Chapter 971: Unseen Terms
Hayley just wouldn't take an answer for an answer.
No matter what excuse I used, she simply couldn't fathom a tomorrow where I didn't choose to spend it with Amanda. Not even the ol' trite-and-true family card could get her to fold.
"The thing about being your girlfriend's best friend is that I get to know about you as much as she does," she said, sprinkling milkshakes and stirring lattes, throwing shade at me with her gaze between every step of the process. "And I know you'd be with them because she would have told me that you'll be with them."
"Okay, why would she even tell you anything like that in the first place?"
"She doesn't. Not deliberately. But I have my ways."
"You're keeping tabs on me through Amanda? Like, you just go out of your way to ask about what I'm up to? There's being considered, then there's just being creepy."
"Only creepy if there's nothing there to snoop for," Hayley placed the drinks onto a tray, thrusting them into my hands with a light shove that had the tray slightly digging into my chest and her face sticking forward a little too close for comfort. "So you tell me, birthday boy. Is there?"
I pushed back against her pressure, walking past her toward the front of the house. "If you think I'm out to hurt her, then go ahead, keep looking. But if you trust me, trust that I'm not, you'd stop. That sound about fair?"
Hayley had only the purest, goodest of intentions. I'm well aware of that. After the fiasco with her dad, it'd be even weirder if she wasn't this awfully cautious about her best friend getting all kissy and huggy with some guy who showed up out of nowhere… especially one that's always curiously unavailable on seemingly every pivotal date of a relationship.
From the bottom of my heart, I can understand why she's pressing me so hard every time the topic crops up, but damn if it doesn't get tiring after a while.
I returned back behind the counter, the tray empty and the influx of orders subsiding for the time being. Hayley was already grinding a batch of coffee beans and prepping fruit for the next big wave. Between all of that, she threw me another weird look.
"Alright, I won't lie, you are seriously suspiciously secretive," she said, the words spilling out of her as if they've been bubbling up inside of her this whole time. "And not even in the attractively bad-boyish way either. There's definitely something going on with you here. I know it. But…"
Hayley threw another batch into the grinder, plopped a fresh handful of strawberries into a container, and when she glanced back at me again, that look had faded significantly.
"Fine. You know what—I won't push any more than I already have. After a certain extent, it's not any of my business. Meaning to say, I'm trusting you. It's fishy, it's weird, don't like it… but I'm trusting you. You'll love her right, right?"
"What does that mean? You think I don't love her?" I let out a snort. "In that case, Amanda's wearing a pretty funny ring."
"It means whatever kind of weird arrangement of a relationship you have with her right now, you make sure she doesn't wind up regretting it later. Right now, things seem to be alright, good even… but later down the line, if this goes on… food and drinks aren't the only things that go sour over time, you know what I mean?"
That's… that's something I never actually considered before.
So wrapped up in the romantic throes of the present, I never stop to think about how it all might turn out in the future. If, realistically, we can all keep going with this. It's like Hayley said, things might be fine now… no one's dissatisfied, resentful… but with time, a lot of time, a lot can happen… and a lot can change.
"It looks like you do," Hayley said, raising both brows. "So I tell you what: you just keep her happy, and you'll keep me happy. That fair enough?"
"Fair enough," I said, the drone of another order whirring out of the printer pushing every thought I had to the side. "You'll be happy to know that's what I've been doing all along."
"Then just keep it up. Forever too, if possible," Hayley said, stepping back and giving me reign again of my station. "Think you can do that?"
"Piece of cake."
"Sweet," she said, turning around and going off on her way. "Oh, and your leave form. Have it on my desk before the end of your shift or you're fired, got it?" she politely reminded me before disappearing into the back, doing whatever it is cafe owners do in the back of their cafes.
Fortunately, the worst of the morning rush had already come and gone by the time Hayley had left. People were steadily funneling out of the establishment and not as many were dropping in. A few more drinks here and there, and before I knew it I was wiping clean the countertops with nothing much else to do other than to stand around and look pretty.
