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Aiden grabs a lemon one and hands it to her.

She eats the scone. She tells Aiden that his inventory management protocol is “genuinely impressive,” and he says, “Thank you, Gemma,” with the quiet warmth he reserves for the people Ruby loves, which has become the people he loves too, though he might not phrase it that way yet.

Avery shows up with no announcement. Just appears, leaning against the side of the booth, arms crossed, watching the crowd with that steady, unreadable focus.

“You good?” she asks me.

“Yeah. I’m really good.”

She nods. Watches Aiden hand a bag to a customer. Watches the customer smile. Watches Aiden smile back—the real one, the one that crinkles on one side.

“He’s different,” Avery says.

“Different how?”

“Settled. Like he figured out where he fits.” She looks at me. “Both of you.”

I don’t argue. She’s right.

Avery buys three cinnamon rolls and gives one to a kid in the crowd who’s staring at the booth and doesn’t have money. That’s Avery—she’ll never announce a kindness. She’ll just do it and move on and deny it later.

Mom arrives at noon. She’s wearing her nice blouse and the coral lipstick, and she’s carrying a tote bag from a garden center, and she starts crying the moment she sees the booth.

“Oh, Ruby.” She presses her hand to her mouth. “Oh, sweetheart, look at this.”

“Mom, don’t cry. It’s a booth. At a food festival. I didn’t cure cancer.”

“It’s not a booth. It’s your grandmother’s recipes being eaten by hundreds of people, and I’m going to cry if I want to.”

She cries. She hugs me across the counter, knocking over a stack of napkins. She hugs Aiden, who accepts it with the same gentle, slightly surprised stillness he always has when my mom touches him, like he’s still not used to being someone’s family.

“Are you eating enough?” she asks him.

“I don’t eat, Karen.”

“Oh. Right. I know that, sweetheart. I’m asking out of habit.” She squeezes his arm. “You look good. You both look good. Are you happy?”

“Very,” he says.

She tears up again. Fixes his apron strap—it doesn’t need fixing; she just needs to touch him—and then turns to me.

“Any news on the… you know.” She lowers her voice and raises her eyebrows in the way that means grandchildren, which she brings up approximately every seventy-two hours. “The adoption?”

“Mom, we’ve been dating for a matter of weeks.”

“I’m just asking! These things can move quickly if you—”

“We’ll let you know, Mom.”

She pats my cheek, steals a cranberry scone, and wanders off to find her friend Margot, presumably to update her on every detail of my life in real time.

Ben shows up at one.

He’s off-duty, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and Sarah is with him. He walks up to the booth and looks at the line and the signage and the crowd, and his expression does the thing Ben’s expression does when he’s proud but refuses to show it—a slight softening around the jaw, not a smile, not really.

“Nice setup,” he says.

“Thanks, Ben.”