Which means I really need to do something else. Like I told Riggs on the plane, I bake to relax, and I could use a little relaxation right now. So I join Mabel in the kitchen, but blink when I find she’s not alone.
My daughter’s there, wearing a bandana and an apron. “Hi! Travis dropped me off when I told them I wanted to help. Mom will pick me up later.”
Mabel is mixing cake batter at the counter. “She’s very helpful.”
“I am,” Charlotte says, and then I join them, rolling out my shoulders and trying, really trying, to let the baking relax me.
But it’s harder when you’re baking for business rather than pleasure.
Then, this business is a pleasure.
“By the way, the chandelier is perfection,” Mabel says with a smile. And it looks like she wants to come over and hug me.
Or is that my own wishful thinking?
Who even knows? “Glad you like it. Your dress is nice,” I say, nodding at her pink-and-white outfit under the apron. The compliment is the understatement of the century.
But her eyes say she knows she looks good, she knows I like it, and she knows I can’t say more in front of my kid.
And her thank-you smile? That slays me.
I’m so fucked.
It’s almost time to open. I run a rag down the fire pole, making sure it’s shiny. I adjust a few trays in the display cases, arranging them just so, making sure the cards are out listing all the ingredients and which allergens are in them, and which ones aren’t.
I roll my shoulders. There’s always been something to juggle. Mom’s illness, Charlotte’s needs, the demands of the season. Helping to run a business is one more thing to balance, but that’s what I’ve always done. And the reward at the end of our first day will be another letter waiting for us and pride too—pride that I’ve finally begun to realize Mom’s dream. For now, though, I focus on the present.
I’m setting a heart-shaped card in front of the coconut cake, which says,When you need to get away to someplace sweet and tropical, when I hear little Converse sneakers slapping the concrete. Then Charlotte marches into the front of the bakery with a tray of cookies straight from the oven. Her tongue sticks out of the corner of her mouth; she’s so intensely focused, making sure she doesn’t drop them.
“Cookies coming through,” she calls out, as if there are more workers to warn than the three of us.
A few seconds later, Mabel follows, the ribbon now twisted through her French braid. No idea when she did that. Maybe when I was up here, organizing recipe cards? Maybe she did it in front of the dressing room mirror? The thought grips me hard, and I can’t let go of the image of her wearing the ribbon like I asked her to. It feels like a private message just for me.
I stare at her for far too long, itching to undo her braid, strand by strand, and let the ribbon fall to the floor. Roam a hand through her hair and tug on it hard, jerking her head back. Kiss my way down her throat. Her breasts. Her belly.
Why the fuck did I go into business with a woman I can’t stop thinking of naked? A woman I can’t stop touching?
I really need to stop touching her.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as if I can eradicate thoughts of her that way. But I put that to bed, too, when we switch the sign to sayNow Openand turn the music to an upbeat rock song. Minutes later, a bell tinkles above the door, a pretty chime, and we invite in our first customer.
It’s not one of my teammates. It’s not one of Mabel’s friends. It’s not Sarah or Annabelle. Or Theo or Mabel’s parents. It’s better.
It’s someone I don’t know at all.
Evidently, Mabel doesn’t know her, either, since she tells the woman, “Hello, and welcome to Afternoon Delight. Let us know what we can help you with.”
The woman nods and says, “Excited to be here. I heard about this on socials.”
Mabel shoots me a side-eye smile, and the excitement that someone we don’t know is here bounces back and forth between us.
When I slice a piece of coconut cake for the customer and box it up as Mabel chats with her, I’m more thrilled than I ever expected to be at being a part of this.
The woman from the thrift shop where Charlotte likes to do her back-to-school shopping arrives next, snapping up a dozen mini cupcakes in a variety of flavors. “For my employees, but mostly for me,” she says.
“As it should be,” Mabel says, and they chat for a few minutes. Looks like Mabel’s made a new friend in town. That warms my chest.
A few minutes later, Abe from The Cheesery pops in, giving a gruff hello and then picking up some shortbread for his husband.
