12. Laila
Laila
One thing about me and my friends, we love a good themed event. For Valentine’s day each year we always do something together, just us girls to catch up on each other’s lives. In past years we’ve done picnics, paint and sips, movie nights with matching pajamas, and this year we decided on brunch.
“Hey!” Maia says, opening Cass’s front door. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Thank you, you too,” I reply, hugging her and then stepping in the door.
Cass met Maia on the same vacation in Mexico where she and Cyrus reconnected over a year ago. Cyrus was there for his brother’s wedding and Maia was the bride. Since then they’ve become close like sisters and Maia has joined our friend group.
“Cass is still getting ready,” Maia says. “I was just finishing setting up some last minute things.”
“What’s left? I can help.”
I set the champagne down on the counter and help Maia with the last minute things to make sure everything is perfectly set up.
Cass went all out with the decorations, as we all knew she would.
Everything is pink and red from the utensils and napkins to the balloons floating above our heads on the ceiling.
The catered bite size finger foods are laid out in an impressive spread on the kitchen counters with rose petals sprinkled around the serving dishes.
As we finish up the front door buzzes and Maia goes over to let in Tiffany, Cass’s sister, and shortly after, Reagan and Stella arrive too.
I take pictures of the gorgeous set up on both my phone and polaroid camera for the memories, before we dig into the food and drinks.
A moment later Cass comes out of her bedroom dressed in a pink jumpsuit. She goes around the room giving each of us a hug. She reaches me last, pulling me in for a quick squeeze.
“I’m sorry, what is that?!” Tiffany exclaims when Cass and I pull apart.
We all look to her in shock, wondering what she’s referring to but her eyes are locked with Cass who’s barely holding back a grin.
“You mean this?” Cass asks, bringing her left hand and the stunning new ring on her ring finger into full view.
I’m not sure how I missed it before, but the marquise cut diamond ring with side clusters on a thin gold band is breathtaking.
“Cassandra!”
We all envelope Cass in more hugs, squealing and talking over each other in happiness.
“Where’s the champagne we need to celebrate!” Reagan says.
Reagan pops open one of the bottles of champagne I brought and pours each of us a flute. We raise our glasses in celebration , all of us grinning from ear to ear.
“I can’t believe you’re engaged!” Maia says. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Wedding planning is going to be so fun,” Tiffany says. “Have you and Cyrus thought about dates? Or maybe just a season, we can start there.”
“So about that,” Cass says.
The room goes quiet as we all look over at her wondering what the hell she’s talking about.
She takes a big gulp of her champagne and swallows before she replies. “Cyrus and I aren’t engaged.”
I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion
“What do you mean?” Reagan asks.
“Shut up!” Maia says, catching on before the rest of us. “Where’s the champagne we need another toast!”
“We aren’t engaged because we got married on Friday,” Cass says.
I bring my hand to my mouth, stunned. “What!? No you didn’t.”
Cass giggles and nods her head. “I did!”
Maia refills our champagne flutes and we raise them again to ‘cheers’.
“To my sister,” Tiffany says with tears in her eyes. “You’re my best friend and I am so happy to get a front row seat to this amazing life you’re creating. I love you so much and I’m so happy that you have found your person.”
We clink our glasses together and Tiffany and Cass tearfully hug each other.
I am overcome with emotion and feel tears well up in my own eyes.
I feel so incredibly grateful to be able to share this moment with my friends, in celebration of Cass and Cyrus’ union because they truly are meant for each other.
“Okay I know you have pictures. I want to see,” Reagan says.
Cass takes out her phone and shows us the beautiful behind the scenes of her and Cyrus getting ready together the day they got married.
“I can’t believe you eloped. I literally would have never expected that,” I say to Cass, looking at the picture of her in her white dress.
“Honestly me either,” she replies. “But on the flight home I just thought why not. I was never one of those girls that dreams of my wedding day. I just wanted to marry Cyrus, so we went to the courthouse the next day and I love that we did.”
“Girl, I don’t blame you,” Maia says. “Planning a wedding is stressful as hell!”
“Mama is gonna kill you, you know that right,” Tiffany says.
