She returned my smile and asked how I was feeling. I told her I felt brand new, thanks to her, and I reveled in the blush she gave. It was easy to get her flustered, and it was so cute. Wait, no it wasn’t!
I shook away those feelings and closed my laptop, done with work for the day. At least, with my illustrator job. I still needed to get some work done for this month’s sign language class.
Last year, when Kaia told me she was going back to work at the bookstore, I’d been skeptical. I was glad she finally took my advice and stood up for herself. Whatever had been going on in the store had been happening before I met Kaia, but since I had known her, things had just gotten worse.
I’d convinced her to sit with me and tell me what was going on. I explained how what she wanted mattered, and she shouldn’t let Dreatreat her like that. She made excuses about how she was a really good person, just going through some things. I understood, of course. Things in life happened that we couldn’t control, but we could control how we handled them. It took her months of feeling this way before she couldn’t take it anymore.
She came over sobbing one day, and my first thought was her dad. Then she blurted out that she quit, and I made her start from the beginning. She explained everything, from picking up Drea at the bar, to taking an inconsolable Blair home after their breakup, to Kaia yelling in Drea’s office and quitting.
It took me a while to be convinced that after all that, going back to work at the store was a good idea. But in the last few years, everything had been a lot better.
Kaia was now part owner of the store, and she loved it. Drea showed her more often how valuable she was to the company, and business was booming. The cafe was doing well, and they even hired me to teach a sign language class once a month.
“Hey.” I greeted Kaia with a smile when she came through the door, Duke already running circles around her feet.
She waved back, suppressing a yawn. “Long day?” I asked.
She nodded. “Very. Lots of people had angry pills this morning, and both of our cashiers were out with the flu. It’s a good thing you stayed home. I don’t want you getting sick again.”
I rolled my eyes. She was very protective of me. If it were anyone else, I would’ve thought she was treating me differently because of my disability, but I knew Kaia too well. She would never act like that. She just didn’t like when I got sick or hurt, or when someone wasn’t accommodating for me. I couldn’t blame her, though. I was the same way. If anyone tried to look at her wrong, I’d… I didn’t know what I would do, but I wouldn’t let it stand. She was my best friend and deserved a good world to live in.
“I’m going to go change, and then I was thinking of reading. Do you want to join? Or do you still have work to do?”
I sighed contentedly. Reading with Kaia sounded amazing. Sitting in our favorite spots with a cup of hot tea and our favorite blankets? Sign me up. “I just have to do some stuff for the class, but it won’t take methat long. Reading sounds amazing. I’ll make the tea while you get changed.”
She thanked me and headed down the hall with a tiny bodyguard trailing behind her.
We both had the same idea because we both chose a small-town romance. Mine was a slow burn, one night to forever, and hers was a childhood friends-to-lovers.
Every so often I kept glancing away from my book to watch her. I loved watching her read. Seeing her lips move along with the words on the page and her eyes change expressions depending on what was going on in the story was captivating to watch. She was so animated when she read, and when her face turned a dark red, I knew something spicy was happening.
“Anything juicy happening in your book over there, doodle?” I asked with my eyebrow raised when she eventually looked up at me.
She closed the book and adjusted herself on the couch, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, and for some reason, I wanted to move it back so I could be the one to push it away.
“Oh. Kind of. The two main characters are building a snowman, and one of them tripped and fell. The other character was laughing at her, but tried to help her, when she pulled her down on top of her, and they’re sort of making out. I’m all for a good make-out session, but lying in the cold snow is not the first place I’d pick.” She shrugged.
“Oh my God! I used to love building snowmen as a kid! But yeah, I definitely wouldn’t make out in the snow either. Rain, sunshine, a hot tub, for sure, sign me up! But the cold of any kind? Unless it’s a pool, hard pass.”
Something flickered in her expression before she visibly shook her head and it was gone. “Same. But I’ve never built a snowman, so I’m not sure how sexy it can be. Maybe it was too much for them and they couldn’t wait? I don’t know.”
I frowned. “Wait, what?”
“I said, maybe it was too much?—”
“No, I got that part. I mean the part about you never building a snowman. You’ve lived here your whole life and not once built a snowman? You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I’ve never really played in the snow. I didn’t really have thebest child friendly childhood, so I didn’t get to do all those things other kids did. I was quiet after my mom died, so I didn’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t get invited to sleepovers, or birthday parties or anything.” She shrugged it off, like it was totally normal.
“Okay, so you had a terrible childhood. That’s what I’m understanding? I didn’t realize it until I got older, but I loved eating dinner with my parents every night. The food was always so good and the love was radiating off the walls. Please tell me you at least ate dinner together.”
I was begging for some kind of light in this story. I couldn’t stomach the thought of a small Kaia not even feeling loved enough for her family to want to eat together.
She shook her head, and I wanted to cry. “I don’t really remember before my mom passed, but after, my dad and I never ate together. Not once.”
“I am disgusted. Truly. This is unacceptable. So you’ve never eaten together. You’ve never built a snowman. Made snow angels? Gone sledding? Flown a kite? Built a fort with your friends in the living room and stayed up all night gossiping about crushes?”
I received only headshakes from the other couch, and I sank into mine, devastated for young Kaia.
