CHAPTER 8
River
“Thank you for stopping by today,” she said to a customer and handed her a bag.
“This place really is amazing. Do you make all of this stuff yourself?” the woman asked.
“Most of it is made in-house, yes,” she replied. “All of the fudge and most of the candy. Some of it, we buy, but only from companies that still make everything by hand, including our ice cream.”
“How long have you worked here?” the woman asked.
River looked around the shop to see if there were any more customers whom she could be helping to use that as an excuse to get out of this conversation, since she was able to tell where it was heading, but unfortunately, they were in a bit of a lull at the moment.
What she wouldn’t give for a kid sticking his hand into one of the barrels so she could politely ask him to stop right about now.
“We opened about five years ago,” she replied.
“Opened? You own it?”
“My friend and I do, yes.”
“Wow! That’s impressive.”
“Is it?” she said, trying to be polite.
“Definitely.” The woman smiled widely at her. “So, do you enjoy it?”
“Owning this shop?”
“And working here, making candy.”
“I do, yes. It’s always been my dream to own a place like this and take people back in time a little.”
“I work for a law office as a receptionist. I can tell you that was not my dream,” the woman shared.
“No?”
“I wanted to be a teacher for a while. Then, I thought I would be a nurse. I settled on law school eventually and hated it, but now, I’m trying to be a paralegal, working in an office until I can make that happen.”
“Well, sounds like you’re working toward something,” River replied before the door blissfully opened, and two new customers walked in.
“Hey, do you ever get a break?” The woman went for it, just as River had guessed that she would. “There’s a coffee shop down the street. Maybe I can wait around, and we can grab some together?”
“I’m the only one here right now, so I can’t get away, but thanks for the offer,” she said.
“Another time, then?”
“I appreciate the invitation, and I don’t want to presume anything here, but I do have a girlfriend,” River told her.
“Oh.” The woman nodded. “Got it. Of course, the hot candy shop owner has a girlfriend.” She nodded twice more and added, “Well, I’m going to go with my tail between my legs. You have a good day.”
“You too,” River replied.
When the woman turned on her heels and headed out the door, River walked out from behind the counter to her new customers and offered to help them.
After bagging up their selection and making their root beer float to-go, she rang them up and heard the back door open, indicating that one of her part-timers was there now and would be able to take the front for a bit in order to let River go in the back and slice up some freshly made fudge.
“Hey,” Calista said when she walked in an hour later. “I promise, I’m not just here because you texted that you saved me fudge.”
She held up her hands in supplication.
“Why do I doubt that?”
“Because you save me fudge all the time and I don’t always show up,” Calista replied. “I’m blocked.”
“New book?”
“The publisher wanted me to try to segue from children’s to young adult, and I gave them this whole series pitch that they loved, but now, I have to write it, and I’m struggling a bit. So, I came here to work and get distracted, but also for chocolate and my friend.”
“Mostly for the distraction, though, right?” River teased her as she poured out a heavy pot of melted sugar onto the counter. “Want to help me here, or work out front?”
“I think I’d like to work out front.”
“Go ahead. Michaela is out there now, but I’m sure she could use some help. We’re about to get busy. Just that time of day.”
Calista left the back room, and River went about adding the flavoring and coloring to her sugar that she then spread around and swirled until everything was all mixed together how she wanted it to be.
This would be a tart cherry-and-cream combo, and after she pulled it and it hardened, she’d snap it off into tiny pieces and put them into little bags.
Some would go into the variety bags she had sitting over on another counter, waiting to be filled, and others would go in their own individual-flavor bags.
“Hey, can you come up? We’re pretty busy. I guess the storm scared literally everyone from Disney and has deposited them randomly around town,” Calista said, holding the door open as she did.
The candy was already hardening, so River could come back to it in a bit after getting the line down.
She walked out front and helped slice and wrap up fudge, make sodas, and box up some of the more specialty candies that didn’t go into bags, while Calista helped people on the floor and Michaela rang them up.
