Chapter 4
Avery
Avery woke to the sound of metal clanking.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.
The ceiling above her was unfamiliar: old plaster, faint water stains, a crack running diagonally like a lightning bolt.
The air smelled faintly of dust, cold air, and something warm beneath it…
cinnamon, maybe. A ghost of Sweet Treats buried under years of neglect.
Then she heard it again.
A sharp metallic clang, followed by a low, irritated curse.
Someone was outside. Someone was messing with her car.
Avery bolted upright, heart hammering. The old bedframe creaked beneath her as she scrambled to her feet.
Throwing on a pair of jeans, leaving the off-the-shoulder nightshirt she slept in, she began forcing her brown waves into some semblance of a messy bun as she hurried down the narrow stairs, bare feet cold against the wood, and pushed open the front door. And froze.
Noah was bent over the hood of her car, sleeves shoved up, tattoos flexing along his forearms as he worked a wrench with practiced precision. His hair was damp from the morning mist, jaw shadowed with stubble, expression carved from stone.
He looked like he’d been out there awhile. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
Of course he was here, fixing things she hadn’t asked him to fix. He’d always done that, even when she didn’t want him to.
He didn’t look up when she stepped outside. He’d always known when she was near.
“Morning,” he said, voice low, rough, like gravel dragged across steel.
Avery swallowed. “You’re… fixing my car?”
“Wasn’t gonna leave it sitting here broken.” He tightened a bolt, muscles shifting under his skin. “You need it.”
She stepped closer, arms wrapped around herself. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He finally looked at her.
And God…those eyes.
Storm-gray, sharp, unreadable. Older. Harder. Beautiful in a way that made her chest ache.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”
She opened her mouth to thank him, but he shut the hood with a heavy thunk and wiped his hands on a rag.
“Get busy,” he said, nodding toward the bakery. “Place isn’t gonna fix itself.”
It wasn’t rude. It wasn’t gentle. It was Noah, direct and steady in that way she could never seem to argue with.
Avery nodded and slipped back inside Sweet Treats.
Avery closed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting the quiet settle around her. The bakery looked even worse in the morning light, but for the first time since she’d arrived, the sight didn’t make her want to cry.
It made her want to move.
She pushed off the door and crossed to the counter, grabbing the old notepad Aunt Clara used to keep by the register. The pages were yellowed, edges curled, but there were still a few blank sheets left. She clicked a pen, the sound sharp in the stillness.
“Okay,” she whispered. “One thing at a time.”
She walked the length of the bakery, writing as she went.
Replace front door. Fix window latch. Deep clean counters. Scrub floors. Check oven. Check wiring. Order supplies. Figure out where the hell to start.
Her handwriting wobbled, but her breathing didn’t.
She moved behind the counter, pulling open drawers she hadn’t touched in years. Most were empty. A few held old receipts, faded menus, a broken measuring cup. And then, tucked beneath a stack of outdated order forms, she found it.
A folded piece of paper with her name on it.
Her throat tightened as she opened it.
Aves,
If you’re reading this, it means you came back. Good. This place was always yours more than mine. Don’t let it scare you. Start small. Start anywhere. Just start.
Love, Aunt Clara
Avery pressed the note to her chest, eyes burning. Not with grief this time, but something steadier. Something like resolve.
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and set the note on the counter where she could see it. Then she grabbed a rag, ran water in the old sink until it sputtered warm, and started wiping down the front counter.
Dust smeared. The rag turned gray in seconds.
But the space looked a little less forgotten. Avery felt something loosen inside her. Something unclench.
She wasn’t running anymore.
She wasn’t hiding.
She was here.
And she was staying.
She set the rag aside, breath steadying as she stepped back to take in the room again.
Cleaning one counter hadn’t changed much — not really — but it changed her.
The bakery was still a wreck, still tired and worn and full of ghosts, yet she could look at it without feeling swallowed whole.
For the first time, she could see what it had been… and what it could be again.
Her gaze drifted across the room, catching on the familiar shapes beneath the dust. The display case. The chalkboard menu. The tables stacked in the corner. All the pieces of a life she used to know.
