Page 23 of Forget Me Not (The Shifters of Timberfall #1)

Syve

Aimi thought she was really funny for cueing up New Moon the second she stepped into the loft. She kind of was. The two women were curled up on the couch waiting with the movie on the title screen when Cam came running up the stairs.

“I’m here, I’m here! Tyler stopped for a drink on the way home because he forgot it was girl’s night.

I literally had to call him a million times before he even fucking answered his phone—he’s out of his mind if he thinks he’s sleeping anywhere other than the couch tonight.

” She rapidly fired off, still slightly out of breath from the stairs .

“Girl. I’m going to say this again, because I have to. Tyler is a piece of shit. If he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass, you and the kids can just move in with me and he can suck eggs.”

Aimi fumed. This was not the first occasion Cameron’s husband had forgotten something important in favor of going to the bar with his coworkers.

“I love you, and if he decides being married to his job is more important than being married to me, I will kick his ass out and you can move into the spare room. Then no one has to live in that tiny ass studio apartment of yours,” Cam promised.

“Hear, hear!” Syve added.

‘Studio apartment’ was rather generous for the glorified closet above The Glass.

“Oh! Okay, so as much as I would love to sit and talk shit about Tyler all night, because I would, I’ve got a tale to tell.”

Aimi clapped out the last words and sat up taller, crossing her legs under her. Syve and Cam both grabbed a bowl off the table, immediately shoveling their chosen snack into their mouths as they settled in for ‘Story Time with Aimi’.

“You guys know how busy the three o’clock rush is, right?

” She waited a second for acknowledgement before continuing.

“So...Toni and I are slogging through it, when we run out of cup sleeves—I don’t even know how that happened, but it did.

So, Toni runs back into the storage closet to grab more, but it takes like, God only knows why, fifteen whole minutes.

The second she walks away, I hear the chime ring and this guy walks in.

I’m mad already, because he is disgustingly attractive.

Seriously, tattoo’s, piercings, man bun and he is huge— like someone plucked this man right out of my wet dreams.”

Cam started choking on her pretzels.

“I’m not even kidding! So, anyway, he gets in line. I make two whole drinks before this man just jumps over the counter and starts man-handling my espresso machine.” She eyes Syve and Cam, to make sure they are listening.

“I’m just standing there like…what in the actual fuck, right?

So, I say to him, ‘Excuse me, can you not?’ Because what the hell else do you say?

And I’m not even kidding you, this man—” She paused, inhaled and exhaled quickly, closing her eyes and held up a hand.

“This. Man. He says to me, ‘I’m not waiting four years for a mediocre cup of coffee, Daisy. You should tell your boss to hire more help.’”

“No! What?!” Cam screeched.

“You didn’t call for bail money, so you obviously didn’t throat punch him,” Syve added.

“I was so dumbfounded, I just stared at him like a fucking idiot. So, then he says, ‘I can show you how to make a real coffee—I bet your boss would thank me.’ I can’t make this shit up.”

Cameron was gasping along with the story, hanging on Aimi’s every word. Syve could not keep from shaking her head at her friend’s animated retelling.

“So, what did you do?” Cam probed.

“Well. I was holding a cup in my hand, just about to hand it over to Jasper, one of my regulars, and instead, I walked over to this guy and dumped it on him.”

Cam burst out laughing again.

“No, you did not!” Syve was pretty sure there were tears in Cam’s eyes now.

“I fucking did! But this man is undoubtedly a whole-ass foot taller than me, so the best I could manage was to splash it on him.” She rolled her eyes.

“Did he bail with his tail between his legs?” Cam asked between giggles.

“Oh, no. No, it gets better—worse? Whatever, now I’m triple mad, because what a fucking waste of espresso that was, and this fucking man !” Aimi squealed. “He wiped the coffee off his face, says, ‘God, you’re hot when you’re mad,’ and fucking sucked the coffee off his fingers .”

Cameron made an animalistic sound and fell off the couch. Syve put a hand over her mouth in shock, she’d never heard of anyone giving Aimi such a run for her money.

“I. Can’t. Breathe!” Cam cried from the floor.

Aimi continued, speaking a little louder to be heard over Cam’s hysterics.

“He did that— he did that , and then says, ‘You know, that’s actually pretty good.’”

There were more squawks from the floor.

