“Fine. Your new golden retriever is great. Happy now?”
“Yessss! I told you you’d love him Willow! And look how good he was about the whole situation with Dragna. He’s fucking perfect.”
“I think you threatening him as soon as he arrived maybe had something to do with him being so good about it all.” I raise a brow at her.
“Oh shush. They have to be just a little bit scared of you for it to work. Trust me.” She goes back to reading her book while I’m now thinking about Dragna again. I hate him. How can him and Lev be so close and run a business together when one of them is so sickeningly sweet and the other is, well, Dragna? I have no clue how they both grew up within the same family and turned out so different.
———————————————————
It’s a good day today. I feel good after our girls day yesterday, Alina is feeling better and we’re back in work together living our lives as happy as we were before my couple days of heartbreak.
I’m at the till serving a customer and Alina is in the back room going through a delivery we got in this morning when the bell for the door of the bookstore chimes, letting me know another customer has come in.
“Thank you, have a lovely day!” I say as I hand the girl I’m serving her bag. She smiles and walks away and that’s when I notice who just entered our shop.
“Hey you.” He says awkwardly as he approaches me. My heart stops. Somehow I feel ice cold while also feeling like I am about to break out in a sweat. My words get stuck in my throatas I stare at him in shock that he is actually here and standing in front of me. I calm myself and prepare to put my big girl pants on before getting the courage to speak.
“What are you doing here?” I cross my arms over my chest and stand tall ready to tell him to get the hell out of our shop.
“I asked around and heard you were working here through friends. I just thought I would maybe ask if you would want to go get coffee sometime? We could have a talk?”
“You’re serious Fred? You think I want to have a coffee and a talk with you? Are you fucking delusional.” I’m so angry I forget there’s other customers in the shop as I swear at him.
I walk from behind the counter, grab his arm and drag him out to the front of the shop with me. When the door closes behind us I face him and push him in his chest with one finger.
“I don’t want anything to do with you. Ever. Again. Leave me alone and don’t ever come here again for me.” I turn around to head back inside and he grabs my arm and pulls me back towards him.
“Please Willow, I fucked up. I fucked up so badly and it’s been eating away at me for the last year. I broke it off with Maria as soon as you left me. I want another chance, please.” He gives me the puppy dog eyes that used to work on me a little too well and all I want to do is punch him square in the face.
“You want another chance?” I laugh in his face.
“Well I wanted a boyfriend who didn’t go around sticking his dick in other women!” I shout loudly.
“It was one girl.” He argues back at me.
“Oh forgive me! That makes it so much easier to understand.” I can feel my blood beginning to boil as I continue shouting at him.
“I’m sorry okay. I miss you and all I want is twenty minutes to talk to you over a coffee. I tried calling you but your numbers been disconnected.”
“Yeah I got a new phone, and why the hell do you still have my number?” I ask cautiously.
“It’s going to sound dumb because I’m the one who fucked everything up, but I kept your number incase you ever decided to call me again one day. I also kept all our texts. I don’t know how many times I’ve read over them remembering how good we were together.” He looks at me like his words are genuine, but I also believed he was faithful and only with me for the whole last twelve months of our relationship when in reality he was sneaking around behind my back.
“No, we weren’t good together.” I finally respond.
“You hated my friends, hated that I went out all the time.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks at me with so much sorrow at my words.
“I was jealous, okay? You were able to live your life so freely. You had a group of friends who all loved you. All I had was my dad breathing down my neck about following in his footsteps and joining his company.” A tang of understanding for him hits my heart, because what he said is true but I never knew this is how he felt. His dad is in line for 'biggest asshole award’ right beside Dragna.
Great, now I’m thinking about Dragna while my ex who broke my heart is standing in front of me pouring out his. What has my life become the last couple weeks?
Fred grabs my hand and cups it between both of his.
“I just want to talk to you Willow. I miss having you there, even as a friend. We grew up together and then all of a sudden you weren’t there anymore and I felt lost. Just one quick coffee and then you can tell me to fuck off again if you want and I promise I will.”
I can’t believe I’m considering this, but what’s one more bad decision to add to the list?
“You can have twenty minutes. Meet me here at three when I finish.” I tell him as I walk back to the shop door.
