She steps forward, placing her floured hands on my shoulders, and squeezes them softly. Tansy’s one of those people that makes you feel like you’ve known her much longer than just the morning rush. It’s like I’m talking to a friend, or even a sister.
Her eyes are kind when she speaks. “I’d be thrilled to have another bakery in the area. It would take some of the pressureoff this place, because there’s always orders I can’t fulfill. Plus, it would give me time to work on my own creations.”
I furrow my brow. “These recipes you do aren’t yours?”
“Nope,” she says as she moves to my side and slings her arm around my shoulders. “They’re my grandmother’s, passed down from her mother, and her mother’s mother. I’m proud to upkeep them, but I’d love to put my own spin on things and have them displayed and sold here.”
“But you don’t have that kind of time.”
She shrugs and looks at me. “The only other place that sells anything sort of sweet outside of the grocery store is the diner. Anything specialized comes to me. So I’m either fulfilling other people’s creation dreams or continuing tradition. I don’t have time to formulate my own stuff. Having another bakery in town would give me some of my time back to do that kind of stuff.”
I nod slowly. “You could sell some of your stuff there, I could sell some stuff here.”
“Exactly,” Tansy says with a smile as she moves back in front of me. “Now you’re getting it. You help me, and I help you. That’s the beauty of having competition. Sometimes, you just don’t need to be competition at all.”
The pressure building in my chest cracks open, spilling out something so close to hope that I don’t dare name it. Community and support.
It’s something I’ve been lacking my entire adult life. I’ve been stumbling around in the dark, trying to piece together some semblance of a life for myself with no direction, no guardrails, and no guarantees.
Tansy makes this place sound almost like a guarantee.
It brings me a great deal of comfort.
A bell jingles in the distance before laughter fills the front of the bakery. Tears cling to my lashes as my throat works around the knot building inside of it. I clear my throat and swallow,trying to work it back down into my stomach. Trying to piece myself together in order to be presentable again.
“I’ll go see who that is,” Tansy says as she unravels her arm from my shoulders. “You can head out when you’re done cleaning up back here.”
The words are out of my mouth in seconds. “Call me anytime you need help.”
Tansy grins at me over her shoulder. “Does that mean you’re staying in the area?”
“For now, yes.”
She wipes her hands off on her apron and nods. “I’ll call the next time I need help. Just promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise me you’ll think about choosing them. They could be really good for you, if you let them. There are a lot of Omegas in town that would kill for the chance to be with Alphas like them. You can’t do any better than those three.”
Her words pierce my chest like a bullet as she disappears into the front of the bakery. I grab a rag and some cleaning solution from beneath the sink and spray down all of the surfaces I used. What Tansy said rattles around in my head with every stroke of the cloth against the stainless steel surfaces, and it makes me realize something.
Walker, Eli, and Knox have chosen me. Not out of obligation. Not out of pity. But because of a distinct thread sewing in and out of all of us. They’re choosing me in the same way they wish to be chosen: wholeheartedly and without regret.
They’re just waiting for me to choose them back.
“Oh, and by the way?” Tansy asks as she sticks her head through the doorway. “Your cherry-rhubarb cinnamon rolls were a hit. You got any more of those I can sell around here?”
Eli
I’m elbow-deep in homework assignments I’m grading when my phone lights up.
At first, I ignore it, prioritizing the work I’ve fallen behind on. Granted, it’s not as bad as some of my colleagues, who are weeks behind on their grades. Still, I don’t like being behind on things. It makes my skin crawl when I fall behind on my own schedule. But then my phone buzzes again, and I wonder if it’s Lia.
I snatch it up like it might disappear if I don’t and I see a text message.
From Lia.
Gone are the thoughts of grading homework as I open it, only for a text from Walker to buzz through. I scroll back to the beginning to catch up.