“That honestly pissed me off more, so I grabbed the cup out of his hand, the half-made drink he was working on, and threw that on him too.” She was beaming.

“He wasn’t expecting that one. Then I told him to get the fuck out before I kicked his ass.

” Aimi rolled her eyes again. “He laughed at me, like I was kidding, jumped back over the counter, the cafe door is literally right there, but he still jumped over the counter and just left ! I still don’t know what the hell…

” She shook her head, now giggling along with Cam.

“And Toni was gone the whole time?” Syve couldn’t help but laugh with her friends.

“The whole time! She came back up front and was confused as to why there was coffee all over the damn floor.” Aimi shrugged.

“This has literally just made my entire day.” Cam sighed, wiping her eyes.

Aimi mocked a bow. “Happy to serve my people.”

They were still giggling when Cam’s phone chimed from the coffee table. She quickly snatched it up—she was always quick to check messages when she was not with her kids.

She unlocked her phone and quickly read the screen. Cam groaned.

“Of fucking course. Mom just texted me—apparently that dude she’s been talking to just invited her on a cruise. Tomorrow. She’s supposed to watch Kayla tomorrow so I can take the boys to their baseball day camp!” She visibly melted into herself, shoulders slumping in defeat .

Syve hesitated a minute, knowing what she wanted to do, but not knowing if she could stomach it. Her mouth made the choice before her brain could interfere.

“I’ll watch her. I mean, if you want, I can come over and watch her…”

Aimi and Cam both froze and turned to look at her.

Cam thawed first, asking, “Are you sure? Would you? She would love that and I would owe you big time!”

“You don’t owe me anything, what are friends for? I love Kayla, I can watch her for you so you can just focus on the boys.”

Syve had spent a lot of time around Kayla and the boys—they were a package deal with Cam—but she never volunteered to babysit, and Cam never asked. Not that she could blame her, it was hard to be around kids since the accident and her friends knew that.

Surely one night could not hurt…right ?

It was just after four when Syve knocked on the front door of Cameron and Tyler’s big yellow house.

“Come in!” Cam hollered, quickly followed by, “Zachary! Do not fart in your brother’s face! Where are your shoes?”

Syve turned the handle and pushed, quickly jumping back as Bryce, Cam’s middle child, bolted out the now open door—his little arms snuggly hugging a pair of shoes that were most certainly not his.

Stepping into the house Syve hollered, “Hey Cam, it’s me! How can I help?”

“Hey, girl!” Cam cheered, diving out of one doorway at the end of the hall and into another one across from it. “I’ve got this handled, unless you’ve seen a pair of cleats since you walked in?”

Off Cam went, back across the hall and into a third doorway.

Unable to keep from smiling at what looked like a reenactment of Scooby Doo, she answered, “Pretty sure Bryce has them in the front yard.”

A groan came in return, then Zach was zipping down the hall and out the still open door.

Cam reemerged a second later with a duffel bag slung over each shoulder, her crossbody hanging around her neck.

“I’m sorry, I’m in such a rush! Can’t ever get out of this house when I want to—you know where everything is, Kayla’s watching a movie in the den, bedtime starts at 6:30.

She’ll walk you through her bedtime routine and we should be back around ten.

Text me if you need anything! Thank you, love you, bye! ”

The last five words came out as one as the door slammed shut .

Syve made her way to the den where, true to Cam’s word, she found Kayla sitting in a tiny beanbag in front of the television.

“Hey, baby girl, whatcha watching?”

The little girl turned her head entirely toward her before taking her eyes off of the screen, but as soon as their eyes met, Kayla’s big, green eyes doubled in size.

“Annie Sy!”

Curly blonde pigtails bounced as she scrambled out of her seat, running and jumping into Syve’s awaiting arms. Syve sighed with a smile and returned the child’s hug, holding her tightly and waiting for her to let go first. Her heart warmed and broke, all at once.

She thought of Noah, of how he should be this big now.

Not for the first time she wondered what would have happened had she been home that night. Could she have saved them? Or at least been given the mercy to join them?

With one final, big squeeze, the toddler pulled back.

“Hi!” She smiled up at Syve. “Are you gonna play with me?”

Quickly wiping her eyes before any traitorous tears could make it to her cheeks, Syve nodded.

