The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

10 - Persuade

Cleo

With every time we met, we talked and interacted, I could feel the big walls Hannah built between us were crumbling down...I knew why these walls were there, I knew why she was so against anything between us, but at the same time I was tired of trying to live my life lead by 'what the others will think'. It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter who I was, who she was, who her father was or what the town thought of me or her...the only thing that should matter was the sparks that were constantly present every time we met. I could feel her wanting to explore them as much as I was, but at the same time she was holding herself back...because she persuade herself that she needed to keep a distorted image of herself while living in this town...and I was trying my best of making her forget of the role she was trying to play to please the others...the only one she should worry of pleasing was herself...and maybe me...but I wasn't...she wasn't there...yet. But she was going to be, sooner than she was expecting it.

I parked my bike in front of "Cupcake's Dream" and waited for her to get out of her car. She looked around before she got closer to me, like she was making sure no one saw her.

"C'mon. We are wasting time out here when we could be eating inside..." She looked unsure. When we were meeting in town, it was a lot safer. People would see us and think nothing else of two people who knew each other that were just conversating. Now, here...it was a little bit different. I was showing her this place, we were going inside together...it was a lot closer to a date than she was comfortable with and I could see it written all over her face. A few seconds passed before she took the decision to go with me. I opened the door to the bakery and let her get in front of me.

"Look who finally decided to come today...and I was wondering if something happened to you." Lily was behind the counter when she saw us entering her place. She came to me and gave me a hug while Hannah was looking at us. "And here we are, betting with Ali if you were going to show up today... She owns me now... she has more faint in your control than anybody else..."

"Well, you all know that I can't stay away from the sugar. She's still learning..."

"Yes, she is...and who do we have here?" Lily turned towards Hannah, I could already see the gears in her head turning and decided to stop them before she made Hannah uncomfortable.

"This is Hannah. Hannah, this is Lily. She's with Dax, one of my teammates."

"Nice to meet you, Lily." Hannah shook Lily's hand while visibly being unsure of the attention she was getting from the other woman.

"Like a wise, Hannah. How did..." I decided to stop the integration before it even started. We came her for the sugar, not for the third-degree.

"We are here because I told her this is the place with the best sweet things in town. And now you have to show her I was right..." Lily looked at me, seeing quite clearly that I interrupted her purposefully. Luckily, she didn't say a thing about it.

"Oh, yeah, Cleo is right. It's not very often, but this time – it's true." I didn't miss the little jab she threw at me, nor did Hannah, but at least we were finally getting closer to my end goal – getting some sugar in my blood.

"Oh, there are a lot of things here. I didn't expect it..." Hannah was looking at all the different cupcakes, cookies, and croissants, making it clear that the choice would be a though one. "I don't know what I want, honestly..."

"How about try one or two of each sort." She looked at me in shock. "Not of each kind, Hannah. Just...pick a cupcake, pick a cookie...I'll pick others and this way you could try different things and see which one you like and then maybe today, maybe other day, you can pick other flavors and find your favorite one."