CHAPTER 32
River
“She’s coming here?” Calista asked.
“Yes. So, go.”
“I can’t meet her?”
“No. Not today, anyway. I haven’t seen her since that weekend, and I asked her out.
She said no, Cal. I’m trying not to be embarrassed and keep myself together here because she initially said she’d stop by yesterday, but then, she had something come up, and she texted me, like, five minutes ago that she’s on her way here.
I’ve only got an hour or so before she gets here, and I don’t want you here when she shows up. You’ll embarrass the hell out of me.”
“I will not. Why would I do that? You like this woman. I just want to meet her. I’ll talk you up, if you want,” Calista replied.
“I don’t. She said no because she needs time, Cal. I don’t want to make her feel like I’m trying to make her want to be with me. I told her she could come by and make candy with me; that it’s good therapy. We’re just hanging out.”
“Then, I won’t embarrass you or talk you up, but come on, River. Let me call Ashton. She can come over and meet her, too. This is Kennedy Gannon. We’re fans.”
“I don’t want her to worry about my friends trying to get selfies or autographs, Cal.”
“Um… River?” Michaela asked, leaning into the back through the door to the front.
“Everything okay?” River asked.
“You have a visitor,” Michaela told her. “She’s… It’s Kennedy Gannon.”
River’s eyes went wide as Calista rushed to the door to peer through it.
“Cal, get back here.”
“I thought you said she’d be here in an hour.”
“She said she left five minutes ago. I thought I had an hour. What the hell is she doing here already?”
“I don’t know, but she’s standing in the front right now, looking around. You should get out there. She looks a little, I don’t know, lost,” Calista suggested.
“Fuck,” she said. “Do I look okay? I thought I’d have enough time to run upstairs and put on decent clothes.”
“What should I do?” Michaela asked.
“Um… Nothing. Just go back out there; tell her I’ll be right there. Thank you.”
The door closed, and Calista chuckled.
“For someone who isn’t going on a date right now, you sure are worried about looking good.”
“Shut up,” River replied and ran her hands through her hair, but she’d forgotten that she’d been wearing a hat, so it fell to the floor.
Calista laughed and said, “I’ll go, but I’m the best friend. I’m going to meet her at some point because I need to know that she’s being good to you.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Cal.”
“Not yet,” Calista replied and walked to the back door. “Good luck.”
River picked up her hat, put it back on her head, and tried her best to make it sit straight.
Then, she took a deep breath, looked down at her white shirt that had a few stains on it and her jeans that were torn at the knees, and decided that if she and Kennedy would ever turn into anything at all, Kennedy should see her at her most normal.
“Hey,” she greeted as she walked out and tried to be as nonchalant about it as possible.
“Hi,” Kennedy said and smiled widely.
“How did you get here so fast?” she asked and looked around, seeing no one but her employee in the shop. “Also, we just opened. It’s usually busier.”
“I’m sure it is.” Kennedy put her hands in front of her, locking them in place with her purse hanging off an elbow. “And I was in Anaheim. I… got a hotel here.”
“Last night?”
“Um…” Kennedy glanced over at Michaela and said nothing else.
“Let’s go in the back. Michaela, call me if you need me, okay?”
“Okay. Sure.”
River pushed open the door, let Kennedy walk through before her, and closed it behind them.
“I’ve been staying there since the breakup,” Kennedy revealed.
“A hotel in Anaheim? And you can set your purse on the desk, if you want.”
Kennedy put the purse down and said, “I didn’t know where else to go.
I didn’t want to be in LA. It felt like the world’s smallest city, so I had my assistant book me something down here.
I’ve been living in that room ever since.
I would’ve been here yesterday, and I’m sorry for telling you that I could be and then canceling, but I needed to go back to LA to get some of my stuff and meet with my agent.
He had a role for me that he wanted me to audition for, but I didn’t want to do it.
Not now, anyway. And don’t even get me started on the whole double date YouTube thing.
We told Jessie about the breakup, but there’s a contract in place with the charity.
So, we still have to put the video on, or we’re in breach.
It’s a whole thing. I don’t think they’d sue us or anything, but we’re going to talk to the head of the charity to see if there’s any way they can let us donate more money instead of airing the video, which wouldn’t get them as much as a donation from Cam and me would.
I drove back down here last night, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get here today, but I was. So, I texted, and here I am.”
“Wow. That’s a lot,” River stated.
“I know. Sorry,” Kennedy said with a little laugh. “You look good.”
“What? No, I don’t.” She laughed. “I look like I wasn’t expecting you to come here.”
“I know. You look good.”
River blushed a little and said, “So do you.”
“I look like I haven’t slept in days,” Kennedy replied. “I like you in a hat.” She walked over and tipped it up a bit. “But I can’t see your face if you wear it down like that.”
“I only wear it because I’m dealing with food.”
“It looks good on you,” Kennedy told her.
