Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
SAWYER
I love being in a relationship.
I hate dating.
To get one you kind of need to experience the other. Maybe I should have just found someone to fuck tonight. But even that doesn’t appeal to me much. I love sex, don’t get me wrong, but I love the things that rotate around it.
Kisses that you can feel from your head down to your toes. Squeezing hugs that make the stress melt away from you. Tension. Heat. That soft hum of pleasure when you like someone and they’re driving you crazy.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt any of that.
I push the salmon around on my plate, not hungry anymore, and the dull chatter around me crescendos, making the awkward silence at our table deafening. It’s a bit choking. The more I try to think of something to say, the hotter my face grows.
It’s fine. Take a breath. It’s just been a bit.
When was the last time I even had a boyfriend?
Holy shit. Years at least, right? I had a situationship last year, but it pretty much ended once my mother’s health worsened.
I felt like the harder I concentrated on her, the less the cancer would spread.
Okay, not thinking about that right now.
I watch Damien. He’s handsome. His attention is half on his phone and half on the salad he ordered. Thick dark hair, soft green eyes. His nose is a little sharp, and there’s scruff on his face that I like. I’m not usually into beards, but his is trimmed enough and it looks hot on him.
He’s barely said a thing since we sat down. I keep watching his hands. I have a thing for nice hands and his are nice. His nails are manicured and clean. They look strong.
And he’s tapping his phone again.
“So . . .” I clear my throat. “How did your meeting go last week?” He pauses with his fork halfway to his lips. This is the first time we’ve met in person. We talked for a couple of months on this app I’ve been using, and then I gave him my number. It was never this awkward on the phone, though.
It’s a wonder I have so many friends when I have such a hard time speaking to new people. Except when I’m at the bakery. Talking is easy then, I don’t know why. My brain flicks into work mode I suppose. Outside of that I have a hard time.
I don’t make friends; friends seem to make me.
Noah is coming over next week to show me the website and we’re going to film some videos and take pictures.
I have about forty-three followers just from the one picture Noah posted of me in front of the bakery.
It’s something. More than I expected already, really.
I don’t get help very often, and it’s taken a long time for me to accept it.
All my friends are going to help me redo the shop next week on the very meager budget I have. I gave Noah my credit card and told him he had three hundred to spend.
I’m scared.
I think about Aiden calling it a doctor’s office. Is it really that bad?
A year ago, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. We sold my old bakery, which used to be her restaurant, to help pay the medical bills and keep her as comfortable as possible.
Hunter had told me about an old shop on Main Street for lease, and within two months I’d moved in. It was closer to the hospital, and close to Hunter so he could take me to visit her when he had time. I owe him so much for that alone.
I just haven’t had much time to redecorate.
It used to be a bread bakery, so I’m lucky a lot of the equipment I needed was already there.
With some of the money leftover from selling my mother’s business I was able to buy important machinery for the back, but it didn’t leave much to help do the front.
We’re selling Mom’s house now, and Jane and I are splitting everything, and while I need it, I can’t help but feel like all my childhood memories are leaving with it.
Jane and I used to help our mother cook in her restaurant.
Then at home. Food was her love language, and selling the old restaurant almost killed me.
I don’t know what Noah has planned, but I’ll let him do whatever he wants.
I need a change.
“Sawyer?”
“Huh?” Oh shit. I wasn’t paying attention. I glance down at his unlocked phone. “What did you say? I spaced out.”
“I said . . .” He takes a sharp sip of water. “I didn’t have a meeting last week.”
“Oh, I thought you said you were busy. I assumed work. I must have misunderstood.”
He nods, taking another bite of his food. “No, nothing like that. This other guy I’m seeing was only available that night.” He takes another bite of his food.
“What?”
He stops chewing and covers his mouth. “What?”
“You’re seeing someone else?”
His dark brows pinch as he wipes his mouth on his napkin. “Well, yeah.” He shrugs. “I mean, we’re not official or anything. That’s what dating is, right?”
Yeah but, I mean, is he right? It’s not like we’re exclusive. “I mean, you canceled a date with me to see another guy. That doesn’t seem weird to you?”
“He was free and his schedule is insane. He’s busy.”
“I’m busy.”
