Chapter 12
Rowan
The Black Cat is so perfectly Natalia—there’s no other way to describe it.
She’s always been into Halloween and witchy types of things.
I remember her giving all of us tarot card readings just a few years ago.
And outside of her bakery, today’s chalkboard is decorated as a tarot card, with Roman numerals on top for today’s date, and at the bottom, the card is called, The Muffin.
I snorted as I passed by it just a bit ago. Last week it was The Macaroon.
I pulled open the door to The Black Cat, hoping I’d see her there and find her right behind the counter with her finger tapping at the iPad.
Instead, she was gone, and it was then I realized that this early, she’s usually with Lana at the bookshop cafe, baking for fun.
Ever since Lana and Natalia opened their businesses around the same time after graduation, only two blocks from each, they spend their lunch hour and slow mornings together.
I’m sure that if Isabelle wasn’t so caught up in dance, she’d spend the mornings with them in the kitchen too.
Standing in Books and Beans now, waiting for Michelle to find Lana, I pace. Memories of me and Natalia together have kept me awake and visited me in my sleep, and I’d be lying if I said none of it has made me painfully needy for her again.
God, the way we moved! The way we fit and the way she might have literally been made for me, and I for her…it was like nothing I’ve ever felt in my whole fucking life.
It’s her or no one.
I turn at the quiet squeak of a door and see two of the three girls.
“Oh hey, RoRo.” Lana beams, leaning forward with her elbows on the counter.
“Hey, LaLa.” I chuckle.
“Hey, Blondie,” Isa sings.
“Hey, BeBe.” BeBe was the best nickname we could all find for Isabelle when we were younger. We’re still trying new ones until the right one sticks.
Isa grimaces then asks, “Looking for Curly?”
I snort. I love that nickname. “I am.”
“She’s in the back,” Lana tells me. “If you’re planning on getting…close, there’s a hair net for you.” Then she winks and Isabelle snickers, her hands not-so-subtly covering her lips.
I roll my eyes, running my tongue over my teeth and doing a terrible job at not being amused. “Thank you, LaLa.”
Lana releases a happy humph as I push open the door to the kitchen where I find the angel of a woman with her long curly hair trapped in a hair net that is way too small for the wild locks. Hair like hers deserves to be free and unruly.
Natalia blows out air in an attempt to get a rogue curl out of her eye as she holds a piping bag gently in her hands, moving slowly and deliberately. I walk slowly and quietly so as to not disturb her just yet, and simply watch and admire her for as long as I can.
I love her calm as much as I love her chaos.
I can admire her easily in both, but there is something so beautiful about her calm, and she deserves endless calm moments for the rest of her life.
I’d trade all of my calm for her chaos so she didn’t have to go through any of it if I could.
I’d keep myself in the eye of the storm, the center of the tornado if it meant she got to be in a safe house out of the vicinity of harm.
She mumbles a curse when her arm unintentionally jerks, but she’s good at what she does—she’ll just fix it right up and no one but her would ever know she almost messed up.
When she finally sets the bag down gingerly, she wipes her forehead with the back of her wrist and finally puts that rouge curl back inside the hair net.
“Hey,” I finally say, causing her to snap her head toward me. Her eyes go wide and even more beautiful as she looks at me. “Busy?”
She shrugs and returns to frowning at the cookies she’s decorating in front of her. “Hey.”
“How are you?” I ask carefully.
Another shrug. I hate shrugs. “Fine. Just...working.”
“You weren’t at the bakery,” I say, trying not to make it a question.
Another shrug. Oh my god. “Just need a break.”
“So you came to bake elsewhere,” I muse, and she’s silent. “Natalia, talk to me,” I beg quietly, taking a few steps. “What’s going on in your head?”
“Hair net,” she murmurs and jerks her chin toward it.
I reach for it with a sigh and put it over my hair before I go to stand beside her. “Tell me what’s going on in your head now, please.”
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing is happening in your head?”
“Nope.” She pops the P and smiles up at me, a fake and exhausting smile. “Nothing.”