“Thanks. I promise, not all of my shirts have stains on them. This is one of my candy-making shirts. I have a uniform shirt that I toss on if I need to help in front.”
“Oh, I have got to see you in uniform,” Kennedy said and laughed. “The shirt the girl up front is wearing?”
“Yes,” she replied. “And I’ll only be wearing that if the shop gets busy.”
Kennedy returned to the desk, reached into her purse, and pulled out her phone.
“One social post from me, and half of Anaheim will be here.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” River told her, laughing as she walked over and yanked Kennedy’s phone from her hand.
“Why not? Don’t you want business?”
Kennedy laughed as she tried to steal her phone back from her.
“Not right now. You just got here.”
“I think you might be bad at business, River. You’re supposed to want to be busy all the time,” Kennedy said, still trying to reach around River’s back to get her phone.
“Not bad at business; I just haven’t seen you since that day, Kennedy. I’ve… missed you, okay? I mean as… friends, who are going to hang out in here and make candy.”
Kennedy then stopped trying to get her phone, so River handed it back to her.
“You aren’t sleeping?” River asked softly.
“Not because of the breakup. I’m in a hotel, which I’m used to, but it’s not my home, and I have no jobs lined up, so I’m bored. I also realized that I don’t have all that many friends whom I trust to keep this secret until Cam and I tell everyone, and, well, then there’s you.”
“Me?” River asked, hopeful.
“You were just here. I knew you were only a few miles away, and I could come see you whenever I wanted, but I was scared.”
“You’re scared of me?”
“No, River. I’m scared of what you could represent.”
“Which is?”
“Me moving on,” Kennedy said.
“You said you didn’t–”
“I know what I said. I didn’t come here to talk about that. I really did come here to talk about anything else. You said making candy was good therapy, so I’m hoping you can put me to work, and I can get my mind off everything.”
River wanted to press. She wanted to ask Kennedy more questions about how they could possibly move on together, but she didn’t.
“You need to put your hair up and wear a hairnet,” she said instead.
“I am not wearing a hairnet,” Kennedy argued. “Do you have any idea how expensive the products in my hair are right now?”
“No, and I don’t care,” River replied. “You can’t make candy with your hair down like that.”
“Fine. Can I wear your hat?”
River squinted at her, pulled off her hat, and put it on Kennedy’s head.
“Hey, I meant that I could put it on. You’ll mess up my look. I’m trying to at least appear like I have my life together.”
“We’re alone here, Kennedy. You don’t have to appear like anything.”
Kennedy shifted the hat and gave River a nod.
“You look cute,” River said and tipped the hat down.
“Hey!” Kennedy exclaimed.
But River didn’t pay her any attention as she moved to where she had her box of hairnets and pulled one out.
“Now, I don’t want to hear anything about how I look in a hairnet. I just gave you my hat, so you’re going to be nice.”
Kennedy laughed but nodded again. River put her hair into the hairnet and tried not to imagine how ridiculous she looked.
“You even look good in that,” Kennedy said.
“Hey, no more of that. You and I are doing candy therapy today. No flirting, Kennedy Gannon.”
“Right. Sorry.” Kennedy walked over to River, who was standing at one of the prep counters. “So, what do we do?”
“Well, we have to melt some sugar first. That’s something I’ll do, and you can pick out the flavors we’ll make.”
“What do you need up front?”
“Nothing right now. Just pick whatever you want, and I’ll show you.
” River walked over to the flavor shelves, and Kennedy followed.
“These are your options. Pick whatever you want. We’ll add it to the sugar before it hardens and mix it all in.
Then, we pull it, and once it’s totally hard, we snap it into pieces and put it into bags. ”
“I can really just pick whatever I want?”
“Yeah. We can make a small batch, and you can take it all with you, if you want. I don’t have to sell it. So, grab whatever you think will taste good to you.”
“How many can I mix in?”
“At most, I’d recommend two, but you can technically do whatever you want. The flavors will get muddled, but I did do a strawberry, watermelon, bubblegum once. It was pretty good. Too sweet to have more than one for me, but I could taste all the flavors.”
“Can I do something sour? I love sour candy.”
“I have a sour mix, yeah. Which one do you want.”
“Lemon lime.”
“You really want sour, huh?” River laughed. “Okay… Your candy; your therapy; your choice. I’ll get the sugar going. You find the lemon, lime, and the one labeled ‘sour.’”
River walked toward the stove to get started, which was necessary because she needed to step away from Kennedy, who both looked and smelled so good that all River wanted to do was wrap her arms around her from behind and kiss her neck.
She’s resisted, though, and she was proud of herself for doing that because it was really hard, having Kennedy there, telling her that she looked good and flirting with her.
Still, she wouldn’t bring anything up again until Kennedy was ready because she wanted them to happen.
She wanted Kennedy to eventually go out with her, which meant she had to do everything she could not to scare her away.