Paxton Legacy 1.3 – You Again

After she correctly guessed about my pregnancy, Korie and I sat at an empty table rolling silverware into napkins far enough away that we couldn’t be overheard by either Max or Rebecca. There I told Korie the bare minimum of my situation. Only what she needed to know – with a few lies sprinkled in – and nothing more. The dark story of my past was nonessential at this point in time. I told her that after I found out I was pregnant, I left my hometown to raise my baby in a place where no one knew me and therefore I wouldn’t care if they judged me for having a child without a husband. Not entirely a lie, but not entirely the truth either. When she asked about the father, I simply responded that he wasn’t in the picture and that I definitely did not want to talk about him. She understood and didn’t press me any further on the subject, but all of the questions she was dying to ask me were swimming in her dark brown eyes. It wouldn’t be long before she needed more answers to satisfy her. I swore Korie to secrecy, and she promised not to tell another soul.
And I needed a favor. In exchange for that favor, I had to give up another of my secrets. There was no way I could give Rebecca an ID, so I confessed to Korie that Bay Paxton was not my legal name. It terrified me to put so much trust into a person I had just met, but I had no other options. I needed this job. I needed someone I could trust. If Korie wasn’t that person, I had just ruined everything for myself and I would have to leave town. Choose another name. Run away – again. But I tried not to dwell on that fact. She acquired a fake ID for me though how I don’t know. Korie promised not to ask questions if I didn’t either, so we left it at that. One day maybe those truths would come to light, too.
That had been nearly a month ago now, and so far Korie had kept my secrets. She taught me everything she knew about working at the café, and I finished my training fairly quickly. Waitressing was the only job I had ever had, and it isn’t so different working at the café than it was at the diner. The customers were mostly friendly but liked to ask too many questions. Thankfully, they were easily appeased with generalized answers.

It was after lunch rush, and before dinner rush, so the café was nearly empty save for a cluster of teenagers that were sipping on refreshing drinks on yet another sweltering day in paradise. The teens were sitting in Korie’s section, but I gave her a hand with refilling their lemonades and other non-alcoholic fruity beverages to keep myself busy. “Thanks, girl. I got it from here.” Korie sighed wiping a bead of sweat from her brow, and grinned waving at someone behind me. Despite the fact that summer was over, it was still warm and temperate on the islands. I had a feeling the heat would last even through the winter. “Go ahead and take his order, and once you’re finished you can head home. Five bucks says he orders the surf burger with fries and a Diet Coca Cola.” She threw me a wink before walking away with a tray of empty glasses, and I turned to see the man, and neighbor I reminded myself, that I met at the beach a month ago sitting at an umbrella table watching Korie as she walked away.

His gaze left her landing on me, and I hesitated when he smiled at me before I slowly approached his table. My sweaty fingers nervously grasped at the hem of my work shirt pulling it down as if that would disguise my growing belly. There wasn’t enough of a bump yet that I looked obviously pregnant, but he had seen me before and it was possible he would remember me and notice I had grown bigger around my middle in the past month.
“Aloha, welcome to Rebecca’s Café,” I recited the standard greeting that Korie taught me. She had rolled her eyes and complained about how cheesy it was but that Rebecca was a stickler for the rules, so we had to greet all of our customers that way. “My name is Bay, and I’ll be your server today. What can I get you to drink?”

“Hey, stranger.” The corners of his mouth lifted into a charming smile that would make most girls blush. As if confirming my thoughts, hushed giggles rose from the table of teen girls who whispered behind their hands to each other and glanced his way. “I didn’t know you worked here.” The way he said it, sounding pleasantly surprised, he must eat at the café on a regular basis.

