Chapter Nine Laney
CHAPTER NINE
LANEY
I used to be able to read every expression on Connor’s face.
The impatience while waiting for someone to answer him was a slight jaw clench.
The tightening of his eyes meant he didn’t believe you.
The nostril flare could be amusement with me or annoyance with others.
Right now though? I couldn’t read him at all.
He stared, face neutral, as he guided me into the coffee shop.
It smelled heavenly the second we walked in. Wonderful scents of cookies and coffee greeted me, and I groaned. “Oh, that smells good.”
“Welcome in!” A cheery barista waved. She had bright golden hair in braids and wore a green beanie with the word CAFFEINATED.
I returned the gesture and took in the café.
It was decked out with mini Christmas trees, snowflakes, and presents.
It was so cozy and homey. Instantly, I could picture myself working at a table here for an afternoon when I needed to get out of the house.
Soph and I could plot out her dating schemes.
My mom would obsess over all the crafts and art for sale.
There was a table with bracelets and key chains.
“Oh, I love this stuff!” I smiled and went over to the table.
Connor hated collecting junk. He’d rather have a large or expensive item to display, whereas I loved smaller items. Small key chains with funny phrases, a mini-camera to dangle from a bracelet.
Local artists’ bookmarks and shirts lined the room.
Maybe it was because my mom was an artist and always fought so hard to sell her stuff at places and I wanted to support them, but my eyes welled up, thinking that Connor had known this place had all these items.
“Pick whatever you want. However many you want.” He joined me at the table, his posture still stiffer than expected.
“Connor, I love this place. Why are you nervous?” I picked up a blue beaded bracelet that read SNAPSHOT in small gold letters. It was so delicate. “Oh, I love this one.”
“I’ll buy it.” He took it from my hands, but then dropped it with a curse.
Something was wrong. He went from laughing on the walk to this awkward, fumbling man. I bent down with him and waited for him to meet my gaze. A light blush spread across his face, and I melted.
“What’s this worry about?”
His gaze flicked over my shoulder, and I followed, craning my neck toward an exposed brick wall that held four photos. They looked familiar. Each scene was at night, the light rays contrasting with the background. My skin prickled. Slowly, I stood, dragging my cold feet across the wooden floor.
I knew those photos. I knew them well. I took them.
“What…” I trailed off as I read a golden plate that hung next to the images.
LOCAL ARTIST: LANEY REYNOLDS
Ask barista for prices.
“They’re for sale?” I whispered, not quite able to believe I was seeing my photographs here, in a café, with my name.
It had always been a secret dream of mine to display my original photos for people to buy.
I loved working events, but these stills were for me.
I was always too nervous to try to sell them, so they sat hidden from the world.
But here they were, for sale, at a coffee shop.
My pulse raced as blood rushed to my ears. This was…
“I’m sorry.” Connor joined me, his shoulders slumped as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I should’ve asked you. I wanted to surprise you, but I know you never explicitly said you wanted this. We can ask them to take them down if you—”
“Absolutely the fuck not.” I faced my husband, my heart pounding out of my chest. “This is the best thing… I love it. So much.”
He blinked. Then he did his head tilt as he narrowed his eyes.
“You like it?”
“Yes, Connor.” I approached him and placed my hands on his chest, my initial shock wearing off as I beamed. “Are you kidding me? My art is on the wall! My photos!”
“You’re the famous Laney?” The barista interrupted our moment.
A flicker of irritation danced through me. Didn’t she know this was a pivotal moment for us?
“No way. Our owner was telling us about her husband and how romantic it was that he wanted to surprise his wife. Man, can I get a photo of you both?” the barista asked.
Connor kissed my forehead before wrapping me in his arms.
The barista snapped our photo with a wild grin, going on about how the owner, Bea, would be so mad she didn’t see the moment I discovered the surprise. Connor handled the conversation, navigating it well without ever taking his hand off me. I couldn’t focus. My mind raced with what this meant.
He had planned this weeks ago. Was this after the weekend away? The last time we really connected about five weeks ago? What did it mean? That he did think about me? Did Petra come up with this idea?
It had been her idea to send us on the weekend getaway, so I wouldn’t put it past her to suggest this…
“Coffee is on the house. Please, order what you want!”
“Laney, you ready?” Connor’s voice was soft, gentle, like he knew this was huge for me and was giving me time to digest it. “Want a cinnamon latte?”
I nodded, not quite in the moment as my thoughts swirled.
I had to ask him. I needed to know. I appreciated this so much, so much my stomach ached with longing and regret.
How could I leave a man who did this? But then the flip side—how could he do this, plan this surprise, but forget our anniversary?
I felt terrible that I was so unfriendly to the barista, but I at least smiled as Connor bought me the bracelet with SNAPSHOT on it. He slipped it on my wrist, dragging his fingers along my veins in three taps. I love you.
