AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll have two donuts and an Americano, large,” Harrison says, then, to my surprise, gently rests his hand on my shoulder. “What will you have, Piper?”
I clear my throat. Having his hand on me is making me feel even more off-balance somehow. “A donut and a lavender oat-milk latte. Please.”
Amy nods and puts the order in with the other workers.
Harrison gives my shoulder a squeeze.
I can feel the strength coming back to me. I take in a deep breath through my nose and exhale slowly. Harrison is already paying and I’m not about to make a fuss about it here, the fact that I was supposed to buy him a coffee, not the other way around, and I bring my eyes over to Joey.
He’s staring at me unsurely, like he wants to ask me something else but can’t find the words.
When Harrison is done paying, he puts his hand at the small of my back and guides me over to the wall to wait for our coffees, while the next people in line step up to order.
Joey watches us for a moment, then shrugs and heads out of the café without saying anything.
“You good?” Harrison leans in and whispers to me. His tone is gruff, but I appreciate his asking all the same.
I nod, pressing my lips together into a thin smile. I have too many thoughts to process, too many feelings, none of them good. It feels like the whole café is staring at me, even if they aren’t, and I hate that even though I keep to myself as a self-proclaimed hermit, my situation with Joey is what I’m most known for on this rock.
It feels like forever before our order is up. Harrison isn’t one for small talk, and it’s not until I’m outside in the fresh sunshine that I feel myself relax even a little.
“Want to talk about it?” Harrison asks me as we cross the road to the parking lot.
I stare at him in shock. “About what?”
His brow raises. “About what happened in there?”
I shake my head. I should explain what happened between Joey and me, what led to my leaving him at the altar, but it suddenly feels too raw.
“It’s none of my business,” he says quickly. “I understand.”
“It’s not that . . . ,” I tell him, but we’ve already reached the car, and he’s opening the back door for me. His expression is grim and made of stone, back into bodyguard mode.
Conversation over.
Eight
“Okay, the moment of truth is upon us,” my mother says, wiggling her fingers together like Mr. Burns. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
My mother bends down and opens the oven, sticking her mitts in and pulling out the cake.
I’m prepared for the worst, so when I see that it’s retained its shape and looks brown and fluffy, I sigh in relief.
“It looks lovely,” I tell her.
“Doesn’t it?” she asks proudly, sliding it onto the rack. “The hard part is yet to come.”
She brings out the icing she had made earlier, icing that had hardened slightly into chunks in the fridge. “Hmmm, seems a little stiff,” she says. Then shrugs. “No matter.”
I watch as she frosts the cake, but I’m no longer thinking about the fact that the frosting is spreading on like chunky concrete, and more about what happened earlier.
After we got our coffees, Harrison had the driver take us back home. The cul-de-sac was swarming with more of the media, and we pulled in through the gates just as Bert in his RCMP vehicle showed up, hopefully to get everyone to move.
When the SUV dropped us off on our driveway, Liza seemed beyond confused. The weirdest, longest non-walk she’d ever been on.
Harrison then said, “See you at seven.”
And that was it. Door closed. Off they went.
When I got back in the house, my mom was just starting to get up. I didn’t want to worry her with my paparazzi woes, so I said I had just taken Liza for a walk. Then she brought up the fact that I needed to go into town to get ingredients for the cake.
The last thing I wanted right then was to leave the premises, so I told my mother we could easily make do with whatever ingredients we had left over in the house.
So if the icing looks a little chunky, and if the cake tastes a little weird, it’s probably my fault.
My mother, thankfully, is in a great mood, which is why she’s happily slapping that frosting on without a care in the world. She’s not nervous at all about the dinner, just excited, which she’s told me at least every hour.
“Shouldn’t you go get ready?” she says to me. She has frosting on her cheek.
I motion for her to wipe it away, but her attention goes back to the cake. She’s right, anyway. Despite the frosting on her face, she’s wearing a nice beaded blue tunic with matching slacks, and her hair is smooth.
