Markus“Do you think our friends are still waiting for us inside?” Lizzy asks looking up at me, “you know you look gorgeous right?” her face flushes at the compliment but she doesn’t respond. “Why were you here, anyway?” she asks raising one eyebrow, “I swear I wasn’t stalking you, I had some business that needed to be taken care of” as soon as the words were out of my mouth, Lizzy gasped “oh god! I messed up your business deal with Jax, didn’t I?”I cup her cheeks, “you did not mess anything up, and I had no idea why I was here until my friend told me so” I kiss her forehead “do you understand?” she nods “Good. Then let’s go inside, say our goodbyes and leave” I place my hand on her lower back and direct her towards the table we had occupied earlier.Jason gives us an ones over and grins “did you guys just have make-up s

LizzyI don’t want to talk about my broken family and all my broken relationships, I’ve worked really hard to put all of that in the past and move on. So, I ask him about his family,“Tell me about your parents” he doesn’t reply for a long time before saying “there’s nothing much to know about them” he shrugs and gives me nothing more “hey! That’s not fair, I just basically gave you my whole sob story” “alright, alright crazy woman” he smiles “my dad is a corporate lawyer and my mom was a teacher before she retired a year and a half ago” this all sounds too good to be true “so, they are still together?” Mark looks at me before carefully saying “yes”.“This is something new to me” and it really is, all I’ve experienced in my life are failed relationships, so when I see a happy couple, I can’t help but envy them

Lizzy “Your smile is beautiful” I say, turning back to resume my work “funny, I think the same about your smile” he says, I feel a blush creep up my neck and go all the way to my cheek. “Do you need help with that?” he asks and I snort, “So you can potentially ruin everything? No, thanks” I tease. “You can always teach me” he says seriously “you really want to mix chocolates with me, don’t you?” I ask incredulously, “of course I want to, there’s nothing wrong with learning, is there?” he shrugs. “No, nothing wrong at all” I shake my head and hand him the spatula, “here, let me show you how it’s done a few times, and then you thin out the rest of the chocolate” I show him how he needs to rotate the spatula to get the perfect amount of thickness and how the thickness of the chocolate determines its taste. “Why do we need to go in the same direction?” he asks while working with the mixture, “if the directions are changed regularly, the texture of the ch

Lizzy The smile on Emily’s face was so infectious when she saw all the food, I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back. I’ve always loved to make people happy through my cooking and chocolates, and when they reward me with such enormous smiles, my heart swells. Markus jumps up from his seat and says “I’ll get the bottle of wine from my car” I smile and nod. Liquid courage is definitely something I could use, he leaves my apartment and the door ajar, Emily turns to me “do you love Uncle Mark?” she asks and I’m taken off guard, this time my smile is a little forced “why do you ask?” she just shrugs “it’s just that dad always says Uncle Mark is lonely, dad sends me over to uncle Mark so he remains ‘sane’” she smiles sweetly. Lonely, Markus might like to sleep with half the New York but sharing his heart is not something he does, at least not with other women.  I understand why Markus’s brother would want him to engage in good conversation.

 LizzyWhat a ridiculous day, it’s like without Markus my days feel empty. Very slowly he has clawed his way into my routine and now it feels like I’m missing the most essential part of my life, it’s true what people say “you don’t understand the true value of a memory or a thing until it’s taken away from you” never have I ever been so grumpy in my entire life. The smiles that I throw at my customers are strained and forced. I miss him too much and I think I’m not doing a good job at hiding my feelings because little kids seem to notice it too, “momma, why is this lady so sad?” one of the kid says while I wrap her chocolate. I stop my work and look at the kid’s mother dumbfounded ‘do I really look as miserable as I feel?’ when it’s time to wrap up and head home, it takes me more time than it usually does because