“Mhm, I hope so.”
“It turns out, you’re not just talented at baking.”
He put the entire finger sandwich in his mouth, no bites, just in and chewed. I watched in awe at how effortlessly he did it. My mouth was far too small and delicate to take a full sandwich. My eyes slowly dropped down, looking him over. There was probably something my mouth could make an exception for, though.
“I could’ve told you that,” he said. “I’ve been known to make a good stew or soup. I used to meal prep the stuff in batches when I had my office job.”
I smacked my lips; mentioning those other foods felt like stomach teasing. “What can’t you do?” I asked.
Daddy screwed his lips for a moment and nodded. “I can’t—” He paused. “Well, I’m on the spot now. I can’t do a lot of things, I’m sure. I can’t think, though.”
“Can you roll your r’s?” I asked.
He tried and failed. “There you go.” And with another attempt at the trilling sound of a rolling R, he couldn’t produce it. “I have another. I can’t open my eyes under water. I’ve also been told I can’t relax. But I think I’ve solved that.”
“Oh, I love relaxing,” I said.
“Baking is relaxing. It was one of my old managers who told me I was working too much and needed to relax. Probably the best thing he ever said to me because I rediscovered baking,and that pushed me right out of marketing and right into—” He tilted his head and took my hand. “I think it pushed me to you.”
“I’m not gonna argue with that,” I said, pulling my hand away as I was beginning to sweat. “Are you gonna read a story?” I asked, pushing myself to my feet in a quick stand. “We were reading about dragons, and if you want to read, you’ve got to do the voices.”
He nodded. “Sure. What voices?”
“The dragon voices,” I said.
There was a stack of books on the bedside table, which was just a side table when my bed wasn’t down. The top book was a picture book filled with colorful dragons. It was part of a series, each dragon a different color of the rainbow, and each one had a different power. This one was green, and he could breathe green glitter fire, and was able to create flowers.
With the book in his hand, I got comfy amongst the teddies. He began reading as I drank more juice, ate more sandwiches, and helped myself to little nibbles of all the different delicious pies. It was the perfect way to end a day that had started with a ball of anxiety in my stomach and chest.
6. HENRY
It was such an incredible moment, I didn’t even know if it had happened for real. I suppose I wasn’t completely sure if anything was real after kissing him. After reading the first story at his tea party, we ate a little more, and then he showed me how the bed unfolded from the wall, and to my surprise there were more teddies on the bed. They’d been squished together, which elicited a giggle from Leo and a comment about how they probably deserved it for stabbing him in the back in the middle of the night with their button eyes and plastic noses.
I read him a couple more stories in bed after that, and he fell asleep. It was the sweetest moment I’d experienced in my life, and I’d experienced a lot of sweet moments. They came with the job of baking desserts. But his sweetness was pure, and it wasn’t going to rot my teeth.
After about twenty minutes of him sleeping and snoring, I had to leave. I didn’t wake him. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and tucked him into bed. It was an early night for him, although I doubt he’d sleep all the night through. And before leaving, I made sure to put the uneaten pie in the fridge and leave him a note on the magnetic whiteboard pinned to the fridge.
I wrote, “I had fun little one. Daddy,”alongside a couple of hearts in the red and blue whiteboard markers attached to the sides of the board.
Leaving the apartment, I made sure to close the door quietly and walk on my tiptoes all the way down to the main door, just in case he heard me. I was known to have a heavy foot from time to time.
Pineberry Falls had a magic about it that couldn’t easily be explained to anyone who asked why I’d picked this place. If I wanted to open a bakery, I should’ve done it in the city,or some other nonsense, people would say. These people being folks who’d tasted the occasional dessert I’d bring into work. Pineberry Falls was something else, though, the summer air even in the evening had a cool sweetness to it. It had my mouth watering a little.
The bakery was my opportunity to do something for myself, the only deadlines and performance reviews I’d ever need to do here would be through dessert tastings and oven timers. I smirked at the thought of this being my life now. It made the walk back a lot more entertaining, especially thinking about all the things I could’ve said to the people who doubted me. This was going to work out, and I knew that for a fact. The fact being, I’d found Leo, and he seemed to be somewhat of a lucky charm around town.
Life here would still be an adjustment, and I hadn’t quite planned on falling for someone the way I had for Leo. But if there was one thing I knew how to do, it was to pivot, and maybe having this thing was Leo would be just what I needed to keep from hyperfixating on the bakery.
I didn’t get to sleep until midnight that night. The bakery opened in a week, and while I’d been optimistic that Leo would keep me from focusing too hard on it, he was doing the opposite right now as I went around with a brush and paint, touching up areas that hadn’t received a proper second coat.
He called the next morning—almost eight on the dot when his call came through and his sweet sleepy voice spoke with a croak. Perhaps is was the first thing he’d said. “Good morning.”
Already in the bakery kitchen, I had him on speaker. “Hey, little one, how are you doing?” I was beating cake batter in a bowl. I’d gotten a handle on pie tasting and now I needed to see what this town thought about cakes.
He yawned. “I’m good. Just a little... tired.”
“I wish I could’ve stayed all night. Your bed is comfy.”
“I’ve got like three foam mattress toppers,” he giggled.
