The Coffee Shop

Sorry about the wait, guys. This story is about quality, not quantity. ;) Just in case y'all missed the notice, I submitted the wrong version of TCS CH04. The right one is posted now, so y'all might want to take a look at it before you jumping into this chapter.

This chapter is devoted almost entirely to Peyton's back story and addresses the future of the (possible) couple, so sorry if things seem slow to you guys. I promise it'll pick up in the upcoming chapters. Also, this story takes place immediately after where the last chapter left off.

Finally, if any of you have stories or ideas you would like to share, I'd like to hear them. I need to introduce Jeremiah Vaughn (Caleb's father) into the story and as someone who was fortunate enough to have two stable parents in her life, I don't know where to begin with an abusive, alcoholic father. I accept anonymous emails, but I prefer to be able to chat back with you. You can also leave ideas in the comments if you don't want to bother with emailing me.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's patience and those of you who continue to follow this story. Without further ado...

+ + + + +

Caleb smirked, a soft laugh escaping his lips. "I suppose they're worried I'll make off with the silver," he joked dryly, swallowing hard afterwards.

Peyton caught his shoulders in her hands, forcing him back down onto the couch. "That is not why they're coming back. You said it yourself – my dad was worried about you even as a kid. Now that you need a place to stay and you're older...my guess is that they want to make sure you're still all in one piece," Peyton said honestly, relaxing her grip on him a little. "Caleb, I can call them back and tell them to stay. If you want me to, say it."

Caleb smiled then, his expression whimsical. "Your mother doesn't strike me as the kind of woman you say 'no' to often."

Peyton came up short with that one. "Perhaps you're right," she agreed reluctantly. "But, what she wants doesn't matter right now. Caleb, this is all about you."

Caleb cringed openly and shook his head, dropping her gaze briefly. "Not entirely," he said quietly, adopting that irritatingly neutral tone again. His eyes darkened a little when they met hers. "This is about the both of us, since you sort of opened a home that wasn't yours to me and let your parents think we're together," Caleb finished bitterly.

Wait,

what?

Peyton shook her head quickly, trying to process what she just heard.

"Are...are you mad at me now?" she asked him finally, trying to understand what in the hell was going on.

Caleb set his jaw and swallowed, obviously taking his time in answering. When he finally did, his voice was gruff with anger. "This whole thing is a mess. It would've been easier if you had just left me there."

Peyton felt the air in her lungs leave with a resounding whoosh. Ice filled her veins before fear and adrenaline took over.

"Leave you there...

to die?"

Peyton choked out. "C-Caleb, you..." Her mind scrambled for something to say, something that made sense, and something that wouldn't completely hurt his feelings.

"Caleb, you called out for help," Peyton coughed up finally. "If you had really wanted to die, you wouldn't have tried to hang on to the side of cliff. You would've dove in headfirst."

She gripped his shoulders tightly then, shaking him a little. "Don't

ever

say something like that again. You understand?" she demanded, finally consumed with fury. "What happened in your past has already happened, Caleb. If you continue to live wishing every day was your last, you'll be stuck in this...limbo you're in. You'll never be happy."

Caleb's jaw tightened. "I'm carrying my past with me every day, Peyton," he murmured, his voice too even. Too cold. "You've seen the scars. I'll never get past what my father did to me. What this

community

did to me. All I will ever be able to do is live with what happened. It's not moving on, Peyton. It's coming to terms with my shitty upbringing. Huge difference."

Peyton relaxed her grip on him, suddenly remembering the bruises there. Caleb didn't even wince when she pulled away, but Peyton did it for him.

Not for the first time, Peyton couldn't help but wonder if she had gotten in over her head. Yes, it was in the human nature – and Peyton's nature – to want to help; to give aid when it was needed. Yes, she was concerned about Caleb's welfare to a certain level that was mildly embarrassing to

admit.

But maybe it wasn't just her help that Caleb needed. Maybe he needed someone more qualified to handle his situation. Someone professional.

Immediately she balked at the idea. Caleb wouldn't give a shrink a time of day. If she even offered him that sort of help he might get insulted.

No, she thought resignedly. I agreed to this as Caleb so helpfully pointed out, so I have to see it through to whatever end.

Peyton squared her shoulders and met Caleb's inquiring gaze, making her aware of her prolonged silence.

