The Coffee Shop Ch. 08

"Long day at the reservation?" Peyton asked her father, unable to take the silence anymore.

Daniel put his napkin in his lap and nodded slowly. "Longer than it should have been," he responded cryptically. Peyton and Caleb exchanged glances before Peyton turned her attention back to her father.

"Nobody was hurt, right?"

Daniel picked up his fork and shook his head. "No casualties, just...a lot of people are without homes right now. Just because a couple of kids thought arson was some kind of joke," he tagged on bitterly, stabbing at a cherry tomato in his salad with gusto. "Kids these days," he grumbled. "Mindless violence seems to be their answer to everything, including having a good time."

The dinner lapsed into silence then, the awkwardness so palpable it put Peyton off her appetite. Lola did not say one word, not even when she passed out chocolate pie for dinner. The silence made Peyton's skin itch.

Peyton let out a soft sigh and took matters into her own hands. "Caleb, my parents and I were talking this morning." Caleb paused from cutting into his pie, his green eyes flickering between wariness and curiosity.

"I think I'm going to head back to Los Angeles for awhile, and well, I thought maybe you would want to come with me. We can check out schools, I can show you around...I just thought it would be good for us to get away for awhile." She eyed him then. "What do you think?"

For the first time since her parents sat down, they perked up. Both Lola and Daniel watched Caleb, giving him tentative smiles when he glanced in their directions.

"It's not permanent," Peyton said slowly when it became clear Caleb didn't know what to say. "If you don't like it there or you're just ready to leave, we can always come back."

Caleb turned his eyes back to her and gave her an uncharacteristically broad smile. "Yea, I'd like that. Actually...that'd be great." He cut his pie and started to laugh when he noticed Lola and Daniel were braced tensely on their seats watching him. "I know you aren't kicking me out," he told them with a smile. "You just want me out of Hamish for a bit, I understand."

"We just want you to realize there is more to the world than Hamish, Maine, son," Daniel said quietly, light flickering in his blue eyes. "Take your time there, it's a beautiful place. And like Peyton said, if you don't like it, you can always come back. Lola and I aren't going anywhere."

Caleb nodded and winked in Lola's direction. "You want some alone time, I get it. So," he addressed Peyton after Lola let out a strangled laugh of relief, "when were you planning on leaving?"

Peyton eyed her parents briefly before dutifully cutting her pie. "This weekend," she said softly, biting her bottom lip before meeting Caleb's eyes.

Caleb looked ecstatic, and that surprised her immensely. "Really? We can leave that soon?"

Peyton nodded, a smile playing on her lips. If she had known Caleb would react this well, she would've mentioned it earlier. Her dad was right -- she shouldn't have underestimated Caleb.

Caleb reached out and squeezed her hand gently. "I can't wait," he said with a sincere smile. After she gave him a warm smile in return, he turned back to his pie and released her hand, the smile never quite leaving his face.

After they cleaned up dinner and dessert, Peyton's parents retired to the living room, passing out fifteen minutes into the new season of Breaking Bad, her dad's snores somehow outpacing the gunshots and yelling that filtered through the Bose speakers.

"Hey."

Peyton looked over her shoulder and up at Caleb who gestured his chin back towards the kitchen. Biting her lip, she nodded and stood up slowly from the couch as to not wake her parents. Like two teenagers, they snuck away upstairs, giggling nervously at every little sound their footsteps made, pausing on each stair to make sure her parents hadn't woken up.

When they reached the bedroom, Caleb instantly took over, his mouth running over the bare skin that his hands helped expose. Caleb gently pushed her back onto her bed and covered her almost-naked body with his completely nude one, his kisses driving her into a delirious frenzy.

"Caleb..." Peyton murmured into his ear minutes later, her body humming with need.

"I've got you." He kissed the side of her neck gently before making a pathway down her body to her inner thighs. Peyton should've known when his first move was to spear his tongue inside of her that tonight was going to be a long one, but she was more than happy to learn her lesson. Over and over and over again.

Early Saturday morning, Caleb was as bouncy and sparkly-eyed as a boy opening gifts on Christmas. He had been Peyton's alarm clock, waking her a full hour before what would've been acceptable to get up, but Peyton hadn't minded -- it had been a long time since she had woken up to a tongue between her legs, and a talented tongue at that.

