Chapter 17 #2
“Well, I’m not exactly up to date on the statistics of witches in the general populace, but yes, your point is taken,” Andrea replied.
She leaned forward and braced her elbows against the edge of the table.
“It makes things easier, but then it also makes things harder, too. The whole thing is just such a mess, and I have no idea what to do. And now they’ve invited me—well, Emma invited me—to this gingerbread thing in town that’s important to her—”
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to get her hopes up.
I’m supposed to fly home in a little over a week, and as soon as New Year’s is over, you know Martina and the editors and the whole publishing house are gonna be blowing up my inbox every day with notes and publicity requests and appearances and the photo shoot.
Then there’s whatever’s going on at Sunset. ”
“At least the pop-up imposters have been banished,” Lainey interjected, her tone still brimming with sympathetic bitterness. “Their socials say they’re over at Mount Olympus Park now.”
Andrea frowned. That would be a decent location this time of year, especially with the flood of tourists.
But still, it was better than being outside her own front door.
“This whole pop-up bakery mess aside, I still clearly have some rehab to do if I want to repair my reputation. The cookbook will help, of course, and as long as William keeps his piehole closed, things should settle back down.”
She paused, realizing that it was the first time she’d started thinking more positively about the future, and yet somehow, it didn’t make her feel better.
The knots in her stomach didn’t loosen in the slightest. Thoughts of publicity tours and spiked sales and interest in the bakery only sent her anxieties soaring higher.
She exhaled slowly, her eyes closing. “Where does a long-distance boyfriend who also happens to be a single dad fit into that? And that’s to say nothing of his mother-in-law. I get the feeling she’s not exactly a fan of this whole arrangement.”
“Who asked her?” Lainey said, immediately rising to Andrea’s defense.
“I know,” Andrea said, smiling at her friend’s automatic defense.
“I’m sure she doesn’t expect Wes to stay single forever, but I imagine she’s just being protective of Emma, especially now that I know about the magic.
We all keep secrets from the world, and it’s hard sometimes to let people close.
I can only imagine that must be even more difficult for someone trying to raise their magical granddaughter in a non-magical town. ”
“Well, if you ask me, she should be thanking her lucky stars Wes fell head over heels for you. One less secret to keep! It’s a win-win!”
Andrea nodded but couldn’t bring herself to fully agree.
Was it lucky? Surely there was some local accountant or businesswoman or café waitress who would be a better fit.
A local. Someone who could be there every day.
Not off traveling the world on a book tour and staying up until all hours of the night scrolling through spreadsheets and turning the kitchen into a disaster zone several weeks out of the year to film and photograph an entire cookbook’s worth of recipes.
Andrea had spent years building her life around Hecate’s Kitchen. Despite her desire to one day find a real partner and build a different kind of future, she’d inadvertently closed off much of the space where that might be possible.
Lainey sighed and Andrea realized she’d drifted off. “Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Lainey replied, her tone warm. “So, what’s the plan? Are you going to end it?”
The words hit Andrea with the force of a sledgehammer to the chest, and her shoulders caved in even more as she hunched over her closed computer. “I don’t want to,” she said, barely able to get her voice above a whisper.
“Oh, honey, then don’t! You deserve to be happy. And from the sounds of things, so does he. What can I do to help?”
“You’re doing it right now,” Andrea replied, a tiny smile breaking through the dread. “I don’t know where this thing is going, but knowing that I have you in my corner always helps.”
Before Lainey could respond, Andrea’s phone buzzed in her hand, and she pulled it away momentarily to check the notification, hoping it was from Wes.
It wasn’t.
Martina’s name flashed along the top with a string of text messages Andrea didn’t bother reading before she dismissed the notification.
She straightened in her chair and squared her shoulders.
“That was Martina. I should probably get this wrapped up and sent over to her before she has a coronary. I don’t need that on my head, too. ”
Lainey snorted. “All right. Break a leg, or break a whisk, whatever the cupcake chef equivalent of that expression would be.”
Andrea laughed. “Thanks, Lainey. I’ll text you later.”
“You’d better!”
Andrea hung up, replied to Martina with an ETA, then poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, snagged one of the just-shy-of-stale sugar cookies, and opened her laptop again.
It was time to finish this, once and for all.