Chapter 4 #2
“As long as needed.”
“That’s not a time frame.”
“Grief doesn’t respect leases.”
“A practical time frame is one week. Then we reassess,” Oliver cuts in.
I turn to him. “Did you just compromise with grief?”
“Yes.”
Of course he did.
Marley writes ONE WEEK REASSESS under Immediate.
“What if I want to go home?” I ask. They both look at me. “I don’t,” I add quickly. “Not today, anyway. But eventually I need my things.”
“Soon category,” Marley says.
“We’ll get your essentials until you’re ready.” Oliver nods.
“I should go.”
“No,” they say together.
I bristle. “I’m an adult.”
Marley’s face softens. “You are. But adults are allowed to have backup.”
I look down at my eggs and take a bite, all too aware of Oliver’s eyes on me like a prison warden with a protein fixation.
“What else is immediate?” I ask.
Marley looks at the list. “We tell your employees something minimal.”
I stop chewing.
The bakery. Work. People.
I have employees. Part-time baristas. A morning baker named Lisa who has three kids and no tolerance for nonsense.
A cashier named Dev who calls everyone bestie and somehow makes it charming instead of insufferable.
Customers who will ask about wedding plans because I screamed my engagement from the rooftops.
Vendors. Brides with cake tastings. Moms ordering birthday cakes.
People who know me as Halston, the smiling bakery owner. Not Halston, the woman sleeping right next door because her fiancé had extracurricular activities with his secretary.
My stomach turns.
“I have to open.”
“No,” Oliver says.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s Thursday.”
“Close for the day. Let the employees come in later and handle it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I have orders.”
“Refund them.”
I set down my fork. “I’m not closing.”
Marley and Oliver exchange a look, and I point to them. “No face conversations.”
Marley lifts both of her hands. “Okay.”
“Bitter Bloom is mine,” I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to be. “It was mine before Grant, and it’s mine today. I’m not letting him take the one thing I actually built. I’m not letting him take my joy.”
The bakery is quiet.
Oliver lowers his mug, and Marley looks at me for a second before her face twists into something awful. Pride, worry, love… all of it. All of the things.
“Okay,” she says simply.
“Okay?”
“If you want to open, we’re going to help you open.”
Oliver frowns. “Marley.”
“She gets to choose,” she insists.
His mouth shuts, and I look at him. He looks frustrated and reluctant, like he’s resisting the urge to wrap me in bubble wrap and put me somewhere Grant Whitaker can’t find me.
He nods once. “Fine. But with modified hours.”
“You can’t negotiate my bakery hours.”
“I can when you look like you slept in a storage closet.”
“I slept above your storage closet.”
He stares at me, and I stare back.
Marley clicks her pen. “Compromise. Late open, limited menu.”
I hate when reasonable people are right.
A limited menu means less prep. A late open means fewer people see my face before mascara and spite are able to do their best work.
“Ten,” I say.
“Eleven,” Oliver says with a grimace.
“Ten-thirty,” Marley says with a nod.
I sigh. “Fine.”
Marley writes MODIFIED HOURS: 10:30-2:00 PM
“Two?” I’m not sure it’s even worth opening with those hours.
Oliver doesn’t blink. “You get four hours.”
“This is a bakery, Oliver.”
“You get four hours.”
I scowl at him. “Bossy.”
“Alive.”
I glare at him, but he resumes looking unimpressed. I hate that it works on me.
Marley keeps writing. “Limited menu. What can we reasonably do?”
I hate the word reasonably, and she knows that.
I look toward the kitchen. The dough I prepped yesterday for cinnamon buns should still be usable. Scone mix is portioned. Muffins are fast. Cookies are easy. Croissants are not happening because I refuse to make them the day after one became a symbol of my public emotional collapse.
“No croissants,” I say.
Marley eyes me while Oliver’s jaw softens. “No croissants,” he agrees with a nod.
“Banana-vanilla muffins. Maple scones. Chocolate chip cookies. Basic espresso menu.”
“No weird lattes?” Marley asks.
I hesitate. I love weird lattes. It’s the fun part of this business.
The ridiculous part. The part that makes so many customers come in asking, “What did you do this time, Halston?” The part that Grant used to call cute before he started saying “I think you should start making things a little more sophisticated, don’t you? ”
“No,” I say before pausing. “Well, actually, one weird latte.”
Oliver sighs like I announced plans to commit tax fraud. Marley smiles.
“The Men Are Decorative at Best latte,” I say.
Oliver closes his eyes. Marley writes it down immediately.
“What’s in it?” she asks.
“Brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, oat milk, and cold foam. Oh, and gold sprinkles. I have a lot of them.”