He led us to a booth near the front window, overlooking the snowy street. No one was driving and no one dared to walk in the weather, so the city looked peaceful for a rare moment. The pine trees swayed as snow fell off, and it was such a romantic scene.
“You’ve been speechless. Tell me what’s going on in your beautiful brain.”
I took a sip of the latte and stared at my bracelet, nerves plucking me. He’d been so nervous about the photographs, worried I’d hate what he’d done, and I wanted to reassure him it was fine. That it was great. But that wasn’t honesty, and I had put his feelings first for years.
“I’m amazed.” I shrugged and chewed my lip, staring out the window and watching smoke come out the chimney from a house across the street. “Truly, the act of doing this is so thoughtful and wonderful.”
He swallowed, nodding, but his brows furrowed. “I sense a but coming.”
This part was hard. He could recoil or fight back or be insulted. I took a breath. “I have questions.”
“Please, ask any of them. I can read your expressions, Laney.” He sipped his usual black coffee with oat milk and stared right back at me. He made no moves to look at his phone or outside, just me.
“Was this your idea?”
He frowned. “Yes. Who… else?”
“Did you plan it alone?”
He nodded with a confused look. “Of course, I did.”
“So, Petra didn’t… She… It wasn’t her idea?”
The look in his eyes shuttered, but he masked it fast.
“No. She doesn’t know this part of your life. She doesn’t know how you wish you could sell your original images to bring people joy and feeling. Those were you-and-me conversations, husband and wife.” There was an undercurrent to his tone, but it wasn’t anger.
He took my hand in his, tracing my palm with his pointer finger. He might’ve tried to hide it, but his hand shook.
“This was all me.”
My eyes prickled, and I glanced outside again, but he tugged on my hand, drawing my attention.
“Please don’t hide from me. Look me in the eye when you ask your next question.”
“Why?”
“Because I deserve to see your face. Even if it kills me, I want to see the worry in your eyes. The fact you thought Petra would have anything to do with this fucking hurts, Laney, but let it all out.”
“It might hurt, but you forgot our anniversary and told me Petra would reschedule us a dinner somewhere. I don’t understand how you can do this, plan this surprise, but forget our anniversary.” A tear fell, and I quickly swiped it away. “I-I…”
“Honesty,” he urged, his tone soft.
“I know you love me, and this gesture, seeing my photographs for sale, is amazing. It means so much to me. I just… it shows me that, when you care about something, you show up, you prioritize it, but when you don’t care or get too busy, you forget. It’s the inconsistency that hurts me.”
His jaw flexed. “I have nothing else to say besides I messed up on our anniversary. There are no excuses besides me fucking up. If it were my first time not showing up for you, it would’ve been something we worked through.”
“It wasn’t the first time,” I said softly. “Did you plan this that weekend we went away?”
He nodded. “Is that… bad?”
“No. That makes sense in my timeline.”
“Timeline?”
“Yeah. That… weekend we connected. Deeply. It was the old us. It made me forget all about leaving. It makes sense that I was on your mind too.”
He swallowed. “Then that following week, I didn’t come home for dinner once.”
I shook my head. “I researched meals from the hotel to make for you, to surprise you.”
He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “Fuck. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Laney, I need you to bother me. I want all your bothers.” He tilted his head and then snorted. “That was a weird sentence.”
“It kinda was.” I smiled, my shoulders relaxing as the mood shifted. “I’m programmed to never upset you because your job is stressful, and I never wanted to be the nagging wife.”
“You expressing yourself to me is not nagging.” He squeezed my wrist again, three times. “I’d rather have you yell or cry at me every day than not have you.”
He paused and shook his head.
“God, that sounds bad too. I don’t want you to cry every day. I never want you sad. How am I making this worse?”
I laughed. “You really are. It’s impressive.”
He rolled his eyes as the ghost of a smile played on his face.
“I always assumed I’d make things up to you later. I told myself the next trip, the next weekend, next month, next birthday, I’d do something big to make up for it. I realize now that wasn’t enough.”
“I realized that I’d keep waiting for the next something to keep me hoping. The next weekend away, you’d see how good we were, and we’d go back. That wasn’t healthy either.”
Connor exhaled, nodding a few times before he leaned over so his elbows were on the table. His face twisted into business mode, no hints of a smile, all serious.
“No matter what you decide at the end of the month, I need you to know you are the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me. That will never change.”
“Connor.” God, that sounded like a breakup speech. My stomach clenched, and it hit me that, even after all the heartache, I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted us to make this work. “What—”
He shook me off. “We have weeks to talk this all out and get to a healthy place where we are both confident and happy. We’ll get there.” His eyes shuttered as he said those words, like he wasn’t sure. “But I am the man I am because of you.”
I wanted to believe him so badly. More than breathing. We were in a snow globe right now, cut off from the rest of the world. He could be the version I needed here without the pressures of work, but once Monday hit… that’d be the test.