“Are you?” he challenges. “I mean, when you talk to me all you do is complain about how dead your bakery is. You’re always free to talk at night. I didn’t think it mattered if we pushed it back a week. Were you busy tonight?”
My stomach sours. “Well, no, but—”
“Then I don’t see the problem. You bake cupcakes for a living. Didn’t think it was that hard.”
My eyes burn, and I stare at my plate so hard my vision begins to blur. “I don’t just bake cupcakes.” I lift my gaze to him. “It’s a lot of work.” Just because I don’t work at some fucking hedge fund doesn’t mean what I do doesn’t have value. “It’s hard.”
The laugh that bubbles from his lips pisses me off. I’m used to this type of bullshit, though—growing up, in school, in college. I’m done. He’s so smug and he doesn’t even care.
“Oh, I’m sure.” He smiles, reaching across the table, but I pull my hand away. “Cupcake emergencies.”
“Fuck off.”
“Hey, come on. I’m sorry. I’m just joking. I wasn’t trying to make fun.”
“So you did it without even trying. You must be a pro.”
I have a few pet peeves. One of them is someone who masks insults as jokes when the jokes don’t land like they thought.
I’m done with this.
I didn’t want to do it in the first place. I tried, though. Everyone around me tells me I’m too picky, but I need sparks. I need feeling. The perfect guy doesn’t exist, and while that may be true, I can’t settle for less than I want.
What’s the point in that?
I don’t need perfect. I just need perfect for me.
I need that feeling.
I’ve only felt it once before and that man broke my heart. I dated a guy in college for three years and it was amazing. Then he graduated, and I thought we were going to spend our life together. We were looking at apartments to live in after I graduated.
We had plans.
Then he made other plans.
He met a woman during his residency and broke up with me. They’re married now with kids. I don’t know how many, but Jane told me this years ago. It still hurts.
I loved him so much, but the thing is, looking back there were signs.
Looking back at our relationship, I know I loved him more than he loved me.
I may seem picky, but it takes a lot for me to like someone, and that heartbreak made me sick.
So maybe I need to lower my expectations, but I won’t date someone who chooses someone else over me.
I won’t be a second choice.
I want to be someone’s first choice. “I’m going to leave.”
“What?”
I put money on the table. More than enough to cover my food and tip.
“Are you serious? This is a little crazy. We’re not exclusive or anything. We just started talking.”
I catch our server’s eye and wave him over. He walks up to us, eying us both nervously. “This is for my bill and tip. Please keep the change. I need to go.”
“Oh yeah. No problem. I hope everything was good.”
“It was great,” I say tightly and stand, grabbing my hoodie. I look at Damien. “We may have just started talking, and I don’t care if there are other people, but you canceled a date with me to go on one with him. Just date him.”
“He was available.”
“Right, and you decided I’d just be waiting around whenever you were ready. I am busy, you dick.”
Ignoring the looks from people around us, I walk through the restaurant and outside.
It’s a little muggy out but it’s finally starting to feel like summer.
I don’t drive—the last thing I can afford is a car—but luckily I don’t really need one.
If I need to go somewhere, I usually just wait for Hunter and he takes me.
I hate driving anyway. And Hunter insists he doesn’t mind. I used to take him places in college.
It’s about a twenty-minute walk to my shop. It’s not so bad out now.
I’ll walk.
The moon is full above me and lights the night sky. It’s a quiet town, but downtown is normally busy. I thought that by moving here I’d have a lot of foot traffic where my bakery is. It was good at my old place, but it’s never been busy here.
I’m doing everything right. At least I think I am.
I love to create new things for my window, but sometimes I feel like there’s no point. No one’s going to try them. They just sit for a while and then I end up giving the stuff away to my friends. It’s taking some of the joy out of it.
I don’t know how to do anything else, though. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. My mother owned a Thai restaurant, and I loved to help her cook, but it wasn’t until she helped me bake a birthday cake that I fell in love with baking.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, but if I can’t turn this around, I may need to find something else.
It’s about nine now, and the sun is nearly gone. I love summer for this reason. I hate it in the winter when it’s dark by four. I always asked her why she couldn’t have emigrated to somewhere warm like California or Arizona. My mother hates the heat, though.
Hated. I mean, she hated the heat.