Chapter 12 #4
She let the words stretch a little and the memory came with them— of arriving at the Captain’s Rest just before dusk, arms full of boxes and trays and a thermos of cider still warm from the stove.
Elise had been there already, her sleeves pushed up, rearranging stacks of books and fluffing one of the old velvet throws on the armchair beside the front display.
The fireplace had been going, casting long shadows across the wooden floors, and the whole place smelled like old paper and pine garland.
“They were out of everything,” Hazel added, her voice softening with the memory. “Within an hour, I think. Elise looked like she might cry when the last hand pie went.”
Malcolm raised his eyebrows, visibly impressed. “Damn. That good?”
Hazel nodded, a little stunned all over again.
“And I’ve already had a few more inquiries,” she continued, fingers absently worrying the edge of the towel.
“Someone from the inn stopped by the next morning and asked if I could do a dessert spread for a private dinner they’re hosting next weekend.
Then I got a message on the bakery’s email about a holiday cookie table for the school board’s staff party.
And a woman who owns a boutique in town asked if I’d ever considered doing gift baskets. ”
She shook her head once, incredulous. “I mean… I haven’t even properly figured out packaging yet. It’s just brown paper and stamps. Or printed pieces of cardstock.”
Malcolm gave a low whistle and smiled, eyes warm. “That’s what we call a good problem, Hazel.”
She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes drifted again to the front where Juno had just passed the customer a foamed drink in one of the Greyfin ceramics, her hands moving with easy precision, her smile real and present.
Hazel’s chest swelled with something she wasn’t ready to name. Pride, maybe, or gratitude. Or maybe the beginning of something that lived between the two— like certainty, like purpose.
She looked back at Malcolm, her voice a little rough. “It’s starting to feel like this is… something. Like it’s not just surviving anymore. Like I’m actually building something that might last.”
Malcolm didn’t say anything at first. He just held her gaze for a long moment, then tipped his chin toward the kitchen around them. “You are,” he said. “Whether you meant to or not.”
Hazel blinked, caught in the quiet weight of it.
And then, before it could get too heavy, too serious, Malcolm lifted his drink again and added, “But seriously, give Juno a raise before someone else steals her.”
Hazel laughed and the sound curled up into the warm corners of the bakery like sugar into steam.
Friday morning came soft and slate, the sky outside still wearing its early winter hush.
Rise was already warm and alive by the time Beck stepped through the door.
A gust of salt-laced air followed him in, ruffling the edge of the chalkboard sign and making Hazel look up from where she stood behind the counter, adjusting a fresh tray of cinnamon coffee cake muffins.
“You’re late,” she said without looking directly at him, her mouth twitching upwards at the edges.
“You’re bossy,” he replied, no longer hesitant as he crossed the threshold and headed for the front counter.
She passed him his coffee in a to-go mug before he could ask, her fingers brushing his for the briefest second. “Flannel again,” she noted, eyeing the dark green check of his shirt. “You’re really leaning into the rugged lumberjack aesthetic, I see.”
“Think I’d give the old folks a heart attack if I switched things up.”
Hazel snorted softly, shaking her head. She turned to reach for a towel, wiping down a spot of icing sugar near the register. Their comfortable rhythm held— tentative, but slowly healing.
Beck took a sip, then leaned against the counter with a hip, his voice low. “So what’s this I’m hearing about a feature in some fancy magazine?”
Hazel froze. Her spine stiffened just enough for him to notice.
“Who told you about that?” she asked, not looking up.
He just smiled, not offering up any names.
Hazel rolled her eyes, her cheeks flushed. She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the screen. “It should be posted any minute.”
“Good,” Beck said, his gaze lingering on hers for a beat before he turned, heading for his usual table near the window. “Send me the link when it’s up.”
And so, she did. A few taps and it was off, and though she would have been content to hide behind the espresso machine and read it on her own, Beck coaxed her over, pushing the chair next to him out just enough to make room for her.
She sighed and crossed the bakery, settling down against the sage green cushion.
There’s something about Rise that feels like a memory you forgot you missed— warm air, the scent of apple crumble and spiced chai, the kind of place that breathes.
I’d barely crossed the threshold when a woman— flushed, flour-dusted, and flustered— dropped a handmade mug that shattered across the hardwood floor.
She cursed under her breath and apologized three times. I liked her immediately.
Hazel let out a groan just as Beck started to laugh, his broad shoulders shaking.
“Did you seriously drop a mug as a first impression?”
She nudged his chair with the toe of her sneaker, her lips settled down into a deep frown. “I was nervous!”
“You don’t say,” he murmured, grin still curling at the corners of his mouth as he scrolled on.
They read in companionable silence after that, the kind that didn’t demand commentary, just presence.
Hazel caught the way Beck’s brow furrowed when the article touched on her grandmother, and how his gaze lingered when Eli described the pastries as tasting like someone had put love and grief in the mixing bowl together.
She didn’t ask what he thought— she didn’t have to.
She just kept reading, one arm wrapped around her waist, her heart a little high in her throat.
When they reached the end, Beck set his phone down and looked over at her. “It’s good, Hazel,” he said, voice low. “Really good.”
Hazel gave a noncommittal shrug, one hand lifting to her hair to brush the dark locks back behind her ear.
She would never admit it aloud, but Beck was right— the article was good.
Eli was honest, and open, and even alluded to the fact that Hazel’s parents seemed to be a wound she’d rather leave untouched.
But he had done it in a way that didn’t feel too prodding, too sharp, and even after she’d finished reading the piece, the words settled at the back of her mind, playing on repeat.
