Here Comes the Sun | ✓

Chapter Seventeen - Liam

Chapter Seventeen.

"So," Bentley sighs, pulling one of the stools out from underneath the counter and sitting down, facing me. "Tell me about you and Miss Libby. How y'all met and such." He gives me a knowing smile and quietly asks, "Did y'all diddly-doo?"

After a second I comprehend, my eyes grow wide and I face Bentley with what must be an outrageous expression. "Bentley!" I scold, and he just laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. "I didn't think so, boy, but I had to ask. Yer not quite like that, I'm aware, but I really am curious about how you two met."

Pursing my lips to the side, I slide my hands up and down the neck of my guitar and mumble, "Well, what all do you know?"

"Well," he grumbles, squirming in his spot and looking up at the ceiling of the shop, as if looking for the right spot in the past to retell. "She told me that she met this guy that was suppose to meet her at Cornelia's. I asked her if he was from New York, and she thought so, so I told her he most likely wasn't going to come." When I give him an alarmed look, he shrugs and says, "Well, was I wrong?"

"I guess not," I groan, brushing my hair back with one hand and gripping my guitar close to my torso with the other.

"So?" Bentley prompts, and I sigh, beginning the story of Libby and I. The story of us.

"We met in Times Square. She came up to me and kissed me, and then I kissed her, and then we agreed to meet at Cornelia's," I recount, staring at a Beatles' album across the store as I remember that moment on the sidewalk, apart from everyone else on that street.

"That's it?" he asks, holding his hands out as if waiting to grasp more information from my mind.

I shrug, plucking a few chords on the guitar in my hands. "That's it." I pause. "Well, besides what you saw here. I didn't meet her at Cornelia's, I apologized here, she accepted it-"

"Of course she did," Bentley agrees.

"- and then I gave her my number."

Bentley stares at me. "You don't have a cell."

"I know."

"So what number did you give her?"

"My house phone."

"And you're still here because...?" he asks, and I realize that he's letting me leave early. For Libby. For a girl that we both like.

"You're serious?" I ask, pausing my fingers on the strings of my guitar.

He notches his eyebrow. "Run Rapunzel."

Debby and Jere arrive at the apartment the same time I do, my taxi and her car pulling up to the curb in unison.

Seeing Jere's curious eyes peep over the back of the seat in the back of Debby's car, I laugh and hand my driver a ten for the ride. Grabbing my backpack from the floorboard and stepping out of the taxi, Jere's eyes go wide and he hurriedly squirms his way out of his carseat and out of the car, running up to me and not bothering to close the door behind him.

"Daddy!" he squeals, and I bend down to lift him into my arms.

"What up, little dude," I sigh from slight exhaustion, recounting the last time the little guy's stepped on a scale. He's gained a few pounds heavier since the last time I held him.

"Aunt Debby and I," he recounts with wide eyes, leaning back in my arms to look at my clearly, "we-we went to a restaurant that was so good. They had the most awesome french fries, Daddy." I smile at him and I walk up to Debby as she slips out of the front seat of her car, closing the door for her and engulfing her in a side hug.