Chapter 13
Rory
Friday evening comes and I’m watching movies with Claire. Mom needed a break and I never say no to Claire time, so I swapped my Friday shift for Sunday so she could stay over for the night. It means missing out on good tips, but she’s worth it and I can make the tips up tomorrow. I look over at Claire, who is nestled in next to me on the couch, not really snuggling since she’s “too old” for that, but it’s close enough to count.
“Hey, I have an idea I’d like to suggest,” I tell her.
She grabs the remote and pauses the movie. “What?”
“You know you’ve seen this movie before, right? You didn’t need to pause it.”
“It’s disrespectful to talk through movies,” she says, trying for haughty with her tone.
“It’s Cinderella.”
“And?”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love me.” She smiles.
“Unfortunately,” I tell her, tugging on her hair. “You wanna go to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah, that sounds fun! Just us?”
“Well, Kyle and Wes would like to go too, if you’re okay with it.”
“Oh, good, I was hoping they asked you out again! Okay, I’m in if they are.”
“Wait, what? How is this contingent on my dating life?”
She grabs my hand solemnly. “Aunt Rory, you need to find someone to love you as much as I do, but who has time for you. I can only be here for you once in a while.”
This kid and the audacity in her veins.
“Claire, you DO realize that I’m the adult here. I take care of you, not the other way around.”
She pats my hand condescendingly. “Whatever you say, Aunt Rory.”
Then, she grabs the remote and resumes watching the carriage turn into a pumpkin. Smiling, I shake my head at her and settle in. She takes way too much upon herself, and as much as I try to make light of things with her, I know she weighs herself down too often. She only has another year or two before high school drama and peer pressure kicks in. I’d hate for her to miss out on the last year or two of being totally carefree.
I pick up my phone and confirm plans with the guys. I’m looking forward to time with them, and although it may be too early to think long term, it will be good to know if they get along with Claire since she’s such a staple in my life. He was never a fan of how much time I spent with her and tried to reduce it as much as he could. The guys respond with enthusiasm, making me hopeful and excited about tomorrow.
The next morning we’re up at a god-awful early hour. Nobody was meant to be up at 6 a.m., I’m sure of it. We finish getting ready and head to the car, Claire with an extra pep in her step. I grumble at her that I doubt our blood relation, but she just laughs. I’m not sure how she got the early bird genes, but she did. To console myself, we stop for coffee and I let Claire get whatever caffeine-free treat she wants. Kyle and Wes had the right idea to be early, much to my chagrin, because there are plenty of open spots at this hour.
Once I lock the doors, I look around and easily find Wes’ mop of red hair. He has it somewhat styled today, which is somewhat unusual from my experience so far. Although, to be fair, we’ve only been on one official date before. Kyle is standing next to him, his shaggy hair also styled to be shaggy chic instead of shaggy sloppy. He raises one hand as he sees me and waves with a grin on his face. Claire and I head right over.
“Good morning,” I tell them, still feeling subdued as I wake.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Kyle says, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
Frickin’ adorable. I could handle more of those.
I introduce everyone. “This is Claire, my niece. Claire, this is Kyle and Wes.”
“Hey squirt,” Wes greets her.
She glares at me. “Did you tell him about the nicknames?”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “No way, champ.”
Turning her squinty eyes on Wes, she adds, “Don’t call me squirt. Or champ. I’m not a child.”
Kyle barks a laugh while Wes looks somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place, unsure how to get out of this.
“True, you are definitely not a child, but you’re not like a grown up either so, let’s split the difference and I won’t call you squirt,” he finally offers.
“Or champ.”
“Deal.”
“Okay, I have a question,” she says, moving on from the issue more quickly than she would with me.
“Shoot,” Wes says.
“Are you the Dread Pirate Roberts?” she asks, pretending to whisper.
Wes grins widely and holds his finger up to his mouth. “Can’t tell anyone.”
“As you wish,” Claire replies, laughter bubbling out of her.
“How did I not pull that joke yet?” I ask Kyle.
He shrugs. “We’ll pretend you did. It’s us against a pre-teen; who’s gonna take her side?”
I nod in agreement as Claire sputters in outrage. Wes grins and leads Claire to the entrance of the outdoor market. It’s a straight line from end to end with vendors set up along the sides. There’s everything from fresh produce to handmade blankets. It’s almost overwhelming in choice.
“Let’s go up one side and come back on the other,” Kyle suggests.
“As you wish,” Wes replies with a wink, making Kyle smile and blush a little.
He’s so adorable. I reach out and take his hand as we walk slowly through the market. Wes is amazing with Claire, the two of them quickly becoming thick as thieves. They point out to various objects, giggling at their jokes and sticking close to each other. Wes has already purchased some fruit for her and a few homemade cookies that are almost the size of her face. Part of me wants to rein him in, but it occurs to me she doesn’t get a lot of attention like this from an adult guy, so I let them bond. If he wants to spoil her, I’m okay with that.
I stop at a jewelry stand, looking at the earrings on display, admiring the craftmanship that went into these. The price is higher than I can afford for a single pair right now, but I love the swirling colors of the teardrop shapes dangling from their hooks. Wanting a closer look, I reach my hand out, then hesitate.
“May I hold a pair?” I ask, not wanting to put my hands on things I don’t intend to buy without asking.
“Sure, not a problem,” the woman running the booth says with a smile.