“Don’t do that with me,” I say immediately. She should know better at this point than to lie to me—or try to. Every attempt she makes only gets worse.
She sighs, flexing her hands twice and shaking them out. “Um, fine,” Natalia murmurs. “I want to say sorry.”
I blink, my brows furrowing tight. “Oh? For what?”
“The way I treated you…that night. I was…I was being mean.” She shakes her head like she utterly hates herself. That or she’s completely disappointed in everything that occurred. “I was…”
“You went into hiding,” I blurt. “You do that a lot.”
“I went into hiding?”
I clear my throat quietly and nod, leaning back against the table. “You shut down with me,” I say gingerly. “Why?”
Natalia’s lips tug at the corner into a frown, followed by a shrug. “Do you regret it yet?”
“No,” I say. “Never.”
“Right,” she drawls, not believing a word I say.
I cross my arms over my chest, my fingers digging into my upper arms—using the pressure to calm myself down. Natalia picks up the piping bag and resumes her skillful cookie decorating.
“There’s somewhere I want to take you,” I say.
I watch her throat work as she swallows, her arms faltering as she draws a steady line on the circular cookie. “Oh,” she rasps. “Um—Where?”
“Come with me? Please?”
Natalia sets down the piping bag after finishing the final cookie and finally sighs— surrenders. “Fine. Where?”
The tips of my lips twitch with something of a small smile. “A movie at the drive-in.”
“The drive-in?”
“The Willow Springs Winter Drive In,” I say. “It happens every year.”
The Willow Springs Winter Drive-In has always been something our friend group loves. Even after Christian left, when we were all trying to help Lana get back up, we’d go together with blankets and takeout while we sat in the truck with the seats down, watching whatever movie was playing.
“I know that, dummy.” Natalia rolls her eyes with a hint of an amused tilt of her lips. “But why?”
“I just want to take you somewhere nice,” I say. “Change up the environment…I don’t know. I already bought our tickets.”
“Oh. Well then…thank you,” she murmurs. “What movie are they showing?”
“Grease.”
Natalia nods slowly, like she’s processing the information. “I like that movie,” she whispers and tears her hair net off her head, her curls cascading down her back. “Okay.”
My brow arches. “Okay?”
Another nod. “Okay. Um, what time?”
“I can pick you up at seven.”
“Okay.”
I really try not to grin. I swear I do. “Okay.”
But Natalia frowns at me and I wish I could heal her heart.
“It won’t be awkward?” Natalia asks quietly, her eyes looking down at where she toys with her dainty rings. Her hands can’t seem to stay still as she pushes hair behind her gold-bedecked ear, displaying all her intricate piercings and jewelry.
My legs move before I even bother to command them, stepping into her space. My hand rests on the table, right at her hip, and my thumb touches the fabric of her jeans. Being a selfish man, I brush my thumb over her hip.
“Why would it be awkward?” I ask quietly, searching for her eyes and waiting until she looks at me.
She continues fighting to avoid my gaze as best as she possibly can, but she eventually relents and I’ve never been more grateful for it. “Because…of what happened.”
“You mean because we had sex,” I say.
Beneath her constellation of freckles blossoms a shade of pink across her cheeks. Seventeen freckles. “Yeah,” she rasps. “That.”
“Was it…” I groan quietly and scratch the back of my head, grimacing before I can even finish the question. “Was it bad?”
Now my body flushes and it’s too hot in here.
Natalia would not have to ask if I thought it was good or not because it’s all I have literally been able to think about since then.
After she left, all I wanted was to hold and kiss her, slower.
Make love to her the way she deserves to be made love to, because damn it…
I should have kissed her slowly. I should have taken all the time in the world until she is the only thing I can hear, taste, see, and breathe.
“No,” Natalia mutters, tapping her fingernails. “No, it…”
“It...”
She sighs through her nose. “Do we really have to talk about it right now?”
Yes, I want to know. I need to know.
“No,” I say. “No, it’s okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Okay.”
“Seven?” I ask.
“Seven,” Nat confirms.
“Okay,” I breathe and lean forward to brush my lips over her head.
“Okay.”