"Do you want my help, Caleb Vaughn?" she asked him point blank, not leaving his icy green eyes as they bore into hers. "Or would you rather I get you a plane ticket to a place of your choice so you can start over, where no one knows Jeremiah Vaughn or that you burnt down a school building?"

"Are you bullying me into staying here with you?" Caleb asked, cutting to the point.

"Staying here means facing your past," Peyton relented. "It means going to the police. It means going back to school and getting your education." She steeled herself for what she was going to say next. "It means facing your dad. I can give you a home and whatever else you'll need to succeed, but the rest is up to you."

Caleb shook his head and laughed depreciatively.

"More charity?" he asked hoarsely. "More therapist bullshit? Am I social project to you Peyton?"

Peyton grounded her teeth together and tried to breathe. Throttling him wouldn't do any good. Berating him was just as pointless. Everywhere she turned with Caleb she came up to a brick wall. It was frustrating to say the least.

"Then tell me what you want Caleb," Peyton said finally in an even tone, lifting her eyes to meet his. "If you don't want my help, then tell me what you need."

"Want and need are two different things," Caleb murmured.

Peyton threw her hands up in the air and walked into the kitchen, shaking her head in irritation.

"I can't help you if you can't tell me what you're thinking, Caleb!" she shot at him, her irritation slipping through. She poured out her lukewarm tea into the sink then leaned against the ledge, her eyes drifting to the Overlook. If Caleb kept spinning this conversation around and around in circles,

she

might just throw herself off the cliff.

"I want to not be a freak," Caleb said suddenly. Peyton looked over her shoulder and found Caleb's sweatshirt in her view. She looked up and studied the expressionless way Caleb stared down at her.

"I want to be able to take my shirt off at the beach and not have everyone stare at my scars. I want to go to a place where no one thinks I'm trailer trash. I want to be someone, Peyton. Not the kid who has to keep accepting charity from strangers because without it he can't survive. I want to give for once."

The ice in Caleb's eyes broke. "I don't want pity anymore. I need respect and I can't get that here. I need to start over." He hesitated for a second. "I'll...I'll do whatever it takes. I'll go to the police, I'll face my dad, I'll finish school. But..." Caleb took a step forward. "But I need you to be there."

He shook his head slightly when Peyton went to speak. "It won't be easy," he warned her, his voice thick with emotion. "I won't want to get out of bed some mornings. Some days I'll hate you just because I can. I'll argue with you just to see you in a rage. I have a habit of sleeping with my shoes on. I check the windows to see if they pop open easily for quick escape, I lock the doors of the rooms I'm in behind me so you can't follow... Do you understand me, Peyton? Do you understand what helping me really means?"

Peyton gently took his hand in both of hers, swallowing down her doubt. "It means we both have a lot of work to do, and we'll have to trust one another in order to make things work," she said carefully. "Can you trust me, Caleb?"

"Will you be there for me, Peyton?" Caleb countered in a voice raw with pain.

"For as long as you need me," Peyton murmured honestly, her eyes not leaving his. Caleb nodded and swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

"Then I can trust you," Caleb replied as Peyton released his hand.

The silence between them was tense, but Peyton was sure that was because Caleb had a lot to think about. Giving him some space he gestured back towards his new room.

"I guess I need to unpack," Caleb said nervously, biting on his bottom lip before sticking his bruised hands into his jean pockets. "And...thank you."

Peyton nodded and hesitated before just going with the flow. She put her arms around him gently and barely squeezed, not wanting to hurt him too much.

"Everything gets better, Caleb. Especially if you want it bad enough."

Surprisingly, Caleb hugged her back. "Thank you, Dr. Maury," he murmured. The teasing came out forced, but to Peyton that just meant he was trying. With a sigh she released him and looked up into his face.

"Go unpack," she told him, "then get some rest. You look exhausted."

Caleb nodded and walked to his room, hesitating as he went to close the door. With a shake of his head, he kept it open and Peyton watched for a second as he pulled the two duffel bags out from underneath the bed, still unpacked, and tossed them on the mattress.

Like Peyton had told herself earlier: time will only tell with Caleb.