It didn't take long for Peyton to pack, and unsurprisingly, Caleb was all ready to go. After taking breakfast on the way, Peyton, Caleb, and her parents set out to the long drive south to Portland. From PWM, their plane would take them to Newark for a mid-morning flight straight to L.A., a trip that Peyton was positive she would sleep most of the way on, thanks to Caleb's late-night ministrations and early morning wake up call.

They arrived in Portland with a bit of time to spare, and after tearful hugs and Peyton's vow to call once they landed and took off for California; Peyton and Caleb were walking towards security with their suitcases in tow.

An hour later, they were seated on their tiny matchbox of a plane headed to Newark, in economy class due to last-minute planning. Peyton didn't mind though, and from the looks of it, Caleb didn't either. When he noticed her looking at him, he smiled crookedly.

"No turning back now," she told him teasingly. Caleb laughed quietly and shook his head.

"I don't want to go back," he chuckled. "Not unless you're coming with me."

Peyton's smile didn't fade until well after take-off, and only because she had drifted off to sleep, as she had predicted she would.

Six hours later, Peyton was standing sky hand-in-hand with Caleb under a brilliant blue California at the LAX terminal, unable to stop grinning as they followed the crowd through the upper level traffic towards the roadway where their ride was waiting.

"Do you see a white Lexus SUV anywhere?" she asked Caleb, staring up at him when she didn't get a response. She smiled when she saw he was gawking at the crowd. There had been more people on the plane from Newark than there had been in the whole of Hamish. She could only imagine his head was spinning, much like hers had when she had first arrived in Los Angeles five years ago.

Caleb snapped out of his trance and let his green eyes roam the cars that at Peyton's height she couldn't quite see. "Is there a girl driving?" he asked slowly, not taking his eyes from the car.

"Brunette," Peyton replied. "She may have a weird color or two in it, but the overlying whole should be brown."

"Oh...well...now it's pink. Like cotton candy pink."

Peyton rolled her eyes and laughed. "That's Dany for you. Walk us in that direction. She's our ride."

Caleb nodded and led her through the crowd, adjusting his hold on Peyton so he took the brunt of the shoulders and suitcases. When they finally broke free of the crowd, Peyton inhaled deeply. That was the one thing she hated about her height -- in crowds she felt like she was going to hyperventilate.

"Hey loser! Over here!" called a familiar voice.

Peyton smiled broadly at her friend who was practically hanging out of the passenger side window of her shiny white Lexus, her arms extended out to grab hold of Peyton. Peyton laughed and tugged Caleb towards the car, releasing his hand so she could squeeze her best friend into a hug.

"Alright, let go," Dany chuckled, patting the top of Peyton's head like a puppy. Peyton pulled away and returned the impish smile Dany had trained on her. As usual, Dany had dyed her hair an ostentatious color, the unnatural hot pink strands tied back in a messy thick bun, a few escaped pieces fluttering around her pale face in the wind. Her large brown eyes regarded Peyton behind boxy purple glasses that twinkled with an unshared joke.

"I'm not a taxi service and gas is a bitch here -- get in or we won't make it to your house," Dany told her as she reached far down and pulled one of Peyton's heavy suitcases up and through the window before tossing it with a grunt into the far, far back of the SUV.

Peyton and Caleb quickly put their things into the back before climbing in.

"Caleb, buckle up," Peyton warned him as she settled into the passenger seat. "Dany is an aspiring racecar driver." The tell-tale click of a buckle seconds later made her smile.

"So, the hunk has a name," Dany announced as she swerved easily into the traffic on the roadway and pressed the brake before they could slam into the back of a roadster. "God I hate this place," she muttered darkly under her breath.

Once Dany was out on the road, stuck in traffic heading northeast, she drew them into a conversation. "Well," she sighed as she plucked a cigarette out of the pack, "what's been happening in good ole Hamish? Your mother still as insane as I remember?"

Peyton didn't need to point out that Dany was infinitely crazier than her mother was, the girl already knew that. With a sigh, she gave a very much abbreviated version of life at her hometown, and Dany listened closely.

"So," she said after Peyton had finished, "this is like a vacation for you guys?" Peyton nodded in affirmation. "Awesome -- Caleb, the traffic sucks here, as do some of the people -- literally -- but you should like it here." She peered at him in the rearview mirror. "Maybe you'll get a tan..." she mused, laughing when Peyton punched her gently in the arm.

"Oh! Hey, I thought of something -- Caleb, look around all that crap you're sitting on in the backseat and see if you can find a US Weekly magazine. It's for this month."

