Hazel opened the pastry case, the hinge creaking softly. Her fingers adjusted one of the scones, though it didn’t need moving. The air around them was warm with sugar and butter, cinnamon still lingering from that morning’s bake. The smell grounded her, even as her mind spun. Even as she tried to make sense oftheirversion of Beck, and her own.
“Maybe he just likes baked goods,” she said, eyes fixed on the rows of them in the case. “Lots of people have sweet tooths, you know.”
“Maybe he just likesyourbaked goods,“ Iris said, a note of teasing bright in her voice.
“Maybe he just likesyou,“ Malcolm added flatly, entirely without apology.
Hazel turned slowly to glare at him, eyes narrowed. “Oh, stop.”
Malcolm lifted a shoulder to shrug in response, the picture of innocence.
“I’m not saying it’s athing,”Iris said, lifting her free hand in faux surrender. “But we’ve heard things.”
Hazel squinted, skeptical. “Heard things? From who?”
“Marcie.” Malcolm replied without missing a beat. “She said she saw him coming out of the bakery yesterday morning. Said he lookedverycaffeinated. Andveryreluctant to leave. She might have even seen himsmile.”
Hazel didn’t even know who Marcie was. Whoever she was, she clearly needed a new hobby. She bit the inside of her cheek, still trying not to react.
“And he’s been in every day?” Iris pressed, one brow arching toward her hairline like punctuation. Hazel nodded, confirming the question she wasn’t even sure Iris had needed an answer to. “Come on, that’s notnothing!He’s basically the town recluse. And you’ve got him on a daily routine.”
Hazel exhaled, but it wasn’t a laugh, not quite. Her cheeks were already warming, the kind of heat that bloomed behind the ears and settled low in the chest. She shook her head, slow and unconvinced.
“It’s a small town,” she said. “People get coffee.”
“Sure,” Malcolm replied. “But Beck doesn’t usuallygetcoffee, not from people. Not from anywhere that requires eye contact.”
Hazel made a strangled noise in her throat, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead.
“I will cut you both off from sticky buns. Indefinitely.”
Malcolm grinned. “Empty threats. You like us too much.”
“But not enough to validate your conspiracy theories,” Hazel muttered, though her tone had lost its edge.
Iris tapped a fingernail against her cup. “There was this one time, though… last fall, maybe? Fire alarm went off at the hardware store. Total false alarm— some issue with the wiring, I guess.”
Malcolm glanced over, nodding. “Yeah. I was there.”
“Right,” Iris said, lifting her brows. “Everyone kind of froze, just standing around, but not Beck. He was out the side door in about two seconds, still holding a shopping bin full of stuff.”
Hazel stilled, her hand pausing mid-reach. “He left with it?”
“Mm-hm,” Iris hummed. “Didn’t even look back. It was weird— not like, criminal weird, just… fast. Like it kicked something in him. Fight or flight, maybe.”
Malcolm gave a little shrug. “The owner, Grant, said Beck came back first thing the next morning. Paid for everything, plus a couple extras he hadn’t even taken.”
“Didn’t say much,” Iris added. “Just put the cash on the counter, gave this little nod, and left again.”
Hazel didn’t speak. Her hands resumed their slow, automatic rhythm adjusting a tray that didn’t need adjusting, smoothing parchment that wasn’t wrinkled.
The sugar-and-butter warmth of the bakery, so comforting just moments before, now felt a little thinner. More fragile. As if the story had shifted the shape of the air around her.
“Anyway,” Iris said, leaning back again. “He’s not the easiest guy to figure out, that’s all I’m saying.” She hesitated, then added, softer, “Just… be careful.”
Hazel didn’t answer right away. Her gaze dropped to the counter, fingers pressing lightly into the edge of it. The caution wasn’t unkind— it didn’t feel like gossip— but it still landed somewhere tender. Somewhere she wasn’t sure she wanted touched.
Noticing the shift in her, Iris softened.