As she listened to the sounds of Caleb unpacking, her mind drifted to her own sort of Hell, where at one time she and Caleb's personalities would've been one of the same. Closing her eyes with a sigh, the suppressed memories came back to her, the darkness threatening to spill over and snuff out the only bit of light she had left. Peyton let them come.

+ + + +

Six months earlier...

Peyton wanted to hurt somebody. That was the bottom line. She was pissed, horrified, confused, hurt, betrayed, and whatever negative adjective she could think of. She wanted to rip out throats, stab hearts, break necks, and curl up in a corner and bawl.

But yet, she could do nothing.

That was the joy and wonder of working for Amelie St. Clair, the most formidable magazine editor-in-chief this side of the Atlantic. "Her" magazine reached its tendrils all across North America and beyond, if a reader was willing to pay the dues, and it was Amelie's duty to produce a magazine of flawless caliber. The articles, book reviews, political cartoons, and further foray into satire and news had to be tip-top. No misspellings, no factual errors, not a single page layout out of uniform, and no shoddy photos; you may keep your job. The pressure to produce such an exquisite example of publication greatness fourteen times a year was bound to make even the most congenial soul turn into a complete soul-sucking wrench.

And Amelie St. Clair had been a soul-sucker to begin with. Ten years since her ascension to editor, she had managed to perfect her wraith-like skills to absolute perfection, sucking the souls of her interns and contributors with a crocodilian smile on her pale, flawless face.

Peyton hated her with a passion, to say the least.

Immediately, the whiny high-pitched voice of her old roommate and, by said roommate's own definition, best friend, filled Peyton's thoughts:

"But, oh my Gawd, PayPay! You're working for Amelie St. Clair! She is solely responsible for making Tristan Fellheart a commodity. I mean,

hello

, have you seen this year's spring catalogue? I'd murder for those yellow pumps..."

Amelie St. Clair was also the co-founder of

Edge

, a magazine solely devoted to the elite of the elite of couture, and rumor has it that despite her fulltime ride at

The Pacific Review

or "The Pace" as the critics had nicknamed it, St. Clair did not allow

Edge

to publish its monthly without her complete approval.

Talk about someone glutton for punishment.

That being said, Peyton was hard-pressed to leave the magazine. As much as she wished she could blow off St. Clair – and Missy Paxton, her whiny ex-roommate – Peyton couldn't. Thanks to her debt of college loans and her own pride, Peyton was firmly fixated here in this large, restless city far from her friends and family wedged up in the foggy fishing village of Hamish, Maine.

Peyton plopped herself down into her uncomfortable rolling chair in her tiny, boring cubicle and let out a long-winded sigh.

No, Peyton told herself, she couldn't leave. She was stuck.

But maybe Peyton wouldn't have to worry about leaving. It was quite possible that "The Ice Queen" St. Clair would do the job for her – or, at the very least, get one of her strutting soul-suckers-in-training sycophants to tell her in the most nasally tone possible to pack up her cubicle and go.

Peyton dug her hands into her hair, panic beginning to swell up within her.

This could

not

be happening. Her career could not go down the toilet, not when it had just begun nearly two years

to the day.

Christ, after the endless years of perfecting her portfolio, of acquiring letters of recommendation, of graduating with the highest honors possible for her degree at the university then rehashing the torture all over again for grad school, and of basically devoting every iota of her being to literary prowess...it could not end like

this.

Not because of a mistake, a simple email error.

That's all this was, a simple error, but the instantaneous effect had been like the massive aftershock of a nuclear bomb. The stone cold anger that had radiated off of 58-year-old Amelie St. Clair's body when Peyton had gotten called into her office this morning had told her that her simple error would cost her everything.

And St. Clair had proceeded to tell her just exactly what "everything" really entailed.

The email, or "an unprecedented piece of whiny childish crap touted as the shittiest example of the First Amendment ever penned" had been an ongoing tirade of Peyton's personal, private thoughts on how "The Pace" was run since the day Peyton had been "invited" into the fold. The email, a detailed 33-page Word Document describing how bloated the "management of operations" was and her very descriptive views of Miss Amelie St. Clair personally had been for Peyton's eyes only, but somehow, someway, it had managed to end up in St. Clair's inbox complete with a cover letter comprising of a picture of a bare milky white female bum with the words: "Powering Pace: the Truth Behind the Literary Giant" printed neatly in the center directly over the dark space of a butthole.

