We didn’t talk about the past, but pieces of who we’d been slipped through anyway. Old rhythms resurfacing without permission. A shared glance over the menu when we saw they still carried the bruschetta we used to split. The comfortable silence that settled between us while we waited for our plates. A joke we both half-remembered.
It was disorientingly nice. And dangerous.
Because this version of Gage was stripped of the shields he used to hide behind. He felt familiar and foreign all at once. Like muscle memory mixed with something new. And hopeful.
Spending time with him was risky because enjoying his company made it too easy to forget the cost of loving him last time.
Halfway through our meal, my phone started buzzing so much that the vibrations slid it an inch across the table. The screen lit up with a flood of notifications, something that usually only happened when a celebrity customer accidentally pushed me into going viral again.
“Sorry.” I glanced up at Gage. “Do you mind if I check which video is blowing up?”
He waved off my concern. “Please do. From what Susan told me, your social media presence is a big part of what has made your bakery so successful.”
I appreciated how understanding he was and how easily he mentioned that he’d talked to his assistant about me. But I couldn’t explore those feelings right now, not while my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.
The notifications stacked so fast they blurred together, overflowing the screen in a constant waterfall of alerts. Picking up my phone, I clicked on one of them to see which video was being commented on. Except it didn’t lead me to my account. Instead, I had been tagged in a post.
The photo was a screenshot of my profile, which wasn’t that unusual. But the caption horrified me.
Tessa doesn’t deserve her success.
Unfollow her. Don’t buy her cakes.
Women like her make all of us look bad.
“What is happening?” My voice cracked at the end, and my hands shook so violently I almost dropped the phone.
I tried to scroll, but the posts multiplied faster than I could blink. One influencer’s callout had turned into a storm of negativity, quickly spreading through every corner of the algorithm.
My pulse whooshed in my ears, drowning out the restaurant noise.
“Tessa?” Gage’s voice finally pierced the fog. “Talk to me.”
I couldn’t. My throat was too tight. So I just shook my head while my thumb hovered uselessly over the screen. I needed to pin down the source of this, but the posts just kept coming. Each worse than the last.
“Tessa.” Gage reached across the table to rest his hand over mine. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t pull myself out of the spiral, not with the panic clawing up my chest. I was only vaguely aware of Gage flagging the server down.
When she hurried over, he didn’t waste a second. “Can we get everything boxed up, please? And a to-go order of lasagna and tiramisu. Put a rush on it. I’ll make it worth your time.”
He pulled out several large bills and dropped them in the middle of the table. The server blinked and practically sprinted toward the kitchen.
Then he turned back to me, and all that crisp businesslike efficiency softened in an instant. His green eyes filled with concern. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know.” My voice shook. “I don’t know why all these people are saying stuff like this. Calling me these horrible things.”
“You don’t need to convince me of anything, Tessa. I know exactly who you are.”
His confidence in me brought down more of my wall. The only other person in my life who had my back like this was my dad.
I scrolled again with trembling fingers, desperate to pin down the source. Every refresh made things worse. My stomach dropped as comment after comment called me a home-wrecker, a gold digger, or a liar.
And then I saw it.
A gossip account with nearly a million followers put up a post only thirty minutes ago. The photo was of me smiling in front of Hale & Honey on opening day.
The caption was awful.
