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I look at Oliver and Amy, who are both watching on with interest, Oliver’s cheek flexing in and out, and reply almost shyly, “Not at the moment.”
Dale grins at this. “Maybe we can get together sometime?”
I feel so thrown by this sudden turn of events that I look at Amy with pleading eyes, begging her to help me out. It’s not that I don’t think Dale is cute, but there is no way I could fathom dating one of Oliver’s friends.
“Lilly, I think you have some customers to serve,” Amy says, being a loyal friend and providing me with a distraction.
“Oh yes, thanks, Ames.” I turn to see a line of customers waiting to be served, and I manage to bypass Dale’s question with a quick, “It was nice to meet you.”
From the corner of my eye, I see a grumpy-looking Oliver drag Dale away, the two of them nudging each other in a manly way. What was that all about?
“So we are almost done here,” Amy says after we have served the next round of customers, looking around at the near empty table in front of us, beaming in delight. “You did it!”
“We did it!” I remind her. “You, me, and especially Oliver. I can’t believe he put so much effort into this for me.”
“Can’t you?” Amy asks with a strange expression on her face. “You know Oliver would do anything for you.”
And with that lovely thought in mind, I start packing up my stall, basking in the glow of my first day as a business owner and baker extraordinaire.
CHAPTER 11
Lilly
That night, as I sit on the couch, rubbing my tired feet, I reflect on what a success the day was. Earlier, when I added up the amount I made today, considering the money I spent on ingredients, it turned out I had made a tidy profit, and I could not be more pleased with myself. Maybe I could make this dream a reality. Remembering Oliver’s instructions to set up a Love, Lilly Instagram page, so my new fanbase can find me and hopefully my pop-up café in the future, I pull my laptop over to me, unable and unwilling to move even a little bit off the couch, and open the Instagram app. I get to work creating a new account, adding the logo Oliver designed and sent through to me earlier as the profile picture for the page, and also a brief description of what the business is about. After this is done, I pause to decide what my first post should be, and I scroll through the pictures Oliver sent through to choose the perfect picture, stopping on one that catches my eye. It is from the start of the day, which is why I don’t look like a hot mess yet. I am holding a tray of cookies and smiling at the camera / Oliver, the photographer. The cookies look amazing, and I look happy. I decide this will be my first post, with the caption, “Made with love.” I add a bunch of what I think are relevant hashtags and remember to tag the Market Place Instagram page in my post to encourage anyone who visited my stall today to follow my account. Feeling pretty impressed with my social media skills, I close the app, content to leave it at this for now.
With my baking business done for the moment, I continue to scroll through the pictures from the day and am forced to think about the encounter with Emma. Why does she have to be so snide all the time? Would it kill her to just pretend to like me, like I do with her? I need a drink to take the edge off my sore body and hurt feelings and limp into the kitchen to make myself a Long Island Iced Tea. OK, well maybe not quite a Long Island Iced Tea, more like adding all the alcohol I have in my apartment into a glass with a splash of coke and a straw. Fancy. I settle back onto the couch with my cocktail, which FYI, does not taste nice but is giving me a warm buzz, and flip on the TV, scrolling through Netflix. Unable to find something good to watch among the several thousand shows available, and feeling unsettled, I turn the TV on mute and try to put my finger on what is bothering me. I should be happy. Today was a good day. And yet I can not revel in any genuine happiness.
The conversation with Dale has also left me feeling uneasy. Given that I had already met him, albeit briefly, in the past and he wasn’t flirtatious with me before, the entire experience was odd. And it has left me feeling a bit off kilter, especially seeing Oliver’s reaction to it. It was almost like he was jealous, but that can’t be right, can it? Surely, given that Oliver is coupled up with Emma, he should be fine with me dating one of his friends. Not that I would go out with Dale. Although he is very cute, it would just be too weird, given the lingering feelings I have for Oliver. It is all so confusing.
I take another sip of my not-so-fancy drink, grimacing at the taste, and glance at the table. I see my New Year’s resolution to-do list and can finally identify why the events of the day have left me feeling so unsettled. Between Oliver’s girlfriend and Oliver’s flirty friend, I’m left with the fact that I am nowhere near being able to check off item number four. While I am going full steam ahead with my grand plans to quit my job and start my business, I am falling even further behind in my quest to get over this crush.
