The exposed brick walls were painted a warm cream. I’d skipped regular decorations and chosen to hang clumsy drawings alongside photos I’d taken with my clients. It was my proof that, with your own two hands, you could build a world that was better than the one you were born into.
Here, I wasn’t just Hazel, a girl who never quite fit into her grandmother’s vision of acceptable society. I was a chocolatier. The best in Oakhaven, if the regional food magazine’s review could be trusted. They’d called my exotic plantain truffles ‘transcendent.’ But I was happier about the smile I’d gotten from Mrs. Higgins.
Yes, I had my regulars. Mrs. Higgins liked the pralines and always paid in exact change she’d counted out beforehand. The kids from the high school bought cookies and left crumbs everywhere but tipped well. The lawyer from the firm down the street had a standing order for dark chocolate bark every Friday.
And recently, there was Barnaby.
Barnaby was my favorite, though I’d never tell him that. He was a nervous, slightly round little man with thick glasses that magnified his eyes to an almost comical degree. His collection of sweater vests would make Mr. Rogers weep with envy.
But it was the look in his eyes that I recognized. A quiet, cornered desperation that spoke of too many expectations and not enough hours in the day.
I remembered feeling that same way during my first year of business school. I’d been buried under a mountain of case studies I didn’t understand, convinced I was a fraud who was one bad grade away from total failure. That particular hell had lasted until I dropped out, much to Nana’s horrified disappointment.
I’d enrolled in culinary school and never looked back. Barnaby hadn’t been so lucky.
He’d told me he worked in ‘logistics’ for a big international firm. Whatever it was, roughly ninety percent of the time it left him on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He’d come in, usually around three in theafternoon when the shop was quiet. He’d eat a single perfect truffle and order a few to go. Then, he’d leave with enough strength to face another day.
Seeing that transformation, that small moment of peace I could provide, was the best part of my job. Better than any five-star review or social media feature.
I wiped my hands on my apron, leaving brown streaks across the pink fabric. I grabbed a tray of rejects, pralines that weren’t evenly shaped or coated.
Popping one into my mouth, I hummed under my breath. Hazelnut and sea salt. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
The bell above the entrance rattled violently, the sound so aggressive that I actually jumped. The last of the praline went down my throat a little too aggressively.
Shaking myself, I turned toward the door, a perfectly polite smile already pasted on my lips. Someone had just yanked my door open like it personally owed them money. But they were still a customer, and I took pride in my customer service approach.
“Welcome to—”
The sentence died in my throat the moment I saw the new arrival.
For one terrifying second, I thought he was another one of Nana Beatrice’s ‘suggestions.’ She’d been on a campaign lately to introduce me to what she called ‘suitable young men.’ This man certainly fit the physicalrequirements. He had the same impossible size and air of raw intensity she always championed.
But Nana’s candidates wore tailored suits from designers I couldn’t pronounce, and bragged about their stock portfolios. This man looked like he ate stock portfolios for breakfast and then bench-pressed the resulting paperwork.
He was a mountain of a man. An absolute unit, as the kids on the internet would say. His massive form blocked out the afternoon sun streaming through my front windows, casting a long, heavy shadow over my delicate display case of gluten-free macarons.
He wore a tight athletic shirt that was losing a valiant battle against his chest muscles, the fabric stretching so thin I could practically count his abs. His gym shorts revealed legs like tree trunks, all corded muscle and zero body fat.
He scanned the shop with dark, intense eyes, and when his gaze landed on me, his face twisted into an expression of pure rage. “You,” he rumbled.
It was a single word, but it contained countless emotions. Accusation. Certainty. The promise of consequences.
I blinked and wiped a smudge of chocolate from my cheek, already dreading whatever disaster he was about to bring into my carefully constructed life. “Me?”
He marched to the counter, each step so heavy my display cakes trembled in their glass cases. The cheesecakes quivered. The petits fours shook.
Distantly, I wondered if this was how the humans in Jurassic Park felt, watching the water ripple in the glass as the T-Rex approached. Except this T-Rex apparently had a gym membership and very strong opinions about nutrition.
But if Nana had taught me anything useful between her lectures about posture and proper fork placement, it was how to hold my ground. Even when he planted a massive hand flat on the counter, I didn’t flinch.
“Are you the one they call Hazel?”
There was an odd formality to the question, like a knight demanding to see the queen before he laid siege to her castle. The knot of tension inside me loosened just slightly. It took a surprising amount of effort to keep from laughing at the sheer melodrama of it all.
“That’s me,” I said, gesturing to my name tag, which featured a little chocolate bar with a smiley face on it. “Can I get you a sample? We have a dark chocolate mendiant that’s very high in antioxidants. Good for gym people.”
I was being deliberately obtuse—probably not my smartest move—but his intensity was so over the top that my brain defaulted to sarcasm as a coping mechanism.