“I am going to play with you! Do you want to finish your movie? Or do you want to show me all your super cool toys? ”

“TOYS!” Kayla squealed, jumping up and down a few times before spinning around and dashing across the room to the stairs, bear crawling her way up. “Come on Annie Sy!”

An hour later, after going over the names of every single stuffed animal the toddler owned, the two found themselves in the kitchen. According to the tiny human it was dinner time, which meant ice cream and noodles.

Syve was certain that was a little bit of a stretch and instead asked if chicken nuggets or mac and cheese would be okay. A short lesson followed in which Syve learned that mac and cheese is actually made with noodles and because of that, it would be okay to have for dinner.

Which was perfect.

Cooking was one thing Syve had never been able to do. In fact, she failed a culinary class in high school after she attempted to boil water but forgot about the water, which led to the pot running dry and burning the bottom. The pot was ruined and so was her grade.

Luckily, there was a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in town that just so happened to make the best mac and cheese to ever exist, and they delivered. Syve set her charge up with crayons and a stack of coloring books before pulling her phone out to call in an order for an obscene amount of pasta.

“I’m sorry, we’ve had two people call out today—we’re too short staffed and can’t fulfill any delivery orders right now. If you’d like we can do a pick-up order?”

A chaotic cacophony in the background forced the girl on the other end of the line to need to yell to be heard.

“Oh, no, thank you. I wouldn’t be able to pick up the order. ”

“Sorry again, have a good night.”

Click.

Now what was she supposed to do ?

Her phone lit up with a text from Bastien—they’d been texting off and on all day. She swiped open to a picture of him holding four baby ducks in his cupped hands.

Bas:

Look what Hattie just brought in…

Syve:

OMG, No!

Why did Hattie bring those poor children into the shop?!

Bas:

She brought them in to ask Hal if she could keep them LMFAO

Syve:

…she already bought them, didn’t she?

Bas:

Long story short, Hattie and Hal have four new ducks

Syve:

ROFL

She scrolled back up to the picture, saved it and set it as Bastien’s photo ID.

Bas:

So, what are you up to tonight?

Syve:

Wallowing.

What about you? Anything fun planned for after work?

Bas:

Why wallowing? What happened? I’m just supposed to go home and play host for a family friend.

Syve:

Thyme to Eat can’t do deliveries tonight

It’s basically a national emergency.

I’m crushed and I’m about to severely disappoint a toddler

The same toddler I had to spend twenty minutes convincing that mac and cheese was REALLY made with noodles.

Also, yikes. Unless you like to play host-with-the-most?

Bas:

Mac and cheese is made with noodles?! Since when?!

Syve chuckled, eyes fixed on the little dots bouncing at the bottom of the screen—pausing, then starting again.

Bas:

I’ve seen a disappointed toddler before, they hold grudges forever. I could pretend to be a delivery driver in fifteen minutes…

If you want?

Syve blinked at the screen. Going to Thyme to Eat and then driving all the way across town to get to Cam’s just to deliver food was no small favor. Why would he offer to do that?

Bas:

Don’t feel obligated to accept

I would honestly rather play delivery man over going home though. This family friend really doesn’t need to be babysat anyway.

Syve:

Ah, so it’s a “help me, help you to help me” kind of thing?

Bas:

Pleaseeee, I’ll beg on my knees if I have to!

Syve shook her head, smiling and looked around the kitchen. It would not be the end of the world if she had to make a peanut butter sandwich for dinner—actually she loved peanut butter—but Kayla might not agree.

Surely there would be no harm in taking him up on his offer—and he was offering; it was entirely his idea.

Relenting, she shot a quick message to Cameron asking if it was okay to have a friend swing by with dinner. Cam immediately replied.

Cam:

Friend?!

That’s…suspicious.

Wait! It’s that mysterious man Aimi keeps talking about, isn’t it?!

You better let that man bring you food, Syve Aislin or I swear!

Kayla sleeps like a rock

Guest room is open…just saying…

Syve:

OMG Cam

Cam proceeded to send a slew of obscene gifs and strings of suggestive emojis to which Syve physically face palmed.

Syve:

Okay.

I’ll call in the order, do you want anything? My trea t

Bas:

Don’t be mad…

I’ve never eaten there before

Syve:

Excuse me?! I take personal offense to that.

I’ll order for you.

I hope you’re hungry.