With another sip of my “Long Island Iced Tea,” which perhaps, now that I think of it, does taste nice, I decide to make myself another one, taking this time to consider my options. Oliver is unavailable. He is with the evil Emma, and while not seeming happy all the time, he is committed. And even if he were to become single, I don’t think he would ever be interested in someone like me. So I must do something about it. I sway on my feet as I sink onto the couch, holding my cocktail like it is my lifeline. I grab my laptop again and open up a popular dating site, one Amy swears by. If the idea of dating Dale feels wrong, maybe it will feel right to date someone new, someone I have never even met yet. Maybe my person is just out there on the World Wide Web, waiting for me. I create a new profile, choosing the picture from my one and only Instagram post, and add a brief description of myself, making sure to highlight that I am an entrepreneur and business owner. Once I complete this to my satisfaction, I scroll through the many potential suitor accounts listed, looking for my soul mate, hoping he will present himself to me through some sort of divine intervention. Instead, there just seems to be many men with pictures of themselves holding freshly caught fish (what is that about?), lots of photos of shirtless men at the gym (seriously?), and a few men who think photos of them with their mothers is a good look. Dear me, these are some slim pickings. I slurp on my drink, feeling more than a little tipsy and cognitively impaired, and soldier on, determined to make a match or two before the night’s end.
Half an hour later—and many, many unfortunate profiles rejected—I stop at a picture that catches my eye. The profile name is “Man with Dog,” which isn’t terrible. He’s also quite cute. Brown hair, brown eyes, dimples. And in his picture, he has his shirt on, with no fish or mother in sight. He is also cuddling a very cute puppy, so bonus points to him. There is nothing cuter than a man and a dog. I can work with this. I open his page and read that he is six feet tall (nice—although I am short in stature, I do like a tall man), a mortgage broker (not that exciting but steady work, I guess), and twenty-seven years old (age appropriate, old enough to be ready to settle down). Also, he likes the beach and spends his weekends training his new puppy, Victor. Well, that is adorable. Before stopping to think too much about it, I send him an instant message.
“Hi, you and your dog are cute!” Did I just write that? I blame the alcoholic iced tea. Beyond mortified that I sent that message to a complete stranger, I go to close my laptop in shame when I receive a reply.
“Hi! You’re cute too.” What? Well, this is exciting. Deciding to embrace the courage provided to me by two potent drinks, I message back.
“Thanks. Are you free for a drink later this week?” My alcohol-fuelled confidence is making me feel bold. Which is a foreign but not an entirely unwelcome feeling for me.
“Sure, let’s set something up,” comes his reply. Wow! That was easy.
After a few messages back and forth, I find out that the cute Man with Dog is named Grant and that he lives nearby. He likes to try new restaurants, so he suggests we meet on Friday at a funky new bar and grill in the city, only a fifteen-minute drive from where I live. Happy with the way this is going, because I, too, love trying new places to eat, I agree, and we decide to confirm with each other later in the week.
I now feel very pleased with myself, knowing I am on my way to crossing items one, two, and four off my to-do list, and as I close my computer and drain the rest of my drink, I decide to head to bed. I do not want to risk falling asleep on the couch for the second night in a row. As I make myself comfortable in bed, I grab my phone and check the Instagram notifications that appear to have been flooding in for my newly formed Love, Lilly page, and they seem to be coming in via the Market Place tag. Look at me, I’m a marketing genius! As I log in, I am shocked to see the account already has over one thousand followers and that the first post is filled with comments. A lot are about the cookies, with some people boasting how they taste as good as they look (I have fans!) and some commenting on how cute I look (this photo is working for me tonight), and then there it is, among the drool face emojis and the “you’re hot” comments—one that catches my attention:
It’s from Oliver, and it says, “It is impossible to not Love Lilly :)”
Oh, Oliver, what are you doing to me? Here I am, making such good progress, and now, with that one comment, crossing number four off my list feels like an impossible task.
CHAPTER 12
Oliver
As I sit on my bed, staring at my Instagram news feed, which is open on my phone, I look at the photo Lilly has just posted on the Love, Lilly page she created. The photo I took of her. She is so damn beautiful, with her big smile, the one that causes her nose to crinkle just a little. With her hair in a braid and her sun-kissed skin, she radiates happiness, and it is not surprising that the post has racked up over one thousand likes and comments already. Many of them from admiring men, I note.
I look at the comment I just wrote under her post and feel nauseous. What possessed me to write something as provocative as that? And even as I stress about this, I can’t find it in me to delete it. It’s true: in my mind, it is impossible to not love Lilly. It’s just so unlike me to declare it to the World Wide Web. But this is what being around Lilly too much does to me. She makes me lose my mind! It is one of the reasons I decided way back when to not pursue a relationship with her. I knew instinctively that being with her would mean losing a big part of me, and I have never been brave enough to take that step.