Peyton was surprised that Amelie hadn't fired her on spot.

But now, fifteen minutes after the fact, she caught onto the editor's game. Amelie was going to make Peyton sweat it out, maybe even allow her to work the full day so Peyton could stew in her miserable, panicked thoughts about how badly she had just fucked up. Then, when Peyton would come into the Ice Queen's office at the end of the day, ready to grovel and apologize, St. Clair's world-renowned temper would be unleashed and Peyton would return back to her cramped apartment, unemployed and reeling from the aftereffect of losing everything she had worked so hard for.

Peyton would get screwed over, just like clockwork.

Except...she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Peyton picked up her head as the idea of her next course of action hit her smack in the face.

It was all too obvious who had sent the Word document, for only two other people in the entire framework of the magazine had access to her computer. Erik Mann, the extremely cute but unfortunately gay tech whiz, was one; but he was currently on vacation at his cowboy boyfriend's ranch in Colorado and had been for a week. The only other culprit, and up until this point, the only person Peyton had trusted, was Hilary Cabot, whose pale, flabby butt could easily have been the flesh responsible for gracing the cover of Peyton's private treatise.

And, much to Peyton's fortune, Hilary was out making her rounds and wouldn't be back until lunch.

Turning to her computer, Peyton got down to work.

By lunchtime, Peyton was exhausted. She had spent the past five hours staring at her computer screen, searching for any angles she could take. Sure, she could have easily marched to St. Clair's office and done one of the following: 1) quit and save face, but she wasn't a quitter so the point was moot; or 2) she could plead her innocence to Amelie and hope to be given a bone, or at the very least scraps.

Peyton had instead taken option three.

And so had Simon & Schuster.

Just as Peyton had finished signing off her computer, a shadow cast over her desk. Peyton turned in her uncomfortable swivel chair and stared up into the narrow, pinched face of Roderick Graff, the leader of the St. Clair sycophant echelon. He crossed his pencil-thin arms over his pencil-thin chest and proceeded to glare down at her through designer glasses frames, his cherry-chap stick coated lips pursed.

Well, she

had

expected Amelie to give her the boot. But Peyton hadn't expected it to be done by a sycophant.

"You look very scholarly today," Peyton noted as she stood up. Roderick, or "I-Prefer-Rick-Actually", gave her a look of loathing before casting off her words with a twitch of his extremely gelled hair, not one strand moving with the action.

"You'll need to have your cubicle cleaned out before lock up today," he responded prissily. "There should be boxes in the copy room," he tagged on, waving a hand limply in the copy room's direction.

The copy room

, Peyton thought with a barely veiled smile.

Perfect.

"Sure, but Rick, do you mind helping me?" she asked wearily, not having to feign her exhaustion entirely. "The boxes are only at the top shelf and well..." She eyed her ten dollar flats and so did Rick, his upper lip curling with distaste.

"I guess that won't be a problem. You're not expecting me to actually help you

pack

, right?" he asked, since his schedule of fawning over Amelie St. Clair was pretty much booked full.

"Of course not," Peyton replied smoothly as Rick exhaled heavily in exasperation and twitched through the cubicle maze towards their ultimate destination. Peyton watched as Rick rolled his eyes at anyone who caught his gaze as they passed by the busy hive of workers.

Everyone must know then

, Peyton realized. So Peyton did what she had to do: she kept her chin up and reminded herself there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

When Roderick and Peyton reached the copy room, it was only too obvious it was occupied. If the sounds of a table scraping along the tiled floor or soft thuds weren't any indication, the muffled moans had to be. Rick's doe brown eyes, large behind his Dolce & Gabbana glasses, met hers and Peyton easily feigned shock.

Rick didn't even think to reconsider his next move. He pushed down the door handle to the copy room and swung it wide open, revealing a half-naked redhead sprawled on her tummy across the table in the center of the room, a tattooed Adonis banging away at the junction of her thighs. Papers littered the floor and the copier kept beeping, demanding to be fed more paper.

Peyton and Rick and the entire staff of fact checkers watched as Griffin Tuck, the editor for the music scene of Pace's art section, sent Hilary Cabot into a screeching frenzy on the copy room table. No one missed her strangled pleas and no one missed the money shot Griffin made on Hilary's ample backside when he pulled out a minute or so later.