Chapter 3
Lana
Books and Beans opens early today because I haven’t been able to rest since Friday night—not since I saw him. I tried to take a long weekend off and reopen on Tuesday, but it’s Monday and I’m here by six a.m.
We open at nine.
This is my favorite place in the world, I think. Other than my house, obviously. Books and Beans was always going to be mine. I was always going to make it a reality sooner or later. And…I can’t call myself lucky that it happened sooner—not with how it happened sooner.
I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of being manipulated and accepting it and letting it get to me—letting it make me resent him.
I’m angry at him—I have been for years. But the thing that came just months after he left, made me angrier.
Christian is here, back in town, and I don’t trust him one bit. He comes back like he owns the place with his fancy suits and dress shoes and a haircut that he most likely overpaid for. He still has the stubble though.
I texted Natalia and Isabelle last night—caught them up on the situation at hand. I stopped typing after that one long message I sent so I could cry in the shower. And then again, into my pillow.
Nothing better than tears to put you into the best sleep of your life.
“Lana!”
I sigh and wince with each step I take toward the kitchen. “What?” I ask, hissing when I step on the blister at the base of my big toe. “Shit.”
“Lana, what happened?” Natalia washes and dries her hands, her brows pinching as she regards me. “Those fucking shoes, Lana, I swear! I tell you every time I come here.”
I take a seat on the nearest stool at the stainless steel work station. “I know,” I sigh. “The shoes just…haven’t been a priority.”
Natalia shoots me a look, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the kitchen’s sink. “You’re ridiculous because you have no other priorities.”
“I have this bookshop and the cafe.”
“The bookshop cafe is one thing, Lana!”
“Exactly,” I try to reason. “Double the work!”
“You’ve just proved my point.”
I roll my eyes. “What point, Natalia?”
“That you need new shoes to do ‘double to work,’” she mocks. “Buy them.”
“Later,” I lie. “I need to work.”
“No. Go to your office and rest your feet. I can see the blood at the back of your sneakers!”
I wave her off. I noticed and felt it earlier, but I put on a bandaid. It seems the bandaid did nothing after all, it just keeps sliding off.
“Natalia,” I sigh. “Why’d you call me back here? I’m exhausted.”
One of my best friends rolls her eyes. “I wanted you to try this batch.”
“Natalia,” I sigh again. “You own a bakery. You are a baking master. Please, I trust you.”
“I know you’re tired because you never say no to trying my recipes.”
I leave forward and put my head down on my forearms. “Fine. Gimme.”
“Good. Now take off your shoes,” Natalia says, setting a small plate with two cookies—one chocolate chip and the other a sugar cookie.
I toe the tennis shoes off and they land on the kitchen floor with a thump. I’ll mop the floor and sanitize this table myself. In a few. I moan when I stretch and flex my feet. When I was younger, I’d wear my shoes until they were torn. I can’t seem to kick the habit.
“This feels so good,” I breathe and grab a chocolate chip cookie. I take a bite. “And this…” Another bite. “…is a delicacy.”
Natalia’s nose scrunches up. “Really? I thought it tasted weird.”
“It doesn’t. Your taste buds are numb to your work.” I shrug. “It happens.”
“Mhhm,” she hums.
I stuff the rest of the large, round cookie into my mouth. “What?”
She shrugs with her shoulders and mouth, and puts another batch of her infamous cookies to bake—including her oatmeal raisin and peanut butter blossoms. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Natalia washes her hands again and comes back to me, snatching a cookie for herself. “How’s Levi?”
“Fine,” I mutter. “He said he’d let me know when we were going out.”
Her eyes widen as she chews. “He did?”
I nod, frowning slightly. I shouldn’t be frowning at all, right? “Yes?”
“So, what, he’s just going to text you whenever he wants about a potential date?”
I steal another freshly baked cookie and shrug. “It’s weird, right? Christian…he’s back and I’m—”
“—forcing yourself to go on a date for no good reason?” Natalia finishes.
I thought I was finally ready to move on, to go on a first date after all this time. After keeping myself mostly isolated other than my friends and my bookshop cafe, I thought maybe I could go on a date and try.
I’ve spent all this time, single and mostly happy with myself that I never needed anyone to hold me at night—no matter how much I missed him. I grew independent and self reliant, just like my mother taught me. But I thought about it though.
I thought about being in love with someone and being happy.
But thinking about someone who wasn’t him was like gutting myself each time.
Even if I had gone on a date or “fell in love” with someone else, it would have never been the same kind of love.
It would never be the Christian and Lana kind of love because it is one of a kind, and it can’t ever be replicated.
