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“Yes, well. I would appreciate that. I’d love to bring my sister, Mary, too. Did you know there’re two of us?”
“I did. Double trouble,” I remarked, wanting to stab my eyes out for being nice to the evil twins. “I’ll make sure she has a seat, too.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet? He’s sweet, Yara,” Milly sang.
“Like a fresh cinnamon roll on a Sunday morning,” Yara agreed.
Milly narrowed her eyes as she glanced between us, determining what to make of the situation. She then waved us off. “I must get back to my workout. I can’t let my heart rate drop too low. I can’t lose this figure.”
“And what a figure it is,” I said, whistling low.
She giggled like a child as her face turned the color of a tomato. “Oh, Alex. You and your charm. You kids have a good day. And thanks again, Alex, for the praise. Your mother must’ve raised you right.”
If only she knew how wrong she was.
As she continued on her walk, we witnessed her pull out her cell phone and make a call. “Hey, Mary, it’s Milly. You won’t believe who I’ve just run into. Yara Kingsley was seen with Alex Ramírez. You know that man you called a shit? Yes, him! And they’re an item! I couldn’t believe it either. Anyway, we have reservations at his restaurant soon. He’s actually a pretty nice guy. You should apologize for what you did to him. Shame on you, Mary. He's quite handsome, too.”
“And that is how we get Gossip Girl going through this town,” Yara cheered with victory.
“Spotted outside of The Pup Around the Corner. Could it be that opposites truly did attract? You know what they say: every black cat needs a golden retriever. Will these two blossom into something more, or will their leaves rot and drift away? Only time will tell. XoXo.”
Yara’s jaw dropped. “Did you just Gossip Girl our fake relationship?”
“I might’ve Gossip Girl’d our fake relationship.”
“Oh my gosh!” She shoved my arm. “All this time, I thought you were dark, cool, and mysterious, but you were secretly corny.”
“I’m not corny,” I grumbled, pushing out a grimace. “I’m mean and hard and tough.”
“You’re corn-on-a-cob corny.”
“Whatever. I’m going to work. I’ll see you later for the walk home.”
“Okay, my corny black cat.”
She said “my” as if I were hers.
I didn’t hate that idea. Why didn’t I hate that idea?
“Shut up, Yara,” I told her with a huff and puff.
“Never.” She kept smiling, and I kept falling. She had to stop that at some point. Being so…perfect. “What were you going to call Milly? When she mentioned me being stood up? A butthead?”
“I was actually thinking of a stronger B word.”
CHAPTER 26
Yara
The rumors of Alex spread just as quickly as I’d hoped.
Unfortunately, individuals from my past also heard said rumors, which meant I had to face a few shadows from my previous life.
The hardest part about being a people pleaser was that you oftentimes forgot to please yourself. You placed every person in front of you. If someone had a cart filled with groceries, you let them skip you in line, even though you only had bananas to purchase. You scrunched yourself into a ball to take up as little space as possible because you didn’t want others to feel your presence too much.
You spread yourself so thin, trying to make space for everyone around you, trying to feed their spirits, that you forget to nourish your own. Then, if you did do something for yourself, you’d drop the ball with someone else and that was when good ole guilt would taunt you.
Guilt was an odd sensation. It appeared when you least expected it, too. On my afternoon shopping trip at the grocery store, I heard my name called out, and I turned to find Lindsay Parker standing there with a bag full of goodies.
I pushed out a smile and walked over to hug her. “Hi, Lindsay. How are you?”
Her eyes glassed over as she wrapped her arms around me. “Oh, sweetheart. I haven’t seen you in so long.”
There it was—the punch to my heart. Guilt.
I shifted around in my shoes. “I know. Things have been busy with the shop. I meant to call but—”
She frowned as she pulled away, wiping away the falling tears. “But since you’ve divorced my son, the need isn’t there. I get it.”
“That’s not it, Lindsay,” I urged.
“You know, it broke my heart when I found out you and Cole were divorcing. I was sad for my son, but I also worried this would happen. That I’d lose my daughter, too. You’ve been in my life for decades, Yara, and now you can’t even call?”
“Lindsay, I—”
“I don’t want your excuses,” she warned. “I just want you to know that hurt me deeply. I always looked at you as family and thought you’d the same. But it’s clear that you didn’t feel the same for me as I did you. The same goes for how you felt about Cole. It was all fake.”
