“You know I can never resist yourpepparkakor.” Lou grabs the bag with her purchased treats and takes one of the cookies off the tray Farmor holds. “Better get back to the office.”
“Have a good day,” Farmor says, and I wave as Lou clicks her way out the door in her tight black skirt, red-bottom heels, and multicolored hair. She really is an entity unto herself.
I can’t help but wonder how much Hunter will be like his cousin. Despite myself, my heart flutters beneath my scarred sternum, a butterfly of hope burgeoning with soft, feathery wings that make me shivery with anticipation. She showed me a post of him once almost a year ago, trying to convince me to follow him on Instagram, but I refused, claiming it would be creepy—especially since he had a girlfriend. (I still think I was right, though she was bugged about it for a couple of days.) The picture was a side angle of him looking out over the ocean, but I remember his thick brown hair, strong jaw, and hint of a wide, bright smile.
The kitchen door swings open once more, but this time, Farmor put down the tray somewhere within its stainless-steel depths and is now empty-handed. “Did I overhearLouise saying her cousin is moving in next door?” Farmor’s question sounds innocent enough, but her gaze is sharp.
“It would seem so.”
“And she believes there is a chance the two of you might—what do you call it these days?—form an attachment?”
“That is not what we call it, but yes, something like that. She’s wrong though,” I quickly add. “She’s being dramatic, as usual.”
I don’t have good luck with relationships—or men in general. I wear high-collared shirts on first dates so I don’t get asked about my scar, but if anyone makes it to a second or third date, I feel compelled to tell them about my heart transplant and lingering health issues. I don’t want anyone getting blindsided too deep into a relationship, including myself. Because once any potential boyfriends find out about the heart transplant and my chances of surviving past forty, they are either freaked out or change toward me. One guy, who I really liked, asked if we did get married someday, what were the odds that I would have a heart attack on our wedding night. Which I suppose was a valid question ... maybe? But the deal killer was the way he’d sounded so ...fascinated, as if the idea that something like that might literallykillme was kind of exciting or something. Needless to say, we didn’t make it on any more dates—let alone to marriage.
The thing is, I get it. I’m a big risk. Taking the leap into any relationship is hard enough, but jumping into one with me is even scarier. There are so many unknowns and so much uncertainty when it comes to my future—for how far out I dare plan for, well,anything.
“I wish you wouldn’t shut out the opportunity for love before you even give it a chance,” Farmor says.
I pause in the act of straightening some boxes on the display shelf. “Are you saying youwantme to fall in love with the stranger moving into the duplex next to me?”
A faint blush touches Farmor’s freckled cheeks. “Of course not. I’m saying I want you to at least give yourself achanceof putting yourself out there and seeing what good can come of it. You so rarely go on any dates.”
Ouch. But also true. “We can’t all meet our soulmates in Hyde Park and fall so deeply in love we elope a month later,” I tease gently, thinking of her staring at the picture of her beautiful little family. You’ve never seen two people more in love than my grandparents. Well, except for my parents. Finding your literal soulmate and remaining deliriously in love for the long haul is somewhat of a family tradition.
One that I’m apparently going to break. It’ll be up to my brothers to keep the tradition alive.
Farmor sighs, giving me one of herlooks. “I want you to be happy.”
“Iamhappy.”
“You’re coasting. You’re letting life pass you by because you’re so scared you won’t get enough of it.”
I flinch and turn away because her words strike true—right through my scarred sternum, delving deep into my stolen heart.
Her gentle touch on my shoulder refuses to let me ignore her.
“You were not saved so you could spend your entire life in this bakery taking care of me and your mom and everyone else. You have alifeto live, Olivia. I just want to see you realize that.”
“I love this bakery. I don’t want to work somewhere else.”
“Sötnos, I’m not saying to leave the bakery.” Farmor’s expression is at once tender and firm. “But it shouldn’t be your whole life.”
“Well, like you said, it’s not that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” she allows. “But you have to at least try—go on a date or two. Give someone a chance to make you happy. Promise me that.”
I sigh. She won’t stop until I relent. Though where she thinks I’ll suddenly find a date when I really do spend most of my time in this bakery, I have no idea. “I’llthinkabout trying.”
Farmor squeezes my shoulder and then releases me. “I suppose that’s good enough for now.”
The swinging door to the kitchen squeaks as I push through it, retreating to the baking that has been my solace and comfort ever since I was fourteen and she started teaching me her recipes after school.
Did you know magic really does exist?She asked me as I stood next to her in this same kitchen when I was tall and gangly and so lost.
No, actually, it doesn’t.I rolled my eyes with all the annoyance a fourteen-year-old girl was capable of mustering. Especially one who had lost her father, her grandfather, and her home all in the same year. I was struggling to believe inanythingat that point.
It does—and I’ll prove it,she told me.How else do you explain what happens when you take all these separate ingredients, mix them together in the exact right way, and create something completely new and better?