I pick up the card that the hooks are threaded through and set my coffee down. One hand holds the earrings up while my other hand moves the teardrop shape back and forth in the sun to see how the light catches at each angle. It’s not quite iridescent, but it’s not matte either and the effect is mesmerizing. Someone bumps into me from behind and the earrings drop out of my hand and somehow my coffee flies off the table to the ground.
I frantically try to clean up the mess, knowing he’ll blame me for this. He’s in a different aisle of the store, getting another ingredient we need, but there are sprinkles all over the floor from a broken container that had been stocked. When someone grabbed the sprinkles after me, they knocked the container over and sprinkles went everywhere. The customer went to find a store employee to help get this cleaned up, but I couldn’t help myself and dropped to start picking up the sprinkles.
The other customer isn’t back yet, and I can feel my panic kicking in. We were having a really nice day, and he said we could go shopping together and get some supplies to make sundaes. So he walked away to go grab something else in a different aisle that he remembered he needed and I kept going, sprinkles on my mind. I hope he doesn’t make a big deal out of this. If I explain I’m just helping, maybe he’ll understand.
I hear someone walk up behind me and I move, hoping they’ll continue on their way, but they don’t. Fuck. Turning my head from where I’ve kneeled on the ground, I see his face glaring at me, tight with anger. Opening my mouth to try to explain the mess, he cuts me off.
“Clean it up,” he says quietly.
I turn back to try to move faster, not wanting the employee to arrive finally and see me picking up the sprinkles like this. Luck is not on my side today, though, and not a minute after I try to go faster, he arrives with a broom and pan. The other customer is there too, and she collects her cart to go, her duty done. I, however, am not nearly close to done.
“You can get up ma’am, I don’t mind cleaning this,” he says with a friendly tone.
“No, she needs to clean up her mess,” he insists.
I turn my head to see him and the employee looking at each other. The employee shakes his head and nods down to where I’m kneeled.
“Store policy says I need to be the one to clean the mess once notified. It’s truly not a problem. I’ve cleaned worse,” he says with a smile.
I look over to see if I’m released from my task, aware that I’m already going to get an earful about this later. He nods and I deposit what sprinkles I’ve collected into the bin the employee brought over. I stammer my thanks and am dragged away to a side aisle.
“What the FUCK was that about?” he hisses at me.
“Someone knocked over the sprinkles and—”
“SOMEONE? You mean you. YOU knocked over the sprinkles and made an embarrassing mess everywhere. How could you do this to me?” he says, scathing me with his tone even without his voice raised.
“I-I’m sorry, I was just trying to help—”
“Help yourself? Yeah, I bet. You’re lucky I even take the time to deal with this shit, E. Nobody else would give you the time of day.”
I hang my head and twist my fingers together, hoping that this is the worst it gets. He grips my bicep so tightly I know it’s going to bruise, but I hold my wince in. Yanking me close to him, he dips his head toward me. I’m sure to anyone passing by it looks like two lovers having a private moment, but it’s decidedly more sinister.
“Do I need to keep you at home? Can you handle being in public without embarrassing yourself AND me? How am I supposed to take you places if you can’t handle keeping your messes to yourself?”
My breathing is rapid now, nerves getting the best of me, and I don’t know what response to give him to make it better. How do I make this better?
“I’ll be better,” I whisper.
He softens slightly, but not enough to put me at ease.
“You know I love you, right E? I’m just looking out for you, helping you be the best person you can be,” he says.
“Thank you, I love you too,” I tell him softly.
“Of course you do,” he says, then drags us to the checkout.
I’m pulled back to the moment by Kyle asking me if I’m okay, checking my torso carefully. Blinking, I look up at him, and realize I dropped the earrings. I gasp and let my body fly down to the ground, praying the earrings didn’t break. I can’t afford to buy them. Well, I could, but it means buying cheap food this week, and I was looking forward to a nice steak. Thankfully, they’re in one piece and I snag them up.
“I’m so sorry I dropped these,” I tell the vendor.
“Oh gosh, it’s no problem. It was a total accident,” she says.
“I know. I just don’t want you to think I’m careless. I really try to be careful with things like this and I don’t want to cause problems. Did my coffee spill on your tablecloth at all?” I’m aware I sound a little crazy, but I can’t stop myself since memories of him are riding me hard.
She reaches a hand out and gently takes the earrings from me with a kind smile. “Truly, it’s no problem. Accidents happen. Thank you for being a concerned customer. Most people would just walk away and pretend nothing happened.”
I nod and pick up my discarded coffee cup, looking up to realize there’s no crowd. Nobody’s staring, nobody’s going to make a fuss, and it truly was just a small bump. Wes and Claire are a few booths down, but I can see Wes glancing over to see what’s happening. Kyle’s looking at me with concern in his gaze.
“You okay?” he asks gently.
“Yeah, uh, yeah, I’m good.” I force a smile and start walking again.
“Rory, if you need to talk…”
“Why would I need to talk? It was just an accident. It’s okay,” I insist, picking up the pace a little to be near Claire again.
Kyle grabs my hand, slowing me down. “Look, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but I can see something is bothering you. I’m here for you, no matter what it is, okay?”
I take a breath and realize he means it. He’s not going to force me to talk about anything unless I really want to. Without realizing what I’m doing, I slam my body into him, wrapping my arms around his strong torso. With no hesitation, he holds me close, dropping a small kiss on my head.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Always,” he whispers back.