Sweet Spot by Stella Rhys
33
LIA
I was running on fumes. The worst part was I couldn’t even sleep during the one-and-a-half hour train ride here. My brain was still in lockdown mode, refusing to rest until it knew everything I needed done was finally done.
Technically, it was.
In the past week, I’d rented a commercial kitchen for cheap from a friend of Sara’s, I’d scoured a stack of resumes to hire three other sets of hands and I’d spent a minimum of twelve hours a day tempering, pouring, piping, painting and cooling my chocolate. I’d produced literally thousands of glassy, shiny perfect little truffles and bon bons. I practically sleepwalked my way out of the kitchen every night, got on the train and floated up to Sara’s apartment to crash on her couch for four hours tops. Then I was up again, ready to rinse and repeat.
Exhaustion was such an understatement I would slap the word if I could.
Of course, a part of me was grateful for it because it helped me forget everything else – as much as I could at least.
“Hey there, I’m here to run a sample station today,” I greeted the first employee I saw upon walking into the Long Island location of Gotham Grocer. “Would it be possible to speak to Chris? That’s who I’ve been emailing about this.”
“Oh. Absolutely!” the girl smiled. “Please feel free to wait by the café while I go get Chris.”
“Thank you,” I said, hoping the smile I returned was a passing human smile. I was just so damned tired that I couldn’t even tell. In fact, I couldn’t even muster up the excitement to be here, despite the fact that I’d fantasized for more than five years about having a distributor carry my chocolate. It had been a more feasible dream to me than opening up my own store, so back in Ritchie and Gail’s kitchen, I used to always fantasize that the corner deli would one day give me some tiny display.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a beautiful store like Gotham Grocer would be the first to really do it.
It was a gourmet market I’d only become acquainted with upon moving to Manhattan – and even then, I rarely went in because as just a grocery store, it felt completely out of my league with its big windows, fancy coffee bar and ornate displays. It was my aspirational store to merely shop at, so selling my product at a place like this easily my oldest dream come true.
Yet here I was, too mentally and physically drained to even care.
I’d actually convinced myself I could leave Lukas and dive right back into the focus I had before he waltzed into my life, but I couldn’t.
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 be 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 days 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.
“What did Noelle say to you?”
I shook my head for several seconds. “It wasn’t her.”
“But what did she say?”
I rolled my eyes, hardly wanting to repeat it. “She said a lot of bullshit. She said you two were still sleeping together. She said when I wasn’t with you, you were fucking her at the office. She claimed that you had called her in the night telling her you missed fucking her, and you were tired of me.”
Lukas smirked. “You didn’t believe it for a second,” he said with audible pride.
“Of course not.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Stupid stuff. But – ” I grimaced. “Honestly, Lukas, I’d woken up feeling just… uneasy. I didn’t know what it was and I thought maybe it was everything catching up to me. Before you met me, I was tense and rigid and any tiny switch-up in my perfectly carved out routine would throw me into a panic. And I thought I was just past that with you because for so long, we were together and all I felt was good.” I closed my eyes, relishing in the heat of his chest close to my lips. “I guess I just freaked out and… I’d like to think seeing Noelle didn’t make a real difference but the last thing she said to me was, ‘You know he doesn’t love you.’ I had an argument for everything else she said, but I wasn’t sure I could argue that one.”
Lukas gripped his jaw as he shook his head. He was angry at Noelle and I could see it, but for some reason, all I could think about was how sexy he looked. How much I’d missed those big arms and how I needed them wrapped around me right now, more than ever. I was so out of it I almost didn’t know what he was talking about when he spoke again.
“You don’t mind if I say it here? In a grocery store?” Lukas asked with amusement, his hand cupping the back of my neck. I leaned back on him a little, enjoying the touch of his other hand on my lower back
“I would want to hear it anywhere.”
“Yeah?” Lukas held me against his chest. “Then what if I waited till we got home tonight, till after you’ve taken a nap,” he laughed, “and after I’ve cooked you a proper dinner. Would it be okay if I waited then to say it? ‘Cause I honestly never imagined I’d do it for the first time so close to the ten items or less lane.”
I burst out laughing and as I covered my mouth, I felt the sleepy tears, the emotional tears and the overwhelmed tears start to fall from my eyes. I giggled deliriously, thanking God for Chris who zipped past Lukas to take over my sample station as I tried to gather myself.
“Okay,” I finally said, my voice barely above a whisper. “You can wait a little longer to say it.”
“Okay,” Lukas smiled down at me, stroking his thumb along my jaw. “So, in the meantime,” he leaned in to give me the lightest, sweetest kiss on the lips, “let’s get you a coffee and a croissant so you can keep those pretty eyes awake for the next hour or two, and then I’ll take you home and take care of you like any good boyfriend would do. Alright?”
Oh God, I was full on crying now. In the middle of the supermarket, right next to the ten items or less lane. Everyone who passed my eyed me curiously, most of them with knowing smiles. One older woman even offered me a sample of my own truffle, saying, “Here, dear, this rum raisin’s so good you’ll forget whatever’s making you sad right now. Quick – it’s the last one.” Probably selfish, but I did accept and eat it, and I actually thought to myself that it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. But as Lukas leaned over to kiss me once more before guiding me toward some much-needed caffeine, I changed my mind.
That chocolate was actually the second best thing I’d ever tasted in my life.
