Best Served Cold

Yes, I’d cried. But that wasn’t my fault. That was, um, hormones. You know. Those ones that come out when your ex kissed you.

In my defense, it would have been equally as easy to punch him.

See? Uncontrollable.

Nothing I could do about them.

Pesky little bitches.

I sighed and dropped onto my ass. This cleaning wasn’t anywhere near as therapeutic as I’d thought it would be. I couldn’t get anything straight inside my mind, so the only option here was abandonment.

I had all the time in the world to clean.

I needed to create right now, and luckily for me, I had a freezer full of ice cream tubs waiting for me.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – RAELYNN

I carefully set a handful of cotton candy on top of the Princess Sundae and sprinkled glitter over the white fluff. It was perhaps the prettiest I’d created yet—pink and sparkly and glittery, from the ice cream to the cotton candy to the white-chocolate water that was coated in glitter and sprinkles and cut into a crown shape.

Mumford and Sons’ “I Will Wait” blasted into my ears courtesy of my headphones. Spotify had been both spot on and incredibly irritating with its music choices for me since I’d been creating, but all the music had done was block out everything but the lyrics and the process my brain went through as I worked.

I put the finishing touches of silver candy balls onto the top of the sundae and glanced at my phone for the time. A frown marred my expression as I noticed the three text messages and four missed calls from Chase.

I opened the messages and pulled the headphones off my ears.

CHASE: I have a delivery with your name on it. Box is huge.

CHASE: Hey. Are you in the store? I saw your car, but you didn’t answer the door.

CHASE: …Rae? Your box is the size of a minivan. What did you order?

I smirked.

ME: A minivan.

His response was instant.

CHASE: Oh look, she’s alive. Ok to bring it over?

ME: Sure.

I turned off my headphones, leaving the music playing out of my phone in the kitchen and went to unlock the front door. I held it open, leaning against the wall as I waited for him.

I scoffed the second I saw him. “That’s hardly the size of a minivan, is it?”

Chase put the box on the floor and pushed it over the threshold into the store. “It’s fucking nearly there. It’s been in the middle of my floor for the last two hours.”

“Two hours?”

“Yeah. What the hell have you been doing in here?” He stepped inside the building.

I shrugged. “Creating my new menu. I’ve had one hell of a morning and started off cleaning.” I motioned to the floor. “Then gave up. I locked the door, put my phone on silent, and then played music through my headphones.”

Concern flickered in his eyes. “What happened?”

Anxiety bubbled in my chest. I needed to talk about it, but I didn’t want to unload on him. Hell, I didn’t know where we stood. It wasn’t fair for me to tell him all my issues right now.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not—”

“Important? It is. You look exhausted.” Chase took the door from my eyes and met my gaze. “If you need to talk it out, Marnie and Chelsea have the store sorted. In fact, I was all but kicked out.”

I looked down with a smile. “You don’t—I mean, you don’t think it’s unfair?”

“What’s unfair?”

“For me to unload on you when I still haven’t processed everything that happened last night.”

Chase took my face in his hands. “Rae, the way you feel about me, whether you know what that is or not, doesn’t change the fact that I’m here for you. Me caring about you isn’t based on the way you feel about me. It’s unconditional.”

My heart skipped a beat. “My mom showed up this morning.”

He actually dropped his hands and took a step back. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows were basically in his hairline they’d shot up so high. “Your mom?”

“Yup.” I leaned back against the wall. “She showed up at, like, eight-thirty, and declared on the doorstep that my dad had left her for someone else.”

“Well, shit.”

“Your reaction is scarily close to what mine was.”

“Your dad left her for someone else?”

I shrugged. “That was all I heard before I made a break for it. I left her sobbing on the sofa with Grandma. Definitely not winning any daughter of the year awards.”

Chase wrinkled his face. “Hate to agree with you, but probably not. Still, that’s a little left-field, and you did have to come to work…”

I shock-gasped and pressed my hand against my chest. “Are you writing me a whole list of excuses for why I couldn’t stay for the pity party?”

“No, I was hoping you’d mumble something about feeling bad.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Never mind. I see your emotions are fully with the ice cream today.”