Finally, at least two hours later, the line was gone, and the shop only had two customers in it.
“Michaela, are you good up here?” River asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“We’ll be in the back, then. I’m a little behind on my bags now, so I’m going to make Cal help me. Yell if you need me.”
Calista laughed, followed River into the back, and said, “Well, that was fun. You sure you don’t want to buy me out already? We just had, like, a thousand customers in an hour or something.”
“I don’t think it was a thousand. And no, I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it. Now, I need to replace everything we just sold. Would you mind filling these bags as I make this candy? Then, I need to go out there and see what needs to be refilled.”
“Michaela can’t do that?”
“She will with whatever we have under the counter, but there was a pretty big taffy run, and I doubt we have enough under the counters to replace it all.”
“Okay, I’ll get the bags.”
“Thanks,” River replied.
They went about filling the bags with the candy River had made earlier and wrapped them up so that they could be placed out front, when River noticed Calista staring at her.
“What?”
“What’s going on with you? You seem like you’re really tightly wound right now; like your shoulders are at your ears.”
“What?”
She laughed and tried to relax her shoulders.
“See?”
Calista pointed at her.
“So? I’m working. I’m tense.”
“Tense, huh?”
“Yeah, this is tension. You should know what that’s like. You’re a writer, and you’re trying to have a kid.”
“Nope. Back to you. What’s going on?”
Calista sat in River’s chair.
“Nothing is going on, Cal. I’m behind and trying to get caught up.”
“I hate asking this because I don’t think that getting laid is always the solution for stress and tension. It helps sometimes, obviously, but I’m mainly asking because I know it’s been a while for you and Lacey, so I’m wondering if she has something to do with this.”
“Are you asking me when I last had sex with my girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Because you and I always talk about our sex lives?”
“We don’t, and that’s fine with me. I don’t need details, River. I’m just wondering what is going on with my friend. Your relationship is basically the only thing you’ve got going outside of the business, and your business is doing well, so I know it’s not that.”
“Lacey and I haven’t done that in a while.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. We’re tired all the time. We have a million things going on. When did you last have sex with your wife there, Cal?”
“This morning in the shower,” Calista said. “Last night in the kitchen. We might have gone a week before that. We’ve gone longer than that, too, obviously.” She shrugged.
River sighed and replied, “Look, Lacey and I are going through it right now, I think. I don’t know how to get us out of this rut or whatever it is that we’re in.
It’s like we’re just off somehow. Like, when I want to go out, she wants to stay in, or vice versa.
I can take off early from here, but she has a late client.
When I’m exhausted and just want to crash here, she wants to be at home because my apartment is a freaking hot box.
I just… When we’re together, we’re usually catching up on our days, eating food, and crashing in bed.
Then, I found out that she did something, and part of me was annoyed.
Another part was kind of excited. I’m not sure how a third part of me feels yet because I’m still processing, but I think the fourth part of me is nervous. ”
“What did she do?” Calista asked.
“She entered this raffle thing. It was for charity, and she didn’t think she’d win, but she did.”
“Win what?”
“A double date for us.”
“A double date? With whom, exactly?”
“Kennedy Gannon and Cameron Levine.”
“I’m sorry; what?”
“I know.”
“Hold on. You’re really saying you get to meet Kennedy Gannon and Cameron Levine?”
“Apparently,” River said and moved over to her desk to lean against it. “It’s a whole big thing… I don’t know that I really want to do it, Cal, but Lacey seemed so excited.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to go on a double date with two of the hottest celebrities in the world? God, just tell me when. Ashton and I will take your place.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” she replied, laughing a little. “But there was all this paperwork we had to fill out, and–”
“For what? Dinner?” Calista asked. “Like an NDA or something for whatever they might say?”
“No, it’s not just a dinner; that’s the thing. It’s a whole weekend. There’s a beach house and two nights and three days of cameras, too.”
“Cameras?”
“They’re filming it all, so we had to agree to be filmed as well and let them use it for some YouTube thing and to promote it.