“Yeah, I started waitressing at Rebecca’s about a month ago now. Do you come here often?” I wanted to cringe at the way I must sound. As if I had asked the question out of anything more than politeness and a simple curiosity that even I didn’t quite understand. My teeth snagged on my bottom lip, a nervous habit, and Ryan’s eyes lowered from my own catching the movement. A twang of some long-forgotten emotion shot through me at the sight of it.
“Not as often as I used to. I let myself have one cheat meal a week, and I used to spend that meal here.” Ryan scratched absently at the back of his neck. Then continued on without going into any further explanation. “But I might have to start coming back now that I know you work here.”
“Oh.” I eyed him warily, and an embarrassed blush heated my cheeks. I hoped it was hot enough outside that I was already flushed making it unnoticeable.

“Listen,” he ran his hands through his already wind tousled hair and huffed a breath as if buying himself time to figure out what he would say next. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but-” I froze, unsure of where this conversation was headed. Ryan opened his mouth and met my slightly widened eyes when a boisterous, feminine voice interrupted from behind me.
“Hey, Ryan! Long time, no see.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding as his eyes shifted from mine to the redhead who appeared at my shoulder. “Hey, KK! How have you been? It’s been awhile.” I quirked my brow at the pet name but continued to observe my co-worker/newfound best friend and my neighbor chat in silence.
“I’m good, just same old, same old. I see you’ve met my new bestie. Bay, this is Ryan. We went to school together, and now I only see him when he’s craving our famous surf burgers and sea salt fries,” she replied flippantly with a teasing edge to her voice.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “What can I say? I’m addicted. No place has better burgers than Rebecca’s.” His gaze flicked from Korie to me and back again. “New bestie, huh? Small world.”
“What do you mean?” Korie asked quizzically looking from Ryan to me.
“We met on the beach when I first moved here,” I answered finally speaking up. “I tripped during my morning run, and he helped me up. Ryan and I are next door neighbors actually.”
“Really.” Korie’s too observant gaze rested on me, glancing just one between the two of us before landing on me again. “Why didn’t you mention that before?” Ryan raised his brows and leaned forward resting his elbows on the table top.
I shrugged my shoulders ignoring the deflated look I saw on Ryan’s face out of the corner of my eye after I answered her. “I honestly didn’t think it was anything worth mentioning.”
“Ouch.” Ryan half-heartedly laughed it off, and a pinch of guilt settled in my gut.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I didn’t think it was a big deal or anything- or anything that anyone would even want to know.” I snapped my mouth shut with embarrassment, chewing on my bottom lip. “This isn’t coming out right.”

“It’s okay. I get it.”
His words were more understanding than I would have expected, a kindness in his honey gold eyes that made me want to squirm and put me on edge. It was a little annoying honestly, how genuinely nice he seemed. The guilt I had felt disappeared as if it had evaporated in the island heat. Korie looked between the two of us watching our exchange with amused scrutiny. There was a look in her eyes as she watched us that I didn’t like, and a knowing curve of her lips made me uneasy. “Interesting,” was all she said.
I didn’t fully look at him as I spoke and turned to leave. “I’ll go get you that surf burger and a Diet Coca Cola.”
“How do you know that’s what I want to order?” He asked forcing me to stop.

My back stiffened, and I reluctantly met his gaze. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“No problem,” he grinned.
“Right,” I sighed and walked toward the kitchen without a backward glance.
I put in Ryan’s order and covered my face with my hands trying to collect the remaining pieces of my dignity. Why had I let him get under my skin so easily? I barely knew the guy, and here I was completely frazzled by his effortless smiles and carefree good looks. All men are trouble, I reminded myself. The reason I was here in the predicament I am in the first place is because of a man, and that is something I can never let myself forget. Dropping my hands from my face, I turned to see Korie approaching me quickly with a determination on her face I had no hope of avoiding.

“Well, that was entertaining.”
“I didn’t think it was all that interesting.” I shrugged hoping I could convince her there wasn’t anything more to it. But nothing was ever that easy with Korie.
“Uh uh. I’m not buying it, so you can give up the pretend act right now, B. There was so much heat between you two that it put this ungodly island weather to shame.” Korie fanned herself dramatically with one hand.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I responded as nonchalantly as I could while staring at my feet.
“Of course you don’t.” I looked up in time to see Korie rolling her eyes. “So tell me the real reason why you haven’t mentioned meeting Ryan before now, hmm? Because I definitely think that meeting a hot guy on the beach is something best friends would talk about.” Heat that had nothing to do with the weather warmed my cheeks.