Then from the counter of my eyes, I saw someone holding up their empty mug over a neatly stacked pile of papers. I immediately headed over there, watching the pause and unpause of a pen hastily scribbling away and wondering how any of those words could possibly be legible with all the caffeine circulating in her system at this point.
"Nosy, isn't she?" Irene said, flinging the empty doorway leading to the back the most impassive of glances. "That boss of yours."
"To be fair, I haven't exactly been giving her any excuses not to be," I said, filling her cup to the brim again. "But she'll ease off now, thankfully. Hopefully."
The pen in her fingers instantly plopped down onto the page the moment I gave back her drink. She hovered the rims inches away from her lips, blowing away the hot swirling steam with light breaths.
"Still, what she said to you before," Irene took a sip after, promptly resuming right after. "I admit, she brings up a fair point. This unique arrangement we all have with each other, that we have with you… would it really last?"
"Well, I mean it's not like we're the first polygamous relationship that exists in the world, are we?" I said, dropping my voice to less than a whisper in case a certain someone decided to drop in again.
"No. But that's beside the point. Think about it," Irene continued on, her tone stripped of everything but rationale and logic. "Every single one of us—we all fell in love with you. And we all want to be with you. Naturally, we'll do anything we have to do, agree to anything we have to agree to to make it happen."
Deep inside, I was hoping someone would come swinging in from the front door and take me out of this situation. Having your personal relationships laid bare like some simple arithmetic equation was not a whole lot of fun.
"Now we have you, and we're happy, but fast-forward a few more months—a year or two? When we all finally come to terms with the things we had agreed to. What about then? Call me a pessimist, but it's not exactly in human nature to settle. Especially when they are constantly aware that they deserve and can do better."
"I hate that I can't really disagree with that," I said, sighing. "So? Think you're gonna wind up regretting being with me at some point?"
"Oh?" She peered at me all over. "Worried, are you?"
"Now I am. I wouldn't want to lose you—any of you for that matter. If you start thinking I'm not giving you enough…"
"In that case, you wouldn't have to worry about me. I wouldn't regret it."
"Yeah, well, 'course you'll say that now. We're barely past the starting line," I said. "But later on…"
"I wouldn't regret it then either."
"You sound confident."
"I am confident," she said, straight-faced and as certain as can be. "Now, I may not look the part, but it's a fact that I'm old enough to be your grandmother a couple of times over."
"Irene, what the f—?"
"Point being—" she cut me off, speaking a little firmer. "—I'm old enough to know what I want, and experienced enough to know what I'm getting into. So before you go worrying yourself sleepless for the day I grow to resent what we share, I just want you to know that that day will never come. Because I want you, and I want this with you. I'm certainly old and experienced enough to know that's what I want."
I blanked out for a moment. It's always a near impossibility to try and say anything back whenever you're ambushed like this. And don't even try to get used to it, it never gets easier.
"Well… I mean, I may not be as wise and mature as you," I said, slowly slipping over where she had hers rested. "But I definitely feel the same way you do. And that'll never change."
"Why would it?" She asked, a faint smile on the edges of her lips, "You're the one that benefits most from this arrangement. It's almost unfair…"
"Irene—"
"But I like it this way," she finished, reciprocating, letting her fingers intertwine with my own. "I like us this way."
I almost felt myself lean into her, almost… but then the front door just had this swing open. Why'd you have to swing open? Who told you to do that?
As I tended to the newly arrived table-for-one, Irene gulped down the rest of her drink, swung close the folder before her, and placed it on the very top of her pile. When I got back to her, she was already wriggling her arms back into her coat.
"As for the others," she said, paying her bill by the cash register. "Yeah, it's a potential concern. Small, but not unthinkable. But hey, you knew what you signed up for, didn't you?"
"I did, yeah," I said, handing her her change. "Or at least I still think I do. But who knows what other things I've not completely thought through?"
"Heavy is the head that wears the crown, isn't it?" Irene said before quickly shooting forward to plant a kiss on my cheek and a tingling whisper brushing against my ear. "I'll see you tomorrow, birthday boy."