by Mira Toria
It had been several days since Lyris had told Hale about what happened and despite how she expected things to fall apart, they didn’t. They were still going strong and she couldn’t have been happier. On the day of Hale’s birthday, Lyris found herself laughing with Evey as they argued about who’s meeting was worst – hers and Hales, or Evey’s and West’s.
“Mine wasn’t that bad,” Lyris insisted. “The worst part was when I called him a man-slut, but that isn’t even close to how rocky you and West started.”
“That isn’t fair because West and I were younger when we met.” Evey almost glowed as she tried to hide a smile. “Oh gosh, West was pretty adorable after we get pass that stupid incident where he threw condiment packets at my head.”
The memory of West standing on a table throwing packets at Evey’s head was one Lyris was fond of for different reasons. It was adorable how much West had liked Evey during that point, but even more so, she could vividly picture his expression when Evey lost her temper and punched him off the table.
“He definitely had a different strategy when he bumped into us at the movies.” Lyris hid her grin because Evey still didn’t know that the coincidence was planned. West pulled her in for a favour to introduce him to Evey and she couldn’t say no. “I think that was the first and last time I ever saw him stutter. It was right after he threw the bag of Starburst candies at you.”
“I just remember he seemed different from the prick persona he carried in school.” Evey’s voice was thick with affection as she continued. “He didn’t try a lame move with going up my skirt at the movies, and he even offered me his jacket when I got cold. I think what really did it was when West did that cliché arm stretching thing. He got so nervous that he left it up for ages until the woman behind us slapped it down, telling him he was adorable, but if he kept it up for any longer she’d cut it off for him.”
“I remember excusing myself to the bathroom so I could find a different row to sit in. I had to sit next to nacho-farts for the whole movie. That’s how much I love you, Evey. A whole night of nacho farts and popcorn burps so you could have your happy ending.”
“Make sure I double check your maid of honour speech if I ever get married. I’m not sure I want nacho farts and popcorn burps being said at the reception.” Evey sighed and gave Lyris a little smile. “West just has this . . . I don’t know. Maybe he and I started off roughly, but we ended up fine.”
“Sounds like I just walked in at the right time.” West came back and set a cup of coffee down for Lyris and Evey. “Talking about how graciously suave I am?”
“Just girl talk,” Evey said, kissing him swiftly on the cheek. “And really, suave?”
“Don’t believe me?” He had a devious gleam in his eyes. Getting up, West spun on his foot and took Evey’s hand into his as he dropped to his knees. “Can I have this dance?”
“Alright,” Evey lifted her chin and glared, like she was expecting a bit more to be impressed. “Let’s see how smooth you really are, Parker.”
“Mr. West Parker to you,” he said, pulling her up and spinning her around the café. “How do you want to be impressed, Crane?”
“Miss Evey Crane,” she shot back, giggling as West dipped her.
Lyris laughed and watched as West twirled Evey around the place, both of them lost in each other. Their love was envious, but there was no denying they had their share of problems. Seeing how West and Evey were now compared to how they were before, Lyris just had to believe that things would work out in the end even if there were bumps along the way.
Problems were inevitable but not impossible. She had to believe her and Hale cared enough to fight to stay together instead of letting it fall apart.
The night of Hale’s birthday didn’t go accordingly at all. They had planned on having a quiet dinner, but Hale was called in last minute to help with a problem at one of the bars. Instead of having dinner, they were driving to the bar, deescalating situations and putting out fires to prevent a complete meltdown. Hale spent the entire night apologising to her, but she felt horrible for him because she wasn’t being pulled in three different directions.
“This isn’t how you imagined the night to end up, huh?” Hale sighed as he pulled out of the parking lot. It was just past midnight and they were too exhausted to think about celebrating.
“I don’t think this is anything close to how you wanted this night to be.” It already started rough when she had forgotten his present and it only went downhill once he received multiple calls before they even made it to the restaurant.
“To be honest, it’s not as if I celebrated my birthday anyhow.”
The way he said it so casually pierced her with sadness. No matter the confidence in the way he carried himself, Lyris suspected that he did a lot of things himself. It all seemed lonely and heartbreaking knowing he was so accepting of it. It may have been too late to have a nice dinner, but Lyris still wanted to do something that’d make this birthday memorable.
When they got to his house, Hale fell on the couch with an arm over his eyes. “I don’t want to wake up for another three days,” he muttered.
Seeing him in the living room gave her an idea. After shooing a confused Hale upstairs to change, she rummaged through the closets for blankets and pillows.
“Do I want to know what you’re doing?” He walked into the living room wearing sweatpants and watched her curiously as she layered blankets over one another.
“You’ve never had a sleepover, right?” Lyris felt giddy as she threw the pillows to one side of the makeshift bed.
“Are you going to call Evey so I can watch you guys have a pillow fight?” He grinned and crossed his arms. “This is probably the start to the best birthday to date.”
She threw a pillow at him. “Do you really want to call Evey at one in the morning?”
“Point taken.” Sighing dramatically, Hale stalked to the kitchen. “My first sleepover and I don’t even get to see a pillow fight.”