She could almost hear the bell over the door. Almost hear Aunt Clara humming. Almost hear…
Avery blinked, and the memory rose before she could stop it.
The bakery had been warm that afternoon, sunlight spilling through the front windows and turning the flour dust in the air into glitter. Avery sat at one of the round tables, textbooks spread out in front of her, pencil tapping against her cheek.
Noah sat across from her, long legs stretched out, his own homework open but untouched. Sixteen had hit him with a growth spurt: taller, broader, jaw sharper, eyes darker. He’d grown into himself that year, and Avery wasn’t sure when she’d started noticing.
“You’re staring at the page like it’s gonna solve itself,” he said.
“It might,” she muttered.
He snorted. “It won’t.”
She glared at him. “You’re not helping.”
“I am helping.” He leaned forward, tapping the problem with his pencil. “You forgot to carry the one.”
She blinked. “No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Noah…”
He smirked. “Aves. You did.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Fine. Maybe.”
He leaned back, satisfied. “Told you.”
Aunt Clara passed by, ruffling Avery’s hair. “You two are trouble.”
Noah grinned. “She’s the trouble. I’m the responsible one.”
Avery threw her pencil at him. He caught it easily, laughing.
And for a moment, everything was simple. Warm. Safe. The world small enough to fit inside Sweet Treats.
Avery blinked hard, the memory dissolving like sugar in water.
The bakery was silent now. Cold. Empty.
The table where they’d sat was shoved against the wall, one leg splintered. The sunlight didn’t spill in anymore, it filtered through dusty windows in thin, tired beams. The air didn’t glitter. It hung heavy.
She pressed her palm to the table’s edge, grounding herself.
So much had changed. So much had been lost. And she wasn’t sure she knew how to bring any of it back.
The front door creaked open.
Avery jumped, spinning around.
Noah stepped inside, scanning the room like he was checking for threats. His gaze lingered on the broken window latch, the warped doorframe, the dark corners. He didn’t say a word.
He went straight to the front door. Tested the lock. Tested it again.
The deadbolt wobbled in the frame, metal scraping against splintered wood. Noah’s frown deepened. He tugged the door, harder this time, and the entire frame shuddered.
Avery winced. “It sticks a little.”
“No,” he said flatly. “It’s busted.”
He pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket anyway, bracing the door with his shoulder as he tried tightening the screws. The wood groaned, the metal shifted, and the lock sagged even worse.
A screw spun uselessly in place.
Noah’s jaw flexed. “This isn’t fixable.”
“You don’t have to…”
He didn’t look at her. “Door’s not secure.”
“I know, but…”
He tried another screw. It stripped instantly, the head grinding into soft wood. His expression darkened.
Noah’s jaw flexed as the stripped screw clattered to the floor. “Someone could get in.”
“I said I’ll replace it later.”
“No,” he said, voice low. “We’ll replace it now.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
That stopped him. Not physically, but something in his expression tightened, like she’d hit a bruise he’d been pretending didn’t exist.
He set the screwdriver down with slow, deliberate care. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
His breath left him in a hard exhale. “You never did.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and charged.
Dust motes drifted in the slanted morning light, the same way they used to when Aunt Clara opened the shop at dawn.
Avery caught the faintest trace of cinnamon and warm sugar, and for a heartbeat she was sixteen again, sitting on the counter while Noah stole a cooling bun and grinned like he’d gotten away with something.
“You’ve changed,” she whispered.
“So have you.” His tone wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t gentle either.
He stepped back first, breaking the tension like cutting a wire. “I’ll be back with a new lock.”
She didn’t answer.
He didn’t look at her again as he walked out, but she saw the way his hand lingered on the doorframe, fingers pressing into the wood like he needed the grounding.
When the door closed behind him, Avery realized her own breath was shaking.
Avery turned toward the counter, trying to steady her breath, and that’s when she saw it — a small scrap of paper weighed down by the useless screwdriver. His handwriting was sharp, familiar, unmistakably his.
Noah — 205-569-0198.
No note. No explanation. Just his name and number, left like a tool he expected her to use.
She added it to her phone before she could think too hard about why.
She stood there for a long moment, surrounded by dust and memories and the ghost of the boy she used to know, wondering who the hell the man he’d become really was.