The Coffee Shop Ch08 Teaser

The Coffee Shop Chapter 8 teaser

The Coffee Shop Chapter 08 - "Lust, Love, and Lawyers."

The rest of the day was a blur. Peyton’s nerves were frazzled by her father’s absence and Caleb’s abrupt leave, so she spent most of the day fighting with her mother over chores to do around the Barn. Without her book to distract her, Peyton realized she had nothing truly constructive to do. Perhaps leaving for Los Angeles wasn’t such a bad idea after all – if nothing else, it’d keep her from getting cabin fever. Or is it Barn fever?

Shaking her head at the terrible joke, Peyton finished folding clothes away into the laundry basket she used to carry clothes in, separating her pile from Caleb’s. Normally she let him wash his own clothes, but boredom had prompted her to take over the job before her mother had. That and it grossed her out to know her mother was touching Caleb’s underwear.

With a shiver, Peyton picked up the basket and walked out of the washing room and down the hall to Caleb’s, pushing open his door with the basket before taking the first step inside.

Caleb’s room was as neat as a pen. His bed was neatly made – with perfect square corners, too – and not a single article of clothing littered his floor space. He had finally added a few personal touches to the room: dinky frames with pictures of him and Chelsea, medals from cross country events, a framed article cut-out of him placing first at a robotics event hosted by MIT, and a lone frame on his bedside table holding an aged and sun-bleached photo.

Peyton put down the basket of clothes on the bed and picked up the frame gently to take a closer look. The instant photo was of a couple and their newborn baby, all three fresh from the hospital by the looks of it. The male was tall and pale-haired, his dark eyes shining with unshed tears of joy up at the camera as he held his tanned arms around his family. The woman, pale and tired looking, smiled wanly up at the camera as well, her large green eyes happy and teary, her black hair tucked back in a messy bun. In her arms was a tiny blue bundle turned white by the sun exposure. A crop of black hair peeked out from the blanket, the face beneath the hair squishy and pink.

Written in clear, beautiful cursive on the white stock at the bottom were three simple lines:

CALEB JAMES VAUGHN

BORN 10-11-1991

8 LBS, 7 OZ.

Peyton’s eyes turned to the handsome blonde man in the photo, her heart pounding hard and fast in her chest.

This was the man responsible for the eighteen years of hell that was Caleb’s life. In the photo he looked so unassuming, so proud of the tiny bundle in his wife’s arms. Nothing about the photo looked out of the ordinary. Nothing about Jeremiah Vaughn screamed “wife beater” or “drunk” or “child abuser.”

They all looked so happy.

Well, except for Caleb, Peyton recanted. He looked like he had just gone in his diaper.

The sound of tires on the road drew Peyton out of her thoughts. She quickly replaced the photo on the table and dug into the clothes basket to remove Caleb’s things, placing them into piles along his bed just like he did. She had just set out his jeans when she heard the floorboards creak with footsteps.

Peyton gathered up the basket and turned to see Caleb standing in the doorway, his expression like stone. His right arm was raised and his pointer finger was extended into the hallway.

“Out,” he said quietly.

“I-I was just putting your clothes away,” Peyton said quickly, feeling heat rush to her cheeks when Caleb’s eyes darkened. “I know you don’t like people to wash your clothes, I just…I just thought‒”

“You moved it.”

Peyton froze.

“W-Wha-What?” she stammered, taking a small step back when Caleb approached.

“You moved the picture.”

Peyton swallowed hard and nodded. There was no use in lying about it. “I wasn’t snooping,” she said quickly. “I just picked it up for a second, Caleb, I swear.”

Caleb’s expression darkened and Peyton was so glad in that moment that she had her arms full of something to defend herself with.

“Caleb, I‒”

“Get out.”

“Caleb, just let me explain‒”

“Peyton,” he interrupted sharply, his voice a tight growl. “Get out.”

Peyton had to try though, just one more time. “Caleb, please‒”

The next thing Peyton knew, she was staring at Caleb’s closed bedroom door, the snap of the wood still echoing in her ears. Her right upper arm stung and throbbed in unison where he had grabbed her, but the icy ache in her chest soon took precedent.

She had backed Caleb into a corner with her actions. She knew that Caleb got weird about his stuff, that he needed that room, that small space, to be his sanctuary. It was where he felt comfortable enough to escape. 

And she had just barged in carelessly, taking all that security away from him.

Tears of shame clouded her eyes but she blinked them away.

Peyton knew in that moment that she had gotten complacent with Caleb. He was still hiding something, still crawling back into his shell when someone got too close.

What if this happened in L.A.? she couldn’t help but wonder. Where would Caleb go to hide? To him, the Barn was his home and his room was his hideout. Los Angeles was a new territory, a new monster to face. 

Without a sanctuary, Caleb would panic. And if Caleb panicked, she could only imagine the damage he would cause, not just to himself, but maybe even to her.

Peyton wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and slowly turned away from Caleb’s door. She walked up the stairs slowly, each footstep separating her from Caleb in a way that she couldn’t quite explain.

After shutting her bedroom door behind her, Peyton dropped the basket on the floor and leaned back against the door’s wooden frame before slowly sliding down it. With her forehead resting on her knees, Peyton tried to calm her worry with deep breaths.

Her actions may have just put the wall she had been removing brick by brick between her and Caleb back into place, but her future actions could remove the wall altogether. She would have to be more careful, more vigilant. And she needed to find a way to get Caleb out of his comfort zone and to get him to open up to her, specifically.

She had proved to him over and over again that she would be there for him every step of the way. But it was time for Caleb to grow up. He couldn’t hide behind her parents and cling to the familiar. He needed support, and obviously Peyton would never deny him that. But he could never be free – truly free – if he didn’t stick it out on his own.

Maybe, Peyton thought with a sigh, maybe going to L.A. isn’t such a bad idea after all.

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