“Why do you think I told you before her,” Cass says. “I need backup!”
We all burst out laughing.
***
Launch days are some of my favorite days, the excitement of releasing new things and all of the hard work finally coming to fruition.
January and February are notoriously known to be the worst months in sales, but we opted for a February release anyway for the items that we weren’t able to get in time for our holiday sales and as a nice nod to Valentine’s Day.
But launch days also always make me extra nervous too. So many things, always circling through my brain the morning of launch that I have to fight to not have control of my thoughts.
Did I schedule all the social media posts that I needed to?
Did we do enough promotion before today?
Will we meet our sales goal?
Do we have enough inventory?
Do we have too much inventory?
I triple check to make sure the social media posts I have scheduled are good to go, exactly what I want them to be, and then shut my laptop and stand from my desk.
I need a break.
Everything is scheduled and ready to go for the launch, so I decide to take my lunch a little earlier than I normally would and get out of the office.
The weather outside is finally not so briskly cold so I walk the few blocks down the street to my favorite coffee shop.
The bell on the door chimes as I step through the front door and I’m instantly greeted by the heavenly scent of coffee and pastries.
It’s not very busy, the usual afternoon rush is still a few hours away and I’m grateful for the calm of the shop. It’s exactly what I need.
I walk up to the counter to order and the owner, Cheyenne, comes from the kitchen in the back. Her signature red locs pulled into a bun on top of her head.
“Hey darling, what can I get for you?” Cheyenne asks with a smile
I look at the pastry case with a frown, noticing that their most popular item, the cinnamon rolls, are sold out. “Damn, I was hoping I got here early enough for a cinnamon roll.”
Cinnamon & Spice is known all over town for their delicious handmade cinnamon rolls, so much so that if you come in the morning there’s usually a line out the door of people wanting to buy a cinnamon roll with their morning coffee.
Cheyenne bakes them throughout the day, refilling the pastry case, but there’s still no guarantee that there will be any when you come in due to the high demand.
“If you have some time, I have a fresh batch coming out in about 30 minutes.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Yes that works perfectly, I’ll pay for them now and come get them before I leave.”
I order a vanilla latte and a chicken pesto panini to have for lunch and cinnamon rolls for me and everyone else at Lovely Day as a launch day sweet treat.
My favorite booth is the one tucked in the corner by the front window and thankfully it’s available.
Less than five minutes later, Cheyenne brings my coffee and panini over to me at my table.
I do a little bit of people watching while I eat my sandwich and drink my coffee, staring out the front window as people rush by on their way to their next destination.
This lunch is everything that I needed it to be.
I don’t scroll on my phone, or check emails, or any of the things I would usually do , I just let myself relax.
More and more people start to file in to Cinnamon & Spice as the lunch rush starts so I decide it’s time to get back to work.
I slide out of the booth and go to the front counter to pick up my cinnamon rolls.
Cheyenne hands me my box that was already set aside which is great because the pastry case is nearly empty again.
The previously blue sky has turned cloudy and gray and the air smells like rain is very near. I quickly walk back over to Lovely Day , narrowly making it in the building before large raindrops begin to fall.
“I got cinnamon rolls,” I say in a singsong voice as I walk back into the office. “Cheyenne just made them too so they’re fresh.”
I stop in my tracks when I see Stella, Cass and Reagan all huddled around Cass’ desk with looks of shock and confusion on their faces.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Have you seen the numbers,” Stella asks.
My heart immediately drops. “Nooo, I was at lunch. What’s going on y’all are scaring me.”
Stella hands her tablet to me and my eyes go wide. Hundreds of items of inventory are down to just a few dozen of each and one of them, the lemon vanilla body butter, is already sold out.”
“How is this even possible? It’s only been like an hour?”
I walk over to my own desk setting down the box of cinnamon rolls and shrugging out of my coat, tossing it over my chair. I pick up my tablet, navigating to our inventory, confident that there was just something wrong with Stella’s numbers.
There had to be because what other answer was there.
Right there on my own tablet are the same numbers that were on Stella’s. Actually less since every time the inventory refreshes the number of available stock continues to dwindle.