by Emma Quinn
“So, how are things with you?” Ms. Lovely asked as she was just about to leave the store. “Any news in your life? Every time I come here; I expect to see a line of men waiting to take you out on a date.”
I laughed once more, only this time it wasn’t quite so loudly. “Oh, I don’t have time to date anyone at the moment. The bakery keeps me very busy. Boyfriends would only get in the way of that.”
Mrs. Lovely had been coming in ever since I opened this store three years ago, so I couldn’t really convince her that I was single only because of the business. She had seen me at my lowest ebb when I was hurt by my ex-boyfriend — ex-fiancé, actually. When he broke up with me because he fell in love with someone at his office who was apparently more important than me. I could tell by the way that she looked at me with sheer sympathy in her eyes she knew that it was really fear of being hurt holding me back from falling in love again.
Luckily, the store filled up quickly with a line of people that went out of the door, so Mrs. Lovely couldn’t me question me further and I didn’t have to think about it anymore either. I could focus on serving the customers to the best of my ability, making the rush hour before work the best that people could have.
But soon, the rush died down, leaving me a moment to wipe the sweat from my forehead and to rearrange the store window once more to make sure that all of the stock levels were the best that they could be…
“Hey, girl.” I turned and grinned at my best friend, Samantha, who had come to visit me on her way back from her morning gym session. “You look like you have been busy this morning.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Hey, take a seat. Let me make you a coffee and get you a cake.”
“Ooh, you really are the perfect wife,” she teased me as she did what I asked. “I don’t know what I would do without you. Especially since me and Ned have broken up again. For good this time. I scared him off.”
“What did you do?” I felt compelled to ask this even though I didn’t really need to. It was always the same story with Samantha. She was a relationship girl and loved being with someone, but she never picked the right guys for her. Some were too weak; some were scared of commitment. And most men just couldn’t handle her strong personality. The guy that Samantha would finally end up with was going to have to be her match. Someone equal to her.
“I just called him out on a few things, that’s all.” She offered me a one shouldered shrug. “Nothing serious, but he couldn’t handle it. Not that it matters. I don’t need someone as weak as him.”
“Of course not.” Since there was no one in the store and there probably wouldn’t be for a while, I took a seat with her and had a drink of my own. “So, what’s the plan from here on out? I know you; you don’t take things lying down. Always moving on the bigger and better things. You have an action plan in mind?”
“I’m going out.” She nodded determinedly. “We both are, Maybe this weekend. We need men in our lives. You more than me since it has been absolutely forever. It’s time for you to find someone…”
“Oh, don’t you start as well,” I chuckled. “I’m busy at the moment. Focused on the bakery. I don’t want to think about dating because I’m not even close to being in the right frame of mind. Not right now.”
“You have been using that excuse for three years, Jane.” Samantha’s tone was blunt, but that was just her personality. She wanted to encourage me to live life in the care free way that she did, always focusing on the future, never dwelling on the past. She only had my best interests at heart always… but that didn’t mean I found it easy to go along with what she wanted for me. “It’s time for you to get yourself out there again. You’re so beautiful, Jane. I know that you don’t see that, but you are. You’re stunning and you deserve happiness.”
I couldn’t help feeling worthless and not good enough for love. Especially since my ex went on to actually marry the woman who he cheated on me with. They didn’t have a long ass engagement that didn’t go anywhere. Now they even had a family as well, it was sickening, and inescapable thanks to the Internet.
“I don’t need a man to make me happy though, Samantha. I have everything else that I want. In my life. a successful business that I love, a great friend in you, an apartment which is perfect and just mine… no man messing it up for me. I love it.” I extended my arms wide and grinned. “But I will go out with you. Be your wing woman.”
The door to my bakery swung open and a stressed looking woman in a tight pant suit came bursting in with her eyebrows knotted together in stress. I could tell from her pale complexion that she spent half her life stuck in an office building in a high pressure job that didn’t make her happy. This was just a reminder why I had it good here. This company was all mine and I could do exactly what I wanted with it. Sure, there were times when it was stressful, but I didn’t have anyone else putting the pressure on me. It was all mine.
“Hello there,” I said kindly as I slid out from my seat. “How can I help you today?”
“Er…” Her cell phone bleeped about a million times and she checked it three times in about as many seconds. “I don’t know. Maybe, like, one of everything.” She waved her hands over the counter. “All the sweet stuff.”
“One of everything? Are you sure? That will be a lot…”
I felt strange asking this like I was turning down business, but that did seem excessive and I didn’t want to make an expensive mistake for either of us. I didn’t need it and I was damn sure she didn’t either. If someone was on the phone yelling at her for nothing then I didn’t want to give her something to get in trouble for.
“It doesn’t matter.” She waved the company credit card at me as she answered a call. “All of it.”
I glanced at Samantha to see her stifling a giggle at the madness of this woman. I wanted to join in with her, but I couldn’t get caught. I needed to be professional because with a bit of luck, this woman with her company credit card would become a long term customer. So, I turned away and got to work, packing everything up in boxes. Even with my biggest box, I needed to use a few of them to get everything together for the woman.
She paid without even looking at the price because she was still on the phone and left in a haze of craziness. I honestly wasn’t sure what that was all about, so as soon as she was gone, I burst in to laughter. I caved and joined in with Samantha’s giggles, because there was no denying that was very strange…
“Wow, and here I was stressed about teaching my karate class in an hour,” Samantha squealed with joy. “That poor woman looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Do you think that she has bought all of those cakes for herself, just to get through the day? Just to survive some asshole boss. Can you imagine? God, it makes me feel grateful that I can fight for a living. I wouldn’t cope with something like that.”
“Oh God, I know. I feel very sorry for her though. She looked under so much pressure. It’s really sad…”
Samantha changed the subject and we chatted for a little while longer before she went off to teach her class, but in all honesty, I couldn’t get that stressed looking woman out of my mind. Wherever she worked had to be terrible, one of those nightmare jobs that you never believed really existed. I hoped that my cakes would at least make her day a tiny bit better. If I could do that for her, then at least it was something…
3
Brandon
I
stared at the giant glass window looking out from my office on the eighteenth floor on to the city below, making some silent decisions in the back of my mind about where the company would go next, about what I needed to do to make sure that our marketing was better than the competitions…
Actually, that wasn’t exactly true. That was what I wanted to be thinking of, but Lara was on my mind a lot. Her birthday party was up and coming and I didn’t have everything in place like I wanted, and I needed it to be perfect. And not just because she was being a bit crazy about it because it was such a big birthday for her, turnin
g thirty was a big deal, and she also needed it to be Instagram perfect for her followers. But more importantly, if I was going to finally propose to her at long last then I needed it to be everything. I wanted it to be the best proposal ever, even more so because I had a lot to make up for. I hadn’t exactly been amazing, and I knew it.
“Yo, Brandon!” I jumped as Gary strolled in to the office like he belonged here, as if he worked here or something. This was something that he did a lot and it wasn’t always welcome. I had told him as much, but he never listened to me, as always. “How’s it going? I have to tell you about last night once you left…”
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