It was impossible.
I went to bed thinking about him and I woke up with a smile on my face because he’d been in my dreams. I had to delete his number in my phone because it was my instinct to call him every time I needed a pick-me-up. I missed him so much it gave me an actual heartache I had to rub out with my palm over my chest.
But I had to nip it in the bud.
I told myself it wasn’t about Noelle. That maybe he was already asleep when I said “I love you.” I told myself a lot of things but in the end, the final message was that I was scared.
I was scared of how fast I fell, how hard I fell and how it might very well crash and burn.
I was scared I’d overestimated myself – that my brain couldn’t in fact handle starting a business and falling in love. Especially when that love came with the constant threat of Aiden Cameron trying to bring me down. For days, I dreamt of him planting dead rats in my shop and calling the Department of Health. I dreamt of him showing up at my door or watching me on the street.
It was a lot all at once. And yeah – when it rains, it pours. I kept reminding myself that but apparently, the storm was just a little stronger than I was.
“Hey, Lia? Chris.”
I looked up to find that Chris was a lady. “Oh, hi,” I smiled as I shook her hand, finding myself brightened by the way she beamed at me. “Nice to finally meet you. Thank you so much for having me today, by the way.”
“No problem at all!” she brushed it off. “We’re so happy to have you. The team actually sat right where you’re sitting pre-shift and had some truffles with their morning coffee. Amazing, by the way, so thanks for starting our day off right!”
I laughed. “My pleasure. I’m so happy to hear that.” Smoothing down the front of my dress, I tried to remember the details of our emails. “So, I recall you said that to set up the sample station, I have to actually buy a couple boxes of truffles from you and then from there, I guess I can cut them and… set it all up myself?” I cocked my head, the end of my sentence becoming a question because Chris was suddenly looking at me confused, with a slight frown on her pixie-like face. “Sorry, did I say something wrong? I totally might’ve because I’m a little out of it from a lack of sleep,” I admitted sheepishly. “I honestly don’t even know how long I can stand on my feet today.”
Chris fluttered her blonde lashes. “Oh! Well, that’s perfect because what I was about to say was that one of your extra hands actually arrived here shortly after opening. Everything’s already taken care of – your sample station’s been running beautifully for hours!” Chris giggled at my utter shock and confusion. “Can’t you see them lining up back there?” she asked, pointing all the way toward the back of the store.
I was truly awake for the first time all week as I stood up, going on my tippy toes to look at a slight crowd around a table in the back next to the sweets counter. My heart skipped a beat when I caught the signature teal of my truffle boxes piled up high on the glass counter.
“Go ahead. Go check it out,” Chris giggled, pushing me gently to start my step.
Which one of them was it? I asked myself, convinced it was one of the women I’d hired to help me fill my order. We’d become a bonded team over the course of the week. They needed barely a glance at me to know exactly what I was about to ask for, so maybe someone had read my mind about being too tired to run this sample station today.
But as I got closer and heard the nonstop giggles coming from the crowd of mostly women surrounding the table, my suspicions began to lean elsewhere.
Just like my heart, my feet stopped in its tracks when I spotted Lukas behind my sample station, wearing a white button-down and jeans, looking like he was genuinely enjoying myself as he described my chocolate to the doting women around him. They were in their early twenties to their late seventies, and all of them were clearly transfixed by Lukas as he fielded questions about everything from the flavors to his height and whether or not he was a professional athlete.
I stared for what felt like a full minute but it took awhile for me to fully process the scene – Lukas Hendricks, in all his gorgeous, muscled glory, selling my chocolate truffles to a gaggle of adoring women on Long Island.
“Oh my God,” I finally said aloud.
As if on cue, Lukas looked up and noticed me. His smile as he spoke to the woman in front of him briefly faltered, his green eyes blinking twice to fully focus on me. Stopping everything, he soaked me in as if seeing me for the first time. He didn’t smile for so long that I found myself craving it so when he did, I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Excuse me a second,” I heard him say, setting out a fresh box before coming over to meet me.
“Giving away a lot of my product there,” I said wryly as he came over. Lukas glanced over his shoulder.
“It’s okay, I bought a lot to give away.”
Touching my forehead, I shook my head. “I’m so tired I’m not sure this isn’t a dream.”
“You’ve got to be beat. I know you worked hard this week,” Lukas murmured, touching my arm. “Lia. I missed you fucking bad this week. I couldn’t stop wishing I could be there for you. Just to cook you dinner or rub your feet at night.”
The words alone nearly made me cry, but I blamed that on the exhaustion. “I didn’t really eat real dinners this week,” I laughed quietly. “It was a lot of shoving as much food as I could in my face for breakfast and then a Clif Bar for dinner.”
Lukas wrinkled his nose. “That sounds horrible and it actually pains me to hear that.”
I laughed, closing my eyes when I felt him cup my elbows and pull me closer. “Lukas, what are you doing here,” I whispered, too tired to make it a question.
“Before I answer that, tell me why you disappeared on me.”
My eyes stung as I looked up at his impossibly handsome face. I was suddenly too happy, confused and nervous to remember what my answer to that question was.