It’s for charity, so I get it – they want to draw attention to the cause.
I’m also all for kids not getting cancer, but I didn’t expect to be filmed for a whole weekend.
I’m not exactly someone who likes to be on camera. ”
“You’d look great on camera,” Calista suggested. “And this could be a kick-ass way to promote the shop, too. I mean, kids’ cancer comes first, obviously, but if you can toss in a shameless plug, and it ends up on YouTube or something, that would be amazing.”
“I guess.”
“But you still don’t want to do it?”
“I think Lacey wants this to be some grand, romantic weekend. Like, she’s looking at the beach house and the ocean and picturing us sitting out by the water alone, talking about our feelings and our future.”
“And you don’t want that?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s just not the reality of what we’re walking into, I don’t think.
We’ll be surrounded by cameras and a whole other couple, too.
I think it’s going to be so awkward and weird.
I agreed to do it because I knew it would make her happy, but I don’t want her to be disappointed if it’s not a nice, relaxing, romantic weekend for us.
I mean, I don’t want to be sitting on some blanket in the sand, holding her, with a camera is in my face when we’re just trying to talk. ”
“Well, that I understand. You told her all this?”
“Some of it. I kept the rest to myself because she really wants to do this. Cal, I can’t imagine having sex in a bedroom that’s right next to Cameron Levine and Kennedy Gannon’s, with cameras outside or something, waiting for us or listening to us.”
“Then, don’t have sex there. You think Lacey is expecting to have sex there?”
“It’s a romantic weekend to her, and you just brought up the point that we haven’t done that in a while.
I’m guessing she’s hoping we do that, yeah.
The contract thing said the cameras are not permitted in the bedrooms or bathrooms unless we allow it, but still…
There’s nothing that says they can’t be right outside the room, listening in. ”
“I doubt they’d try to put that in the YouTube thing that’s supposed to be about fighting cancer. It’s not some tawdry reality show, River.”
“Doesn’t mean I want them to hear us. God, what if Kennedy Gannon heard my sex sounds?”
Calista laughed loudly and replied, “How loud are you, exactly? I’m sure the ocean would drown some of that out.”
“I’m not that loud.”
“Then, you’re all good, River. God, have sex with your girlfriend in a cool beach house, if you want to, but just try to relax a little. You’re wound so tight. I keep waiting to walk in here and find candy all over the floor because you knocked over barrels of the stuff.”
“You know I’d never do that.”
“I know. And I think this could be at least something fun for the two of you to do together. It sounds like you’ve gotten into a routine.
I’ve been there; it can be a hard thing to break.
But here’s this amazing chance for you to get out of this place, your terrible apartment, Lacey’s apartment that’s at least a hundred times better, so I don’t understand why you don’t just move in already, and to probably get out of your head a little, too. Have some fun.”
“I can’t leave this place for a whole weekend. I mean, can I, really?”
“Yes, you can. Tell me when, and I’ll cover for you.
Ashton will, too. She knows how to do everything here, and it’ll get us out of our heads, being here, working together.
Plus, Michaela and Zoey will be here for their shifts.
I’m sure I can offer them a few more hours, and they’ll take me up on it if you’re that worried.
We can hold down the fort for you, River. ”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I did it when you were sick for a few days a few years ago, remember?”
“That was right after we opened. We weren’t that busy yet. I don’t know, Cal… Maybe I should just tell Lace that I can’t do it.”
“No, you’re not doing that. Don’t use this place as your excuse. It will backfire, trust me.”
River sighed and said, “Fine. I’ll go.”
“Mention the shop.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Now, will you help me get the front restocked before we close to save me some time before opening tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I will. Ashton and I are grabbing dinner out tonight. Want to join us? I can have her swing by and pick us up. Have Lacey meet us there if she’s free, and she can drive you home after.”
“I’ll text her,” she replied, thinking it might be nice for them to go on a double date with a couple they already knew well before they went on a much longer one with two celebrities they’d never met before.