“I think Leon has a contender for biggest drama queen,” Lyris laughed. “And can you please bring out the tub of ice cream since you’re in the kitchen?”
When Hale came back, he settled on the blankets with her and waved teasingly. “Do most of your sleepovers involve people eating ice cream off you? Don’t think a spoon will be necessary in that case.”
“And when has porn been an accurate portrayal of anything?” she asked, grabbing the spoon from him.
“I wouldn’t mind if you decided to play nurse one day.” He laughed loudly as she flushed a deep red.
“Are you disappointed with this little after-two-in-the-morning picnic?” She felt that compared to his fantasy, the sleepover set up in the living room was . . . pathetic.
His eyes softened at the uncertainty in the voice. “I’ve never had anyone do this for me, Ly.”
“I’m sure no one has ever gouged your eyes out, but it doesn’t mean you’d want that to happen.”
“You say the sexiest things sometimes.” Leaning over, he kissed her softly and lingered. “But you’re my beautiful, silly girl. Anything you do is memorable.”
Grabbing the tub of ice cream because she didn’t know what to say, Lyris poked her spoon into it. “Anyways, since a pillow fight is not happening, we can have the ice cream thing I used to do at sleepover. Eating ice cream from a tub.”
“Eating ice cream from the tub.” Hale chuckled under his breath. “Now this might be the missing piece to my childhood.”
They both ate in quiet contentment from the tub though he’d sneak pieces of praline onto her spoon because he noticed she only ate the ice cream and left the nuts.
“You’re a terrible ice cream partner,” he laughed, his spoon full of pralines instead of ice cream. “I’m pretty much just eating everything but the ice cream!”
“Too bad,” she winked.
Finishing off his portion, Hale moved the container to a coffee table before stretching to turn off the lights. “As much as I would love t
o continue with this, I think I’m about to pass out.”
“If you were at a sleepover with me and Evey, we’d so be putting your hand in a bucket of warm water,” she said, wiggling under the blankets. “Either that or we’d take pictures of you and save it for blackmailing.”
Laughing, Hale put an arm over her shoulders to bring her close to him as they started to feel the night draw to a close. “I never had anyone recreate a sleepover scenario before.” Kissing her forehead he sighed lightly. “You’re really something else, Lyris.”
Kissed him softly on the lips, she snuggled closer to him. “Happy birthday, babes.”
Lyris blinked groggily, not fully understanding why she was awake. Grabbing her phone from the counter, she closed her eyes. “Hello?” she croaked.
“Lyris!” Evey was frantic on the other line. “The café! Something happened and it’s been – the fire department called me!”
Her eyes flew open and her body went into high alert. “I’m heading there now.” Lyris ran down the stairs, panic clawing at her throat. “Eves, where are you?”
“Lyris?” Hale ran after her and grabbed the keys from her hands. He still looked a little dishevelled from sleep, but he was still able to keep up. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but you’re crazy if you think you’re driving.”
“The café’s on fire!” She tried to grab the keys from his hands, but he kept moving out of the way. “Hale!”
“Grab a jacket,” he said, pushing the door open. There was a look in his eyes that looked like he wasn’t going to back down. “You’re too worked up to drive.”
Throughout the ride, Lyris frantically called Evey for updates, but there wasn’t anything they could do.
“I don’t know why this is happening,” Evey cried. “I don’t understand!”
Lyris wanted to punch something – badly – but she held back and tried to calm down for the both of them. “I don’t know,” she said through gritted teeth. “It could be anything from vandalism to a freak wire problem.”
As they got closer to the scene, Lyris couldn’t believe the amount of smoke billowing in the air. Hale was pulling over, but Lyris didn’t bother waiting for the car to come to a full stop before running out towards the fire. It was a foolish thing to do, but she couldn’t just watch everything she ever worked for burn away.
“Lyris!” Hale grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back, apologising to the officers yelling at them to stay back. “You can’t do anything! Calm down!”
“I have to save it! I have to save it!”
He pulled her tight against his chest, telling her anything to keep her mind off the fire. “You’re going to be alright, Ly. Trust me.”
Admitting defeat hurt her and she felt as if her whole body was breaking. Standing next to him and watching a part of her life burn away, she wondered if this was the fall people eventually face when they’d reach the peak of their happiness.
Lyris was numb as she walked around her empty house. It had been a few weeks since the aftermath of the fire, but digesting the reality of what happened was still hard. It was as if her mind refused to process the fact that the café was no longer standing.
There had been endless days of crying with her and Evey. They had spent nights reminiscing about the café, helping one another through what was one of the worst moments of their lives. Moping wasn’t the only thing they did though, they had immediately contacted the insurance company to figure out the next step.
When the two of them were compensated, they shocked West and Hale when they said there weren’t plans for a new café. Her and Evey had discussed it beforehand and decided that it wouldn’t be the same.
“It’s what they say, you know?” Lyris pushed her roasted potatoes around on her plate. The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow anything. “You can’t completely repair a mirror after it has been broken.”