“You think he’s hot?”
“Um, am I blind?! Yeah, girl! He is smoking hot, and he is obviously into you.”
“You think so?”
“I’m not blind, but you must be if you can’t see it,” Korie groaned completely unaware that my question hadn’t been one of a girl wanting to know if the guy she liked liked her back. But that it was spoken out of fear of a man paying that much attention to her. The last man that had given me any attention like that… I shuddered.
Korie continued to talk without stopping for a breath. “I’ve known Ryan since we were in middle school, and he is the nicest guy I know. He’s hot, but like, not like those guys who know they’re hot so they act like total douchebags. Ryan’s a good guy, so as your official bestie, I give you my blessing. I can even give him your number for you if you want me to.”
“No!” I gasped, and Korie looked at me with confusion. Inhaling through my nose, I tried to keep my voice calm. “No, Korie. Please don’t. I’m just not ready to date anyone right now, not in my… condition. It wouldn’t be fair to him or me.”
“Oh, right. That.” Korie glanced at the slight roundness of my belly. “That could be a problem.”
“No kidding,” I gave her a small smile.
She bit her lip as if trying to stop the words from coming out of her mouth, but if there was one thing I had learned about Korie in the past month of our friendship, it was that she always spoke what was on her mind. Which wasn’t always a good thing. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem if he got to know you better. Ryan doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would care about something like this. If he really cared about you, nothing else would matter.”

I silently reminded myself that Korie meant well, in her own way. “It’s just not what I want right now, Korie. I don’t need any extra drama in my life.”
“Okay, I hear you loud and clear.” Korie raised her hands in surrender. “No boys.” She glanced over her shoulder and stepped away. “After your little- chat? Whatever it was- I’ll take this to Ryan. Save you another sexually charged confrontation,” she offered picking up Ryan’s order from the counter.
I made an incredulous noise and watched as Korie took the meal to his table. They spoke for a couple of minutes before she moved on to the table of teens who by now were needing more refills. What Korie said about Ryan being interested in me floated unwelcome into my thoughts. Could she be right? It did seem like he was about to ask me something, though what I wasn’t sure of, before Korie had thankfully interrupted. It had been so long since anyone had been interested in me… No, that’s not true. It had been so long since I had let myself notice that anyone was interested out of pure fear of what Caleb would do if he saw me with anyone else, even platonically. How he would react.
I didn’t realize I was staring until Ryan looked up from his meal and caught me looking at him. An amused grin tugged his lips upward, and my breath caught in my throat. Again, I was reminded of just how handsome he was. But I had already made the mistake once of letting a man fool me with his charm and good looks. I knew better now, and I knew if I let it, that smile would be the end of me.

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A/N: Alright, so you may have noticed that this chapter is almost a week late. I just wanted to explain why this chapter was a little late. I’ve had this chapter and a few of the future chapters already written, and I had the pictures for this one as well. Just as I was doing my last read through before posting it, I decided I didn’t like it. Like, at all. I really hated the interactions, and it just didn’t feel right to me. So I scrapped the whole thing and rewrote it. Then I had to retake pictures. And I don’t know if anyone noticed, but all of our main characters look different because before I took new pictures, I decided that I needed to tweak my characters appearances. I still have some tweaking to do, but of them all, I think Korie turned out the best. They all look so much better now. The most improved would be Fletcher, who we didn’t get to see in this chapter, but who suffered from major pudding face. Anyway, six days later I’m able to post 1.3 haha. I think this version is a lot better, and now I can start working on taking pictures for 1.4 which I am excited for because Bay is going to have her first breakthrough! I won’t go into anymore detail than that because of spoiler reasons lol. As always, thank you for reading and please let me know what you thought of this chapter in the comments below. ❤

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