Love At Last

LILY

I covered my mouth with both palms in shock. ‘What just happened?’ I thought. From the looks of things, it was obvious the two knew each other but then again, what would spur this young lady to walk up to this man and slap him so hard? Amidst the embarrassment I felt, I let Cayden push me out of the museum and watched him follow suit, completely ignoring what had happened. Asides the disgust and anger I felt, I was more disappointed in myself and Cayden than I was at Samantha.

All through the ride home, I just sat in his car without uttering a word, fuming with rage. I’d never felt so insulted in my entire life. I wasn’t the one slapped but then again, being the brain behind the whole meeting made me feel cheesed off. I noticed Cayden stole a few glances at me but I was too psyched-up to pay him any attention. He well understood the atmosphere and decided to wait for me to speak up first, which I never did. I felt embarrassed and disgusted at the scene I witnessed few minutes ago.

When we arrived at my house, I finally voiced my feelings. “What in the world happened back there?” I pointed to nothing in particular all in a bid to gesture. “I can see you’re nothing but a flirt because it was very well obvious she knew you… or wait a minute, do you know every girl around here?” I barked while Cayden said nothing.

“You know what? I’m done with you! I’m done with this,” I tried to walk in but Cayden held me by the hand and pulled me back.

“Will you just calm down and listen to me, please?” He looked a bit apologetic and that made me to calm down a bit. “Yes?”

“You just have to help me. Remember I’m paying you, so technically, I’m your boss and you can’t just quit.” Yes, I was wrong. This fellow was as annoying as ever, even more.

“You’re not serious,” I tried to walk in again.

“Triple!” he exclaimed. “Remember? Triple” he repeated in a bid to remind me of what we had bargained. That reminder sure went a long way to get me back in business. “Fine,” I replied grudgingly and walked in.

On getting to the house, Jacek welcomes me with the best hug I’d ever ask for. I cuddled the little one in my arms that I didn’t notice my granny who stood by the window and stared through. “How are you, Candy?” I cuddled Jacek closely.

“I’m fine,” he replied cheerfully.

“Hey nana,” I kept Jacek down and called out to my granny. “How’s it going?” I greeted casually.

“Who was that?” she asked, completely ignoring my greeting.

“Who was…,” I rolled my eyes “who?”

“The car that just dropped you now.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, racked my brains on the next lie to voice out when nana cut me off abruptly.

“Your boyfriend?” she teased and had me coughing real hard as I didn’t expect that.

“Ummm…,” I still didn’t know exactly how to react.

“You don’t have to feel shy, my dear. I’m glad you found someone,” nana teased further. “Jarod got a new car?” she walked up to me and whispered.

‘What? Where did that come from?’ I thought. ‘Jarod? How did Jarod squirm his way into all of this?’

Apparently, nana assumed Jarod was the one who dropped me off, but then that wasn’t Jarod’s car. Nana knew Jarod usually visited and she didn’t recall Lily getting close to any other man. After successfully holding in the hysteric laughter that would have emerged my lips, I decided to excuse myself and went in to freshen up.

After retiring to bed, I was too swamped up with my thoughts that I barely got any wink of sleep. The curiosity that welled up inside of me earlier, which I somehow managed to subside came back that night to haunt me. ‘who was she?, What was their relationship?, ‘what in God’s name did Cayden do to deserve such resounding slap?’ questions like these bugged me so much, denying me of my night’s rest. Whenever I closed my eyes and tried to force myself to do otherwise, the scene would replay, causing me to spring up from bed once more and continue swimming in the pool of my thoughts.

I picked up my phone after rolling on the bed for about forty five minutes and thought to call Cayden. It was past nine at the time, ‘it wouldn’t be so late, right?’ I thought. I held out my phone in my palm, with Cayden’s contact number displayed on the screen and contemplated hard on what I should do at that point. Cayden lifted the burden off my shoulders at the time and called me instead. Despite the fact that I wanted to call, I still hesitated a bit before picking the call.

“Hello,” I finally picked and tried my very best to keep my voice low as Jacek was lying beside me, sleeping soundly.

“Umm…you must have been shocked today, right?” Cayden said over the phone and I just cleared my throat. I didn’t want to engage in another argument with him. “Hello?” he called out to confirm I was still on the line.

“Let’s talk tomorrow. I have something else to tell you,” I hung up immediately to avoid further questions.

Hearing his voice somehow managed to put my mind at ease and I was finally able to catch some sleep.

I decided to summon courage and set Cayden up again with someone else. I wanted to hold my head up high. Weirdly enough, I thought of Cayden as my client and so wanted to keep a clean slate.

After all said and done, I set up an appointment first with Cayden to lecture him on how he would act around his new date. I decided to set the meeting place away from both our houses to avoid ‘complications’ like the last time.

It was on a Monday afternoon, I and Cayden arranged to meet up at a snack bar a few miles from where I lived. Cayden was supposed to meet me up at exactly 2:30 pm. I’d gotten to our meeting place about ten minutes earlier so I’d be able to nag Cayden on coming late.

It was almost 3:30pm and Cayden hadn’t showed up. I dialed his number a couple of times and it didn’t go through. Out of spite and frustration, I picked up may bag and left in anger.