Peyton looked over her shoulder and groaned. "You have one of the nicest cars ever made, and you're backseat looks like a dumpster vomited everywhere."

Dany swore as a red Corvette cut her off and honked furiously before answering. "What? Oh. Yea, babe, I work eighteen hours a day. The last thing on my mind when I leave the Ice Queen's frozen hell is cleaning my backseat, okay? Caleb, Christ, are you fornicating back there? What's taking you so long?"

"Well," Caleb said dryly, "if I didn't have to excavate through a pile of dirty laundry, this might go faster, Dany."

Dany took out her cigarette and looked over her shoulder at him. "The hunk has jokes," she told Peyton, wiggling her dark eyebrows suggestively.

Caleb thrust a magazine towards her and she plucked it from his grip before dumping it in Peyton's lap. "Look at the front cover, sweetie, and tell me you understand the irony."

Peyton frowned and plucked the slightly damp magazine from her lap and held it up. She stifled a gasp at the picture of Efraim and Sofie Fey on the front cover with an exaggerated jagged line between the two. The headline was 'MODELS' TROUBLE IN PARADISE'. Beneath the headline was a smaller all capital paragraph stating: 'EFRAIM BREAKS OFF ENGAGEMENT AFTER TWINS' BIRTH, FRIENDS REPORT THAT THE CHILDREN ARE NOT HIS!!!'

"Holy shit," Peyton muttered.

Peyton looked over at Dany to see her friend smiling smugly. "That fucker got what was coming to him," Dany said matter-of-factly. "Karma is one bad biotch," she sighed in sing-song before taking a drag.

Much, much later thanks to traffic, Dany pulled up to Peyton's home on Ogden Drive and parked. "You're welcome, everyone," she stated as she took the keys from the ignition.

"Thanks, Dany," Peyton and Caleb said in unison.

As Peyton pulled her luggage out of the back and handed a suitcase off to Dany, she turned to her house with a slight smile. The place had been built back in the 1920s in the Craftsman style and painted in a greenish-gray with white accents (not Peyton's decision but the former owners). The easterly walls were made up of casement windows with flower boxes beneath, each flower still surprisingly alive despite the unnatural heat wave. A brick walkway and staircase led up to the large railed porch decorated with potted flowers and a white wicker settee. The palm trees planted along the border of the property swayed slightly in the breeze, their large fronds casting long shadows across the lush green yard.

Peyton dug into her purse for her keys, her excitement bubbling as she realized that she was back. Finally!

After extracting her keys from the purse side pocket, she slid them into the lock and pushed the front door open, smiling to herself as she picked up her suitcases to carry them in.

The entry way opened to the main hall of the house, the entire place dark hardwood flooring and deep, luscious sink-your-toes-in light gold carpet. There was a coat room off to the side of the entry and here Peyton kicked off her shoes. She walked down the hall, smelling the freesias from the garden and made a note of how clean everything was.

Like Dany knew what she was thinking, she piped up. "Griffin and I came by during the week to upkeep," she told her as she followed Peyton down the hall to the master bedroom. "He did the yard work and I cleaned the house. I honestly can say that more than once I was tempted to trade jobs with him."

Peyton laughed as she tossed the suitcase she was carrying on her large four-poster bed. "My house is not that big, Dany," she chuckled as she crossed her room to the windows and undid the lock before pushing them up to let in fresh air. The smell of freesias instantly filled the room to the extent of almost intoxicating her with their scent.

She turned to her best friend with a smile. "Besides, you hate sweating."

Dany grinned coyly. "This is true." Caleb appeared at her shoulder and she moved aside, blinking up at him as he practically towered over her in the entryway. "Wow, stud, I didn't think you'd be a giant."

Caleb flushed a little and ran his hand through his shaggy hair sheepishly. "I'm just average-sized," he said slowly, fighting a smile as he waited for the joke to click. Dany cracked up laughing when she got it and tagged him on the shoulder.

"That means she likes you," Peyton stage-whispered, smiling brightly at Dany when the girl glowered at her.

"Unpack later," Dany told them as Caleb set his own suitcase at the end of the bed. "Let me take you guys out to eat."

"I thought you weren't a taxi service?" Peyton replied with a laugh.

"Do you want a free meal or not?" Dany demanded with her hands on her bony hips.

"I'm sold," Caleb told them with a laugh. "Just point me in the direction of the bathroom before we go."

Peyton gestured to the hallway. "It's not en-suite. Make a left and it's the first door on the right."

