to make it through these quizzes without a healthy dose of caffeine. Oh, and a cookie too. One with a lot of chocolate.” Elizabeth stumbled through the front door loaded under the weight of bags filled with books, papers, and whatever else she stuffed in them in her rush to get out of the school as soon as teachers were allowed to leave.
Thank God. Lauren could always rely on Elizabeth and her stories about her classroom to be a welcome distraction, especially when she was at risk of fixating on Scott Brandonson. The absolute last man she should fixate on.
Elizabeth grabbed a chair and dragged it across the floor as she made her way to Jake’s table. She dropped one of her bags on the table and a cloud of glitter poofed out from it. “Why is it that seven-year-old girls have a fascination with glitter? And why do they have to put it on everything? Glitter isn’t just the STD of the crafting world, it’s the typhoid of the teaching profession.”
Lauren watched Scott’s face shift from confusion at what he thought was a strange woman who sat down with them without an invitation to surprise as soon as he recognized her. When Scott knew Elizabeth, she went by Lizzie and in all fairness, almost every time he saw her then she had her nose stuck in a book. The awkward girl had grown into a woman, complete with a wardrobe that seemed to be universal to all primary school teachers. A combination of professional, but fun. So, the dark red blouse she was wearing today had Woodstocks from the Peanuts on it instead of mallards.
“You’ll never guess what Charlie did today.” If Elizabeth recognized Scott, she didn’t say anything.
“Oh, I love Charlie stories!” Melody bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands between brewing the two shots of espresso for Elizabeth’s drink.
They all loved Charlie stories. Charlie was the class clown. He didn’t so much as reach for the title as saunter into it. Charlie never intended to be funny, which was what made his stories so great.
“Stapled his finger to the paper.”
“Stapled?” Jake, Lauren, and Melody asked at the same time.
“Yes. Stapled.” Elizabeth’s head bobbed up and down.
“What did you do?” Melody set a chocolate chocolate-chip cookie and a double latte on the table in front of Elizabeth.
“Sent him to the school nurse. I mean, I have a staple remover, but I don’t think the school administration would look fondly on me performing medical procedures in a classroom with a tool never meant for extracting staples from flesh.” She bit into the cookie and closed her eyes as she savored the chocolate. She washed the bite down with a sip from her coffee, wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin, and turned to Scott. “So, you finally decided to comes back and visit us. Wish it was under better circumstances though. Sorry about your dad.”
Scott’s eyebrows raised in surprise at Elizabeth noticing him.
“Already been through this with Jake. Don’t be. I’m not.”
“And will it be another fifteen years before you come back to visit us again?” Elizabeth looked over at Lauren when she said the word us.
Lauren stepped closer to the table, straightening the napkins that didn’t need straightening to better listen to the conversation.
“I just came back to sign the estate papers and grab a few things from the house before it gets sold. I didn’t want my grandparents’ or mom’s things sold off in an estate sale. And as far as coming back to visit, well, that’s something to be determined. Just depends on how busy I get.”
“If you find any crayons or markers or paper, I’ll take them.” Elizabeth had become a great scavenger when it came to finding supplies for her classroom. She swore estate sales were the best places for school supplies because no one ever threw out paper or pens. The supplies lived in a drawer and multiplied faster than rabbits since everyone always forgot they already had a notebook or set of markers.
“Tell you what. You can go through the house and take whatever you can use.” Scott sipped his coffee then dug into the gooey cake bar on the plate in front of him. He didn’t look up until he finished nearly three quarters of it. Even then he didn’t say anything. Instead, he drank the coffee.
Coffee and cakes could fix a lot of things, but it wasn’t going to help with what Scott was feeling right then. She slipped back into the kitchen and reached up to the top shelf of the pantry where she kept the different flavorings. Behind the syrups and powders, she kept the bottles of liquor. They weren’t meant for drinking, so they were all the cheapest versions, but Scott wouldn’t mind if the splash of whiskey she added to his next coffee was from the top shelf or the well.
Scott’s voice sounded the same as others who had hit their proverbial emotional wall. They just needed to be numb and silence the memories for one night. Lauren had a night like that when her mom died. Jake had a night like that when he put away his guitar and dreams of playing music for a living. Even Olivia had a night like that when the man she was engaged to broke it off a few months before the wedding.
When Lauren came out from the kitchen opening the bottle of whiskey in her hand, Melody had another cup of coffee ready. Either Melody read her mind or had the same thought. The shot of whiskey in the coffee had become a rite of passage for her friends. Lauren added a few splashes of whiskey, screwed the top back on, and then Lauren and Melody exchanged the coffee for the bottle. Melody set the whiskey under the counter, and Lauren approached the table. She lifted the empty cup in front of Scott and replaced it with the fresh one.
Lauren remembered to smile before returning to the counter.
She wondered when Olivia would come back and how Scott would respond? After all, Olivia was his girlfriend back in high school. What were the chances that they’d fall back into their relationship?
Why did she even care?
Lauren reminded herself that Scott would leave, eventually.
The only thing she could look forward to was the hurt that would come with Scott leaving and making Jake as miserable as she was with a marathon of chick flicks.
“Do you want to restock the display case, or do you want me to?” Melody asked, pulling Lauren back into the real world.
“What? Oh, I will. You’ve already carried more than your fair share of the work today.” She smiled at her friend and squeezed Melody’s shoulder as she slipped behind her and headed to the kitchen to pull out the trays of cookies.