"Can I tell you something?" Lucy said. "Something I've never told anyone except Rei?"
"Please."
"I had a plan. Before my grandmother got sick. I was going to culinary school in New York. I had an acceptance letter, a scholarship, a plane ticket. I was going to travel—Paris, Tokyo, Seoul. I was going to learn from the best pastry chefs in the world and come back and open my own place. Something that was mine." She brushed away a tear. "Then she had the stroke. And I stayed. And I told myself it was temporary—just until she recovered. But she didn't recover. And suddenly I was running the bakery and five years had passed and I'd forgotten how to want anything that wasn't about maintaining what she built."
"Do you still want those things? The travel, the culinary school?"
"I don't know. Maybe? But it feels selfish to want them now. Like I'd be abandoning everything she worked for."
Jake was quiet for a long moment. Then: "What if—and I'm just thinking out loud here—what if we're both stuck because we're living for people who aren't here to tell us what they actually wanted?"
"What do you mean?"
"My dad's been dead for six years. Your grandmother's been gone for five. And we're both making decisions based on what we think they would have wanted instead of what we actually want." Jake ran his thumb over her knuckles, a gesture so intimate it made Lucy's breath catch. "What if we asked ourselves what we'd do if we weren't scared? If we weren't trying to honor their memories or live up to their expectations?"
"That's terrifying."
"Yeah. But maybe that's the point."
Lucy looked at their joined hands, then out the window at the snow-covered street. Timber Falls looked like a postcard—quaint, peaceful, safe. She'd lived here her entire life. Had never been anywhere else except four years at UVM, an hour away.
"If I wasn't scared," Lucy said slowly, "I'd sell the bakery. Not to abandon it, but to let it evolve. I'd use the money to travel. To go to that culinary school, even if it's five years later than planned. I'd come back and open my own place—something that honors my grandmother but is still mine." She looked at Jake. "What about you?"
"If I wasn't scared, I'd turn down Nashville. I'd stay in Timber Falls. I'd ask Tommy about coaching—really coaching, not justhelping out on Saturdays. I'd figure out how to be a hockey player who loves the game again instead of one who's just going through the motions."
"And?"
"And I'd ask you on an actual date. Not farmers market research or muffin taste-testing. An actual date where I pick you up and take you to dinner and we talk about things that aren't our respective emotional baggage."
Lucy's heart was pounding so hard she was sure Jake could hear it. "You'd do that?"
"I want to do that. I've wanted to do that since the first time you handed me a pork bun three years ago and I realized you had flour on your cheek and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."
"I always have flour on my cheek."
"I know. It's one of my favorite things about you."
They stared at each other across the table, the snow falling outside, the muffins cooling between them, and Lucy felt something shift. Not the scary, overwhelming shift of everything changing at once. Just a small shift. A recognition that maybe—maybe—they could do this. Could choose the things that scared them because they were worth it.
"Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"For the record, if you asked me on an actual date, I'd say yes."
His smile was like sunrise. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay then." Jake took a deep breath. "Lucy Chen, would you like to go to dinner with me? Tomorrow night, assuming I haven't completely destroyed my life by turning down an NHL contract?"
"I'd love to. And for what it's worth, I don't think you're destroying your life. I think you're finally building one."
"Same to you. Whether you sell the bakery or keep it or burn it down and start over—whatever you choose, it's going to be the right choice because it's yours."
Lucy laughed, feeling lighter than she had in years. "I'm probably not going to burn it down. Fire code violations are serious."
"Good call."