Caleb edged around Dany and the two waited until the bathroom door was shut before Dany did a weird little jig and pointed in Caleb's direction, silently mouthing, "OH MY GOD!"

Dany raced over and pulled the two of them onto her bed, her brown eyes wide. "Clearly a lot more happened in Hamish than just finishing your book, Peyton," she whispered heatedly. "Are you guys...like...boning?"

Peyton flushed and gently shoved Dany with a laugh. "Nobody says that anymore," she giggled nervously. "But no, we haven't yet." She laughed harder when Dany made a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.

"Well, there are no parents guarding your loins tonight, sister," she stated as she bounced off the mattress and adjusted her off-the-shoulder wide-neck tee and the hot pink tank underneath that was almost the exact same shade as her hair. "Don't keep that boy waiting, and as always, tell me how far the monkey dangles, capiche?"

Peyton could only laugh because she already knew the answer and no, she wasn't going to tell.

Once Caleb was ready, the three of them headed back out to the car and settled in for the drive. Once Dany somehow managed to strangle her way through traffic to Hollywood Boulevard, she began to make easy conversation with Caleb. Surprisingly, he answered her questions without any hesitation and more than once she swore she wet her pants from his sardonic answers, which Peyton could believe.

When Dany pulled into Yamashiro, Peyton almost choked. "D-Dany! Do you have a reservation here?"

Dany grinned impishly over at her. "Sweetie, I had this booked since you called and told me you were coming back home."

Peyton shook her head and got out of the Lexus. Leave it to Dany to pick a place like this. Peyton could've gone for just a burger.

The valet shut the door behind her, sniffing when he looked into the Lexus at Dany's backseat. She grinned wryly up at him as she stepped out and Peyton couldn't help but chuckle into her hand when Dany blew the stuffy valet driver a kiss.

Peyton felt her face warm when Caleb slid his hand to her hip and pulled her closer to him, his lips brushing over the top of her head. Peyton noticed that the few couples dawdling outside waiting for their valets to deliver their cars or the rest of their party were staring as they passed, though their gazes went upward, to Caleb.

She could understand that -- he cut a dashing figure in his dark jeans and deep gray tighter-fitting sweater (a sweater he begged Peyton to swear that didn't make him look like he was playing the "other field"). It didn't hurt that his confidence was seeping through, straightening his spine and setting his shoulders and jaw into a way that only a man could pull off.

"Oh my God, will you please stop gawking at him? It's freaking me out!" Dany hissed into Peyton's ear, pulling her out of her rated MA for mature fantasies. Peyton felt humiliated but Caleb just laughed.

As they greeted the maitre d', Peyton could feel eyes zap towards them like bugs to a light. She knew that a majority of the people within eyesight range were probably checking out the girl with Pink Panther hair (she didn't quite blame them for that), but their eyes always drifted upward, magnetized to Caleb.

"It's under Dany McCoy," Dany told the bronzed male who kept shooting telling glances in Caleb's direction. Peyton caught Caleb looking upwards, at the golden chandelier-like thing hanging above their heads and tried to fight a smile. Since the moment they had landed in California, Caleb had been walking around with his head spinning in all directions as he tried to take everything in. She didn't blame him -- Los Angeles was like a sensory overload to first-timers, particularly those of their background who were used to three traffic lights in the whole town and neon lights being used to announce if their mom-n-pop stores were open or closed.

The maitre d' smiled when Caleb looked down again, the male's dark eyes moist and doe-like. "You're in the courtyard. Follow me."

Dany waited until the maitre d' had gone forward a couple of feet before turning to look at Caleb. "He's totally thinking about what it would be like to undress you with his teeth."

"Go," Peyton laughed, gently pushing Dany after the man before they could get lost.

The colors of reds, browns, and gold assaulted Peyton's senses as they wove through the restaurant and Peyton couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief at the greens and soft hum of the courtyard. In the courtyard's center, a koi pond and a small garden filled the space, with a rock pathway weaving around the trimmed shrubs, small garden fountains, and arching over the "river" that led to the pond.

They were seated next to a small fountain made up of stones and slabs of jagged rock at a four-seat table covered in fine black cloth. The conical spirals of their black cloth napkins were rested upright on four shiny ebony white plates, their silverware already laid out for them. All the refinery made Peyton suddenly aware of how underdressed she was. She was surprised the maitre d' even let them in considering Dany's pink hair and Peyton's Toms.