“Is this your way of saying you don’t want to rebuild the café?” Evey asked her.
Lyris grimaced as she thought back about walking through the debris after the flames had done their worst. She could remember where everything was, where everything was supposed to be, even when it was charred beyond recognition.
“Do you want to?” Inspiration was absent from her and Lyris knew she wasn’t the only person hurting. “I’ll rebuild it with you if it’s what you want.”
“But we don’t, do we?” Evey laughed humourlessly. “We actually don’t want to do it, huh?”
It was times like these where Lyris knew they really were best friends. “I know I don’t want to. I don’t think I can.”
“Me neither,” Evey admitted sadly. “I suppose it would be time for the both of us to have real jobs.”
Lyris looked up and the two of them burst out laughing; Evey was holding her sides as Lyris blinked away tears while holding onto the table for support, gasping for air between laughs. For a reason unknown to the both of them, it just seemed hilarious that they would be getting real jobs.
Looking for a job was a lot harder than it seemed. Lyris was home in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday because she had absolutely nothing to do. Evey had gone off to a job interview at Cootes (they knew it wasn’t a proper interview as the Cootes team made it clear they have wanted Evey on their team for quite some time. She didn’t graduate as one of the top three in her class without notice), and Lyris was waiting around her phone wondering if any of the jobs she applied for would come through. She had a pastry degree and it wasn’t versatile in the professional world so her choices had been limited.
She was thoroughly dreading a call from June June’s bakery, one of the places she had applied at. Aside from the unfortunate name, Lyris wanted to do something where she called the shots, not a place where she would be following orders.
Evey had begged Lyris not to bake anymore – the two of them had at least six dozen different muffins on the dining table that hadn’t been touched – so Lyris settled for flipping through daytime television.
Dr. Phil, Oprah, Judge Judy and re-runs of some cartoon. Fun stuff morning television. No wonder the old folks love gambling – this stuff is coma worthy.
She was beginning to nod off when the doorbell rang, waking her up from the television daze. It was too early for Evey to come home and West was working. Hale was off managing his clubs and Leon was away in Australia. Her sister had been supportive, but at this time she was doing baby yoga with Clara.
Curiosity got the best of her and looking out the peephole, she saw a pair of blue eyes peering right back.
“Lyris?” Bradley’s voice came through the door as he knocked. “Ly?”
She had to stop herself form saying ‘nobody’s home’ by clamping her hand over her mouth.
What is he doing here and more importantly, how did he get my address?
“Lyris, I know you’re in there,” he said patiently. “And you’re probably at the door listening. I know what happened in London wasn’t fair to you –”
That touched a nerve and staying quiet wasn’t something she could do anymore. “Fair doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“So, you are there.”
Her hands clenched when she heard how smug he sounded. There was no point in pretending she wasn’t there anymore. “What if I am?”
“Just listen to me, please,” he pleaded. “I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t think I should be doing you any favours,” she hissed. She hadn’t forgotten about their last encounter.
“You don’t think it has bothered me all these years?” He asked her quietly through the door. “You think I’ve been able to forget it?”
“Obviously,” she said sarcastically. “I thought you’d be all tucked in your bed with your brotherhood souvenirs on the walls.”
“Lyris, I didn’t come to your house to fight with you,” Bradley said warily. “Can you please listen to me? The stuff I said before, I should’ve said it differently.”
“Why should I do anything you want?
” The anger that had risen before was dimming with her own exhaustion as everything settled on her shoulders. “Bradley, this month has been horrible and having you here just reminds me that things can get worse.”
“You don’t have to say anything, just listen,” he insisted. “What happened in London, I should have stood up for you when we saw you in my room. I was just – you know when you get involved with the people for the wrong reasons and when you realise your mistake, you can’t bring yourself to leave because deep down a small part of you has always wanted it? That was me then.”
What he had just confessed brought a wave of guilt to settle in her stomach. She could actually relate to what he was saying and she hated that she could.
“I know I never should have done what I did to you in London,” Bradley said quietly. “I came back because I wanted to somehow make it up to you. Admittedly the incident at the store wasn’t my finest moment. I was flustered with seeing you again and it reminded me of how much I hate myself for hurting you.”
Lyris knew it was rude, but she snorted. “Please, you sound as if you’re trying to make amends for something.” He was quiet and Lyris thought he left until he shuffled his feet. “Am I right? You’re looking for a way of redemption?”
“Is it so hard to believe?”
She threw the door open so she could see him. This felt different from the first time in the store. Then she was still harbouring everything silently and it overwhelmed her. Today, after everything had been let out, seeing him was unthreatening and almost underwhelming.
He still looked like Bradley. His blue eyes were still breathtaking and he still had the musician vibe, but there was something different and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Somehow between the years, wariness caught up to him and she saw lines at the corner of his eyes. His eyes were as beautiful as before, but there was a dull undertone that made him look more worn out, as if they were an indicator to how much he had seen and experienced.
“Actually yes, it’s hard for me to believe.” Lyris crossed her arms. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