“You don’t have to go on a date with Levi, you know,” Nat says. “I’m pretty sure he isn’t even that great.”
“I guess,” I mutter. “But weren’t you the one who told me to get out there and find a new fish?”
“I said find a fish because you were being eaten by a shark!”
“I love that shark!”
Her gape turns into a mischievous grin with an evil chuckle. “Oh, Lana.”
“I hate you,” I grumble. “I don’t love him.”
“Liar.” She winks. “Just remember, it’s your prerogative to be defensive. But you can still love him enough to want to forgive him, even if it takes time.”
“Can I forgive him?”
Nat shrugs. “That’s a question you have to ask yourself.”
“He disappeared, Natalia,” I mutter. “Disappeared. For four years! I… I don’t…”
“You want to forgive him,” Nat says. “And whether you like it or not, you still love him. You always have, Lana. You just have to give him the chance to show you why you should forgive him.”
My teeth gnaw at my cheek. “How can I still love him after four years?”
Natalia smirks knowingly, leaning on her forearms. “You tell me. You’re the one who’s doing it.”
“And aren’t you still frustrated from all that sexual tension with Rowan?”
“I hate you for that.” Natalia sighs and dusts the crumbs off her hands on a napkin. “Give it time. You’ll see.”
“See what?” I ask, and bend for my shoes.
“That maybe you’re both sharks.”
I tie my shoes and stand. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No, because usually calling someone a shark is an insult.”
“Not the way I mean it,” she says. “I mean that you’re stubborn. Fearless, hungry, tenacious—”
“Natalia—”
“You’re a good shark,” she tells me. “The best. Now go bite his head off and show him what you’re made of.”
I arch a brow. “Make him beg?”
Natalia smirks and squeezes my arm. “Make him beg.” I nod and she shoves me toward the door. “Now go. It’s almost nine and I’m leaving soon.”
“You’re a terrible business owner by the way,” I snap. “Your bakery opens at nine too.”
“Open at ten on Mondays because I’m here helping you!”
“And you won’t let me pay you!”
Natalia shrugs. “Pay me by making a grown man cry on his knees.”
“And I’m the shark,” I mumble, pushing through the kitchen doors and wincing, the blister on my toe burning as I step to the register.
And as if the blisters these stupid tennis shoes give me aren’t enough, I see his stupid face waiting on the other side of the register.
My first customer of the day.
His stupid handsome face!
He shouldn’t be here. Especially not in that ridiculously sexy suit that hugs all of his muscles. The white button up is tucked into his dark pants with a Gucci belt around his waist—hate that.
He can’t be here. I don’t know what his mother will do if she finds out. I don’t know what she will do to me and everything I have now.
“Hello,” I say, logging in no the iPad. “What can I get you today?”
He steps right up to the counter. “How’s your day going?”
“Fine. What can I get you?”
Christian smiles and I can’t hate it even if I try. “My day just got better.”
“Corny,” I say. “What can I get you?”
“Scone and a latte—”
“Got it.”
“I didn’t finish—”
“I’ve known your order since our first date, Christian,” I grumble. “That’ll be twenty five dollars.”
Christian smirks. “Since our first date?”
I roll my eyes, realizing my mistake. It was a slip up and it won’t happen again. “Thirty dollars now.”
He smiles and opens his wallet. He taps his card to the reader, paying the correct amount for the latte and scone. Then he takes out a hundred dollar bill from his leather YSL wallet, and drops it in the mason jar for tips.
I gape at him and take it out. “I refuse.”
“Lana—”
“Don’t be obnoxious,” I say and shove the bill at him. “I don’t need handouts.”
“It isn’t a handout, it’s a tip.”
“Don’t do that.” I walk away toward the pastry cafe and take a scone to warm up while I make the latte. He follows every step I take from the opposite side of the counter.
“What am I doing, Lana?”
I steam the milk, face and neck burning. “Pitying me.”
“I don’t pity you.”
“Then don’t leave a hundred dollars in my tip jar!”
“Fine! It isn’t for you, it’s for your staff!”
“Then leave the hundred dollars!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
I’m banging through the fridges and milk and machines, breathing heavily through my flared nostrils, until I put the cap on his steaming drink and slam it down on the pick-up counter.
“You look ridiculous, by the way,” I mumble and wipe my hands on a towel.
“What?” His hand wraps around the paper cup and he sets it back down, shaking out his burnt hand.
I smile. “Nothing. Enjoy your spit latte.”
“What?”
“I said, enjoy your latte.”
Christian regards me carefully with his eyes pinched, but I give him a grin that doesn’t reach my eyes. “Thank you, Lana.”
The deep rumble of his voice makes my grin falter. He will not win!