I pull on some random clothes from the boxes so I can wash mine. According to Quinn, all of these clothes are clean when they arrive at the storage room, but I don’t look too close to test that theory.
At least I can stay in the storage room until I figure things out. The shelter isn’t an option because I can’t work late at Black Diamond and make it back in time. As deep as the storage room goes, I can make a pallet and be hidden. No one comes here but me, and if someone did, I can hide before anyone could get far enough back in the shelving to see.
Unlike some buildings with their own laundry in each condo, the Larkspur has communal machines, free to guests. My keycard lets me in the room, and I shove my things in the first machine I see. The old powdered detergent needs water so it doesn’t just cake, but making it usable is easy enough.
Larkspur shares a parking garage with Columbine, so I cross over from one to the other. A few people are out and about, but I’m wearing ski bibs with a long-sleeved shirt under it, just like everyone else, so I don’t make waves.
Columbine has a room for ski lockers, more like a gym locker room, including a sauna and showers. The amenities are as nice as the gym I used to belong to, from impossibly fluffy towels to the sweet-smelling products named after Colorado flora.
All of those motions have been automatic. Survival. Find a place to stay secure, get clothes in the wash, basics replaced.
Not until the hot water is rushing over me do I take a pause. Looking up into the hot water, I take a deep, shuddering breath.
This is bad. As low as I have ever been. Admitting it is the first step.
I take a look at my bruises, better than they might have been due to the cold shower at my old place.
Then I squeeze the floral soap out of the dispenser, crank up the hot water, and scrub until my skin is raw.
The rest of the day: autopilot.
I spend the afternoon prepping for the week at Maxine’s, making things her baristas can set out in the cases and, if needed, simply pop in the oven to serve. My hands turn the dough without much thought, good because the lack of sleep is messing with me.
I make a few more savory items than usual, probably my hunger showing up. Rich bacon-and-cheddar scones become my meal for the day, along with bites of the chocolate croissants and fresh strawberry danishes. Not the whole thing, of course, but the ends I would toss. I check the stock of bagels and make up a few more batches but don’t finish them off just yet. That way, I am ahead. God knows I need to be ahead on something.
Since I have the afternoon to work and I need to keep busy, I finish off some more items. Bear Valley has a lot of purples and yellows—like the colors of sunset—in the signage and logo. I made a pinwheel slice-and-bake cookie with those colors that is selling well. It features a hint of citrus under a vanilla sugar cookie, oversized and indulgent. What people expect on a vacation. Other than the swirl of color, those aren’t decorated, something Maxine can always turn out at the last minute if she runs low on inventory. Anyone can cut them and bake new ones if I keep the dough stocked.
Her cases need more than savory pastry, a cookie, and the staples of biscotti and bagels and muffins. So, I turn out chocolate-chip-bourbon honeycomb cookies, another hit, and mini whoopie pies with a red-velvet cookie. Those are small batches, just to test how they sell.
Feeling confident Maxine’s is well-stocked, I crawl back to the Larkspur. I managed to stay too tired and too busy to move off autopilot.
Thinking about my problems won’t do me any favors.
By the time I make a pallet out of some of the discarded blankets and pillows located in the storage room, I’m all out of steam, as tired as I have been in a while. I lay my pallet in the deepest, darkest corner, hidden behind large plastic tubs.
As far as I can tell, no one can see the light of my phone under the door or through a crack. I am safe for tonight.
The warm, easy safety of Matt’s arms seems miles away.
This is better, anyhow. This safety I made for myself. I can rely on it. Too tired to worry, I do my best to sleep.
“I knew I would find you here,” Nico’s voice says, haughty and curious. That’s the easiest way to remember him, or at least dream-me seems to think so. Older, taller with a thin sheen of disdain permanently settled over his face and designer labels covering his body.
I’m, of course, in Frank’s kitchen at the back of Donahue’s, the flour in the air mingling with the sunlight from the windows.
“Still trying to prove you belong,” he continues. A long finger lifts one of the pans before dropping it back down again with little care for unsettling the rise of the pastry.
“What would you have me do? Donahue’s hasn’t closed for anything other than a holiday since the 1950s,” I snap at him, angry at his tone. I’m supposed to be in high school, my senior year. “Frank needs help. No one else is going to make it the way he would.”
“What Frank needs to do is sell,” he says.
I roll my eyes because at the time, I never thought Nico meant it.
Now, I realize I was a fool.
Fucking Nico Donahue.
Chapter 9: Matt
