Love At Last

LILY

After crying for a few minutes without interruption from Cayden, he finally decided to interrupt me which most definitely cheesed me off.

“What happened?” Cayden placed his left palm gently on my right shoulder in a bid to comfort me but I just shrugged, still in serious tears. “Can you please just tell me what happened?” he asked calmly but I noticed a slight raise in his pitch from earlier. I still didn’t give him any reply.

“Can you please tell me what the problem is?” he asked, ticked off and stood up.

I then decided to exit the scene as the atmosphere no longer felt conducive for me. I stood up and turned around to leave when he held me back. “If it’s something I did wrong, can’t you just cut it out already and tell me what I did?” he lowered his tone but it was already too late. I was already fuming with anger.

I ignored him, freed myself of his grip and turned around to leave again, when this time, he stood in my way. “Can you just get the hell out of my way and leave me alone?!” I barked at Cayden to his surprise, my eyes welled up yet again. “You have everything all easy with you and so you take people’s efforts for granted, don’t you?” I wailed further. “Just…leave…me…alone!!!” I tried to walk away, again he stopped me.

“Look, I’m sorry okay? He apologized humbly but I wasn’t ready to budge. I pushed him violently and cleared my exit path. I walked out of the scene and headed straight home feeling dejected.

On getting home, I met nana in the living room looking out the window again. ‘What’s wrong with this old woman?’ I thought.

“Where’s he?” she asked.

“Where’s who?”

“The mysterious fellow who’s always dropping you off.”

I heaved a sigh, “nana please,” I ignored her question and walked to my room where I saw Jacek sleeping soundly. I immediately lost the desire to do any other thing and just laid beside by baby boy and snuggled him.

***

The next morning, I decided to forget all that happened the previous day and face the day’s activity with an open mind. As usual, it was the rush hour and customers kept flooding my bakery. I and Jarod worked together in sync for the first time in a while.

“Won’t you answer the call, already?” Jarod asked as he brewed coffee for a customer who had ordered it.

Mr. Cayden had been calling me non-stop all morning. But then I made a resolve to stop helping him and so, I decided ignore his calls and texts. “It’s no one important,” I replied as I organized the cups of coffee on the tray and served them appropriately.

Out of annoyance, I then put my phone on ‘silent’ mode in order to concentrate on my work.

Few minutes later, while still trying to keep up with the morning rush, the door bell – which signified the door was either opening or closing – rang. It wasn’t out of the ordinary and so as our custom demanded, we’d usually gesture towards the customer with smiling faces. That day wasn’t different and so I turned towards the door to tell the customer a warm ‘welcome’. On seeing the customer who just walked in, the smile on my face disappeared instantly, which Jarod noticed. I immediately served the table I wanted to serve at the time, and relinquished all my duties to Jarod, who never complained. I hurriedly made my way to the passage-way which housed the staircase leading to my residence upstairs, but instead of taking the stairs, I hung around to get a hold of the situation about to unfold.

Cayden walked up to the counter, acting all bossy and rude, and demands to speak with me. Jarod wasn’t a fan of his insolent behaviors but he tried his very best to act civilized as Cayden at the time, was a customer.

“What would you like, sir?” Jarod asked mildly, forcing a smile.

“Lily,” Cayden replied out rightly.

“Sir?” Jarod tried very hard to keep calm as he wouldn’t want to cause a scene seeing how full the shop was.

“Are you deaf?” Cayden rebuked. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

Jarod couldn’t quite understand the situation he found himself in. ‘Why did he just barge in here, demanding for Lily?’ he thought. He heaved a sigh and kindly asked Cayden to leave. He tried to be as polite as possible to prevent violent outbursts.

“You’re daring me.” Of course, the trouble maker by the name, Cayden wouldn’t budge that easily. “Do you want me to go in there…,” he pointed towards my direction “and drag her here myself?”

Knowing how serious the situation was, I came out of hiding and dragged Cayden outside by the hand. “What is wrong with you?!” I scolded angrily. “Do you want to ruin my business? Can you not read the mood? How could you just barge in here and ask of me like that?” I asked almost simultaneously and paused to take deep breaths to ease my nerves.

“Listen…” I cut him off.

“Now listen! … You’re not the boss here, I am. Okay?” I said authoritatively. I hardly ever exercised authority over people but then, at the time, it didn’t feel bad at all.

“Yes ma’am,” Cayden concurred. “It’s my turn to speak now. I’m sorry, Miss. I just came to tell you that. I felt bad yesterday that I barely got any sleep. I came to apologize to you,” he said apologetically and again, I let my guard down. I was no longer furious.

“I still need your help,” he stated further and I looked away, signifying I had no interest in working with him again. “I beseech you, Lily,” he did the thing again – called my name in the most gentle and sweet way anyone would ever. ‘Did he do it on purpose?’ “Please?” he pleaded.

At first, I remained adamant but how Cayden managed to know the right buttons to push every time, left me in awe. “Fine,” I replied grudgingly. “I’ll fix another date and come over. How does that sound?” he looked so excited.

“Per…”

“Lily?” a familiar voice called out and we both turned around to see nana.

“Young man, what are you doing with my granddaughter?” she asked Cayden, totally ignoring my presence.

“Ummm…,” Cayden turned to me looking shocked. He didn’t know exactly what to say. We were both caught off guard.