He reached into his pocket and slammed a crumpled piece of gold foil onto the counter with enough force to make the cash register jump.
My signature wrapper. I recognized it immediately, the custom gold foil I’d ordered from a specialty supplier in Belgium. Because I was extra like that. But this one looked like it had survived a small war. It was creased, torn at one corner, and smudged with fingerprint marks.
My mind immediately jumped to quality control scenarios. Was this a complaint? Had he found a shell fragment? A hair? Had someone gotten food poisoning? My heart rate kicked up a notch.
“Do you know what this is?” he demanded.
It wasn’t a real question. It was the presentation of Exhibit A, the opening statement in a trial where he was simultaneously the judge, jury, and ridiculously oversized executioner. I half expected him to pull out a gavel and bang it on my counter.
“A wrapper?” I offered, because stating the obvious seemed like the safest bet.
“It is contraband.” He leaned over the counter, and suddenly the warm, sweet air of my shop was cut with something else entirely. He smelled of clean sweat, damp earth, and the sharp, electric scent of the air after a thunderstorm. It was a wild, primal smell that had absolutely no place amongst my neat rows of ganache and carefully arranged bonbons.
It distracted me so thoroughly that I almost missed his next words.
“You are the supplier. You are the one feeding him.”
Supplier? Feeding? The sheer, deadpan seriousness of it was breathtaking in its absurdity. He was talking about my handcrafted artisan truffles as if they were illegal narcotics. As if I was running some kind of black market chocolate operation out of my cheerful pastel shop.
“Feeding who?” I managed, trying very hard to stay serious.
Just as I was about to ask if I needed to lawyer up, the bell above the door let out another frantic jangle. Barnaby stumbled in, panting, his face slick with sweat. His sweater vest was askew, one side tucked into his khakis while the other hung loose. His glasses were slightly crooked on his nose.
“Hazel! I am so, so sorry,” he gasped, rushing toward the counter as if seeking political asylum. He actually grabbed the edge of the counter for support, his knuckles going white. “H-He gets intense.”
“Er… Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “I take it… the two of you are friends.”
Barnaby gestured helplessly at the mountain of muscle beside me, his hand shaking slightly. “This is my brother, Brok.”
“Oh! Of course. Brothers. I can totally see the resemblance.”
I didn’t think I’d ever told a bigger lie in my entire life. Barnaby sometimes reminded me of a startled hamster who’d been caught stealing cheese. This man might very well eat hamsters for protein and consider them a light snack.
Barnaby’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He’d clearly seen straight through my attempt at tactful deceit. “Well, we’re not exactly… It’s complicated. We’re sort of half-siblings. Step-siblings. It’s a very long story involving family trees and logistics, and honestly, it gives me a headache just thinking about it.”
The fumbled explanation was strangely familiar and almost endearing. Nana Beatrice had a similar definition of ‘complicated family situations.’ In her last marriage, she had ‘convinced’ her husband to ask for an open relationship. Then she immediately turned around and sued him for infidelity with photographic evidence that had oh-so-mysteriously arrived for her in the post.
The settlement had been substantial. Many had been surprised by Nana’s predatory efficiency. Me? I’d seen it coming. She was just… like that. She always had been, for as long as I could remember.
And so, in my world, a convoluted family tree wasn’t a red flag. It was just Tuesday. Barnaby and Brok’s… whatever the hell they were didn’t faze me.
“It doesn’t matter,” Brok snapped, cutting through Barnaby’s desperate explanations. He jabbed a thickfinger at the cupcake display case, the nail tapping sharply against the glass. “What matters is this. Poison. Pure, unadulterated sugar designed to make men soft and weak.”
My professional pride flared hot in my chest. I glared at him and straightened my back. “Excuse me. That’s a dark-cacao cupcake with almond flour and minimal coconut sugar. No refined sweeteners. It is perfectly healthy. There are peer-reviewed studies.”
He wasn’t listening. His expression made it clear that he’d already made up his mind, probably before he’d even walked through my door. He was a zealot, and this was his crusade against the forces of sweetness and joy. “I have him on a strict diet. Roots. Greens. Lean protein. No sweets. No joy.”
“No joy?” For a second, I was so baffled I couldn’t even form a coherent response. The mere idea was so utterly miserable, so fundamentally wrong, that my brain simply refused to process it. “That sounds absolutely horrific.”
“It is effective,” he countered, his jaw set in a stubborn line that probably intimidated lesser mortals. “I am Brok. I fix people. I transform weakness into strength. And right now, Barnaby is a marshmallow because of you and your gold-coated temptations.”
My gaze snapped from Brok to Barnaby. He didn’t look like any marshmallow I’d ever seen. He wasn’t glowing with the flush of peak fitness, either.
With his face flushed an unhealthy red and his limbs shaking with exhaustion, he was the very definition of misery. He desperately needed a hug and a nap, possibly in that order.
“Okay, first of all, edible gold has no calories. If you’re going to scream at me, at least be right about it.” Narrowing my eyes, I pointed at Barnaby. “But most importantly… Barnaby’s a person, not a thing. And he’s suffering. Because of you and your torture regime.”
Brok stared at me, his jaw tightening until I could see the muscle jump. The silence in the shop was suddenly thick and heavy, threatening to suffocate me. But this was my territory. This was my kingdom, my carefully constructed sanctuary, and he had brought his war to my door.
