WHO IS RYAN
~At Chloe's bakery ~
"Chloe, is something wrong? You don't look too good." Olivia asked as she used her finger to push a small amount of cake that was about to fall off her mouth.
"It's nothing, Vee. I'm not just in the right mood today." Chloe answered, looking not quite like herself. She looked unhappy, worried and also distressed at the same time which was unusual.
"What do you mean, nothing? Something is definitely wrong… so, tell me." Olivia demanded.
"Really, it's nothing." She answered, returning her attention back to the cake in front of her.
"You really don't expect me to believe that, right?" Olivia asked as she lifted Chloe's chin lightly, looking straight into her eyes.
"Enough, Vee. I told you, there is nothing wrong." She insisted.
"Mia, please help finish this up. I'll be back." Chloe instructed the young girl from the other day to finish up with the cake and then she left for the washroom.
"What's wrong your sister? Don't tell me it's nothing or else I'll squeeze the truth out of you. So, spill it." Olivia said firmly, on a serious note.
"I'm as lost as you are, I really don't know what's up with her. She has been acting like that ever since yesterday. I tried asking her but, you know how she is." Mia answered, with obvious concern in her voice.
"Wait, this has been happening since yesterday and you didn't inform me?" Olivia said, trying to lower her voice because of the customers.
"Well, I didn't know it would be the same as today." Mia replied.
"But what could have really happened to her, this doesn't happen so often." Olivia thought aloud.
After a short while, Chloe came out of the wash room, took her apron and tied it around her body.
"I'm sure you're ready to talk now?" Olivia asked.
"Talk about what?" Chloe replied with a question.
"Don't make me force it out of your mouth, Chloe." She warned.
"Ahhh… fine." Chloe sighed in defeat, she knew that Olivia was when she was bent on getting something.
"Good, start talking." Olivia requested.
"Be sincere with me, Vee. Am I a mean person?" She asked with a straight face, ready to accept whatever answer she gets.
"Huh… Who said that? Who would dare call my sweetie mean?" Olivia questioned using her palms to cup Chloe's face gently, in a comforting manner.
"Ryan and you didn't answer my question, am I mean or not?" She answered before rephrasing her question.
"Ohh, Ryan." Olivia said, inching her head sheepishly with one of her fingers after releasing Chloe's face.
Olivia has witnessed how Chloe treated Ryan before and she didn't blame him for calling her mean, her friend could be a bit saucy sometimes. She just felt like that was Chloe's way of expressing her feelings, especially towards those things she didn't like. But funny enough, Olivia is actually convinced that Chloe kind of likes Ryan, a whole lot. She had thought of raising the topic before but she knows how hard it will be to get that kind of confession out of Chloe, so she decided not to bring up the topic anytime soon.
"Who's Ryan?" Mia asked.
"Answer me, Vee." Chloe demanded.
"Ahh… No, you're not mean at all. I think Ryan is just confused or maybe just pulling your legs." She said in a nonchalant manner, trying to hide her real expression.
"You're lying, that means you also think I'm mean." Chloe said as her lips trembled a little.
"No, that's not it. It's just that you can be a little saucy sometimes, you know." She tried her best not to hurt Chloe's feelings.
"She's kind of right, Chloe." Mia butted in even though she was almost being ignored by the two besties.
"So, Ryan was really right." All the color on Chloe's face drained as she realized it.
"You just have a very weird way of expressing your feelings towards certain things, that's all. And I'm sure he was just joking." Olivia added, trying her possible best to make Chloe feel less worse than she already felt.
"He wasn't joking about it, I really treated him horribly. You should have seen how I behaved with him." She said as she covered her face with her palms, feeling ashamed of herself.
"Wait, who is Ryan?" Mia asked again.
"A guy we met at the bar not too long ago." Olivia answered.
"Mmm…"
"But, when did this really happen?" Olivia asked Chloe.
"Yesterday, we crossed paths at Zux's in the afternoon." She answered.
"In the afternoon, what were you doing there?" Olivia asked, with an odd expression on her face.
"I went to get alcohol for the cake I was making yesterday." She replied, taking her hands off her face.
Chloe explained everything that happened at the bar, how he offered to pay for the whiskey and how she gave him a not so good reply, how they ended up having an unpleasant argument and how things ended. Mia and Olivia fell quite after listening to her explanation, somehow, Olivia felt proud of Chloe for being very brave to talk like that. But, ouch, that must have hit Ryan hard.
"Ohh… boy, do I feel bad for that guy, that must have hit him so hard." Mia commented.
"Mia!!" Olivia said as she threw her head towards Mia, giving her a 'Shut up, will you' kind of look.
"I'll shut up now." Mia smiled sheepishly as she read the look on Olivia's face.
Mia is Chloe's younger sister, she is about sixteen years of age and she also works at Chloe's bakery or more so, she assists her at the bakery. She has the darkest shade of black hair with light blue eyes, which was different from Chloe's prominent blue eyes, she also had freckles just like her sister.
"Look, Chloe. Don't worry about it, just apologize to him, it's not a big deal." Olivia said casually.
"In fact , I can call Jason right now since he is at his place at the moment, I can ask him to put Ryan over the phone. Then you can tell him you're sorry." Olivia suggested, pulling out her phone for her pants pocket.
"No, don't." Chloe suddenly said.
"Why?" Olivia ached her left brow at her.
"I will apologize later, just not now." She answered.
"Okay… but, you don't have his number. So, how will you apologize to him?" Another question from Olivia.
"I know, I will figure that out." She replied, looking much better than she looked a few minutes ago.
Since they initially planned on going out today, now was the best time, so that Chloe could get some fresh air and clear her head. They went out for a while, visited some places including the mall, had a really fun time which helped Chloe to forget about everything that happened not too long ago.