A chime sounded from the back of the bakery, in the kitchen, and Hazel pushed away from Beck’s table. “That’s my cue,” she mumbled, letting out a soft, half-breathless laugh, silently grateful for the excuse to put some distance between them again.
After she’d transferred the gingerbread cookies from the oven to the cooling rack and switched off the oversized machine, she returned to her perch behind the counter.
Her fingers absently brushed through the bakeries calendar, connected to the registers online system, double checking what time Juno was set to start her shift today.
From Hazel’s periphery, she caught sight of Beck rising from his seat.
He made his way towards her and she lifted her head as he neared, her eyebrows rising with curiosity.
He leaned up against the side of the counter again, just beside Hazel, and the hand not holding his coffee shifted into the space between them until it landed on her outstretched forearm.
It wasn’t much. Just the pad of his thumb brushing against the bend of her arm, the quiet press of his fingers through the soft weave of her sweater.
But it startled something loose inside her, all the same.
Not fear, not exactly, but a sharp awareness.
The sudden, unsteady thrum of being seen and steadied at once.
She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She couldn’t.
So instead, she just stood there, trying to anchor herself in the feel of it— his hand, his steadiness— and trying, too, not to read too much into what it meant.
Because she didn’t know what anything meant anymore.
Not the text he’d sent last week, not the awkward silence that followed, not the way their mornings had slowly stitched themselves back together like the hem of a torn sleeve.
Not the almost-kiss she’d though had ruined everything. Or the emotions that simmered inside of her, deep and buried, awaiting their chance to break free again.
“I’m really happy for you,” he said, his dark gaze pouring into hers, unyielding. “You deserve this.”
Hazel felt the words land somewhere deeper than they were meant to. She offered a quick nod, the safest thing she could give him.
Then, as he started to pull back, he added, “The pictures are good, too.”
She glanced up, eyes following his movements, flaring a bit wider.
“You look like you,” he remarked, lifting his to-go cup to take a sip, his gaze fixed to hers above the lid.
Hazel blinked. Her mind scrambled for footing, but nothing held. It was a strange thing to say, and yet not unkind, not cruel. Just… intimate in a way that caught her off guard.
A beat passed before she found her voice. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
He tilted his head, his lips curving into a smile. “It’s a compliment, Hazel.”
But even as he said it, she couldn’t quite sort out how to feel.
She wanted to smile, to let it settle in and warm her from the inside out, but the distance of the last week still clung to her ribs, and the kiss-that-wasn’t still hung unspoken in the air between them like a warning bell.
And this— this soft, lingering moment— it made the ground tilt a little beneath her feet.
After a moment, she managed a small, wry smile. “Sure it is,” she said, half under her breath, as if brushing it off might make it sting less.
Beck didn’t push. He just lingered a moment longer, his fingers pressing lightly once more into her arm before fully letting go.
And then he walked out the door without offering her a goodbye.
The bakery filled and then emptied again in the hours that followed.
Customers trickled in, but for a breath of time after Juno had finished her shift, Hazel stood alone behind the counter.
Her arm was still warm with the lingering pressure of Beck’s touch.
She’d felt it move with her throughout the day, as she served drinks and plated pastries and switched cookie sheets from the oven to the cooling rack and then back again.
She pulled out her phone again, trying to quiet the parts of her mind that felt particularly dangerous— the ones that whispered she’d imagined it all with Beck, that the soft smiles and quiet mornings didn’t mean what she hoped they did, that maybe she was still the only one standing in the middle of this thing, holding her breath, waiting for the truth of it to take shape.
The article was still open in her browser, the photo of her beneath the bakery’s sign catching sunlight on her hair, her name printed bold beneath it. She scrolled without thinking, fingertips twitching, until the bottom of the page came into view.
75 comments.
Hazel blinked. Her stomach pitched and rolled like a ship too small for the sea. 75 comments. 75 people, at least, had read it, and had cared enough to say something. That felt… impossible. Terrifying. And, maybe, just maybe, a little bit electric.
She hesitated, thumb hovering over the button, then tapped Display All.
The screen shifted. Names and timestamps filled the space like a tide rushing in.
I live in Bar Harbor and we LOVE Hazel’s cinnamon buns!
This place looks like a dream. Adding it to my must-visit list next time we’re up north.
So glad to see a story like this. We need more places like Rise and more people like Hazel.
One after another. Little flashes of light, all of them. Some of the comments were from people she knew by face, and others were strangers entirely. And yet they knew her. Not everything, not all the hard and hidden parts, but they knew her name. Her food. Her place. And they liked it.
She didn’t realize she was crying until one of her tears smeared one of the screen’s lines.
It was a strange thing, this feeling. Not joy, not pride exactly, but something quieter— like finding your name written down in permanent ink, in someone else’s handwriting.
She hadn’t been left behind. Not this time.
And then, before she could talk herself out of it, she copied the link and opened a thread that had always remained empty. She typed in his name, starting with the letter D.
Dad.
Check this out!
That was all. Just three words and the article link pasted beneath them. She hovered, heart thudding, thumb trembling, and then she hit send.
The screen dimmed. The message hung there, pale blue and fragile, waiting. Hazel’s pulse drummed in her ears. She knew he was always on his phone. Work emails, investor calls, stock updates— it was practically an extension of his palm.
So when the little seen notification appeared a moment later, it didn’t surprise her.
But the response did.
Her message wobbled for a second and then a little thumbs up emoji appeared above it.
That was it— no words, no follow-up.
Just a digital gesture, small and meaningless. A placeholder.
Hazel stared at it for a long, slow beat.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. And maybe it didn’t, not really.
But still… she had hoped.
And that, somehow, made it worse.