Oliver opens his eyes. “Gold sprinkles?”
“For decoration. Try to keep up.”
“What does that have to do with men?”
I shrug. “Exactly.”
Marley points at me. “There she is.”
We spend the next hour trying to turn my disaster into a bakery day.
Marley texts Lisa with a vague explanation that I have a personal emergency and need to open late. Lisa replies with three heart emojis, one knife emoji, and a simple: “Say less.”
Dev replies: Bestie do I need to wear black? Like mourning or revenge?
I tell Marley to write back: Both.
Oliver takes down chairs, sweeps the front, and complains that my broom is performative at best.
“It has flowers on it,” I say.
He rolls his eyes.
“And it sweeps.”
“Reluctantly.”
I stand with my hand on my hip. “That’s because you’re using it with bad energy.”
He ignores me.
Marley handles the register, cancels two morning pickups with enough charm that both customers somehow apologize despite not knowing what happened, and makes a sign for the door.
OPENING LATE
10:30-2
LIMITED MENU
FULL DRAMA
Oliver stares at it. “No.”
Marley stares back. “Yes.”
“You cannot put full drama on a business sign.”
“She absolutely can,” I say from the mixer.
“You’re both unwell.”
“And yet thriving,” Marley says.
“Debatable,” I mutter.
By ten fifteen, the bakery smells better than ever. Banana muffins cool on the racks, maple scones are perfectly golden on the edges, and chocolate chip cookies are stacked under glass. We have drip coffee ready to go and the espresso machine hisses as it gets ready for the first latte.
I tie my apron. It’s pink, embroidered with flowers along the pocket.
Grant once said it was cute.
I add my hoops, reapply my mascara in the bathroom mirror, and fix the bow in my ponytail.
My eyes are still swollen, my heart still hurts, but my hands know what to do. They always do.
At ten twenty-nine, Oliver stands by the doors with his arms crossed. “Are you sure? I can tell everyone to go the fuck home.” His eyes flicker to the short line already forming outside.
I look around my bakery. It’s small but bright. Pale pink walls, white tile, pink chairs, a flower wall, little vases on the tables, shelves lining one wall with coffee beans, local jams, and boxes of cookies tied with ribbon.
Bitter Bloom started off as a joke in my father’s old recipe notebook. A name scribbled beside a sketch of a cake covered in sugar flowers.
Bitter for coffee, bloom for everything else.
I opened it at twenty-four with no college degree, no business pedigree, and a loan that made me physically nauseous.
I cried over spreadsheets at my kitchen counter, burned too many pots of caramel, misplaced cupcakes, forgot a flour delivery, and once, in my first year, I accidentally ordered fifty pounds of sesame seeds instead of five and spent three months putting sesame on everything like a woman being haunted by a bagel ghost.
Then Barrett Whitaker walked in. Grant’s father. A local legend for being a food critic with absolutely terrifying eyebrows.
I wasn’t dating Grant yet. Not seriously, anyway. We had met at a charity event Oliver dragged me to because he said there would be networking opportunities, which was a deeply annoying way to say free alcohol and tiny appetizers.
Grant was charming. Barrett was polite in the way powerful men are polite when they are deciding whether you matter.
Two weeks later, he came into Bitter Bloom.
Black coffee. Vanilla bean scone. Lavender honey tart.
He said very little.
Then, he wrote about me. It wasn’t a long review, by any means. Not even his biggest column that week. But enough.
A hidden gem with playful instincts and serious technical promise.
I printed that sentence.
Framed it. Hung it near the register like proof.
Customers came after that. Then catering requests. Wedding consults. Then people said, I read about you.
I worked hard before that review, and I worked hard after it. But standing here now, staring at the frame on the wall near the register, the praise feels heavy.
A hidden gem. Discovered by Whitaker. How many people think that’s the reason I survived? How many people will think I lost my shine now that Grant and I are over?
Oliver follows my gaze, his eyes landing on the framed review. He says nothing.
For a second, the bakery feels too small. So I walk to the wall, and I take it down.
Marley goes still, and Oliver watches me carefully.
I look at Barrett’s words behind glass. They meant something once.
They helped. I can admit that without letting them own me.
Those words did not wake up at three in the morning and make dough.
They did not learn payroll through panic.
They didn’t memorize regulars’ orders or scrub ovens or pay loans or learn to make perfectly smooth buttercream through cramps so bad I saw stars.
They did not smile at customers while wondering whether I could afford a plumber because unlike Oliver, I don’t have a plumbing-disaster fund.
Those words opened a door for me, but I built the room.
I set the frame on the counter. Not in the trash yet, just down.
Oliver nods once.
I unlock the door and the bell jingles. For a moment, nothing happens.