Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
MARLOWE
There he is again.
Same guy. Same leather jacket in weather that doesn’t really call for one.
Same not-watching-you-but-definitely-is energy.
He walks past the front window like he’s out for a harmless midday stroll.
Except it’s the third time today, and something about it gives me weird vibes.
It’s the way his eyes flick toward the shop.
How his pace slows just enough when he thinks I’m not watching.
But I’m definitely watching.
I take a sip of my water bottle, pretending it’s doing something besides swirling around with the four hours of sleep and the last of this weekend’s sangria.
Spoiler alert. It’s not. My head feels like a sock full of screws, and I’m not emotionally prepared to deal with a possible stalker on top of that.
I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but he was out there first thing this morning. Five a.m., parked across the street in a black car, scrolling through his phone and glancing up at the bakery while I unlocked the doors.
Then around nine, he came inside. Ordered a cappuccino and a chocolate scone, which—fine, solid choices—but he asked too many questions.
Questions about the building. The hours.
Who baked what. All with this polite, not-quite- friendly smile, like he was trying too hard to seem normal.
Which, ironically, is the fastest way to seem anything but normal.
And now here he is again. Noon. Lap three. Same jacket in perfect seventy-degree weather. Same weird glance toward the window.
I lean an elbow on the counter and pretend to check inventory on the iPad, watching him through my lashes like we’re in a cheap spy drama.
He doesn’t look dangerous. He’s not pacing or twitching or talking to himself.
But something about him rubs me wrong, in that low-grade, slow-creep way that doesn’t hit until it’s already burrowed into your spine.
I could call Damian. He’s just upstairs. One text and he’d be down here in thirty seconds, standing in front of the bakery like a six-foot-four brick wall. All tattoos and don’t-fuck-with-me energy. The guy outside wouldn’t last ten seconds under that stare.
But that might also scare off half my customers. Maybe the mailman too. And definitely the guy who delivers our egg cartons, who already jumps when the bell rings too loud.
Besides, I’m avoiding him.
Which is harder than it sounds, because he’s everywhere, and I can still smell his cologne on my skin, drowning out my body spray.
I haven’t decided if I’m pissed at him, sad, or just completely spun out.
Possibly all three. Either way, calling him now feels like pressing a big red button labeled: Please complicate my life further.
I let out a sharp puff of breath through my lips just as the woman at the counter beams at me. “I’ll take a dozen rainbow cookies,” she chirps.
I force a smile and slide open the case. “Sure thing.”
As I box them up, I glance back at the window. He’s across the street now, just standing there, staring straight at the bakery. Maybe he lives around here.
The door swings open, and Neve strolls in like she didn’t drink half a vineyard with over the weekend.
Her sunglasses are perched on her head, not shielding her eyes.
Meanwhile, mine feel like they’re bleeding.
It’s like she’s not battling the same hangover headache from hell, which honestly feels like a personal attack.
It’s aggressive, really. Her hair is brushed to a healthy shine.
She’s even wearing lip gloss. I envy her.
“You alive?” she asks, grabbing a hair tie from her wrist and looping her hair into a ponytail like a normal, hydrated human.
“Barely.” My voice scrapes the back of my throat. “My stomach’s still staging a full-blown revolt.”
She winces in sympathy. “Ugh. Same. But I slept, like, nine hours. You look like you got hit by a truck.”
“I feel like I got hit by a truck, then it reversed and hit me again.” I rub my temples. “I don’t even remember the last time I drank that much.”
“Um, the night before last,” she says helpfully. “You definitely know how to spend a weekend in Atlantic City. And I seem to have won a lot of poker chips somehow.”
I groan just as the door chimes again.
Oh, no. Nope. The creeper walks in like it’s Groundhog Day. He heads straight to the counter, wearing that same polite smile. “Hello again,” he says, voice low. “Can I get one of those specialty lattes? The kind with the cinnamon foam?”
I blink and purse my lips. “Sure. Anything else?”
He scans the case. “A coffee cake muffin. And three of those macarons.” His eyes bounce back to mine, but they don’t hold. They flick away, then back again, like he’s trying not to look too long but can’t help himself. He’s nervous.
I nod, internally screaming. Why is he nervous? Do I know him from somewhere? Did I beat him in a poker game once?
As I grab a cup and start the drink, I glance at Neve and try to give her a subtle look. The kind that means look at this guy, something’s off, please acknowledge this is weird so I don’t feel like I’m losing my mind.
She narrows her eyes at me like I just grew a second head. Then her expression twists into a mix of panic and confusion. “Oh my God,” she whispers. “Are you having a seizure? Do I need to do something with your tongue?”
“Do something with my tongue? What? No!” I hiss under my breath. “Stop looking at me. Look at him.” I try pointing with my elbow.
She shifts her attention with a dramatic head swivel, then immediately snorts. “Oh, yeah. He’s hot.”
I shoot her a glare as I box up the muffin and place the macarons into a small paper sleeve, my hands just slightly shaky. I can feel him watching me again, like he knows I’m clocking him, like this is some weird game we’re both playing.
Neve leans in, still whispering. “What, did I sleep with him this weekend and forget?”
I don’t answer.
But the way her eyebrows lift tells me my silence might have just sparked a whole new conspiracy in her brain.
We both watch as the guy takes his order and picks a table by the front window. Again. He doesn’t even pull out his phone this time. Just sits there and stares at us.
I lean toward Neve, barely above a whisper. “Get back here. Now.”
She arches a brow, amused, but follows me behind the counter with the lazy grace of someone who definitely got a lot more sleep than I did.
“This is the fifth time he’s passed by today,” I hiss. “And the third time he’s come in to eat something. Who does that?”
Neve squints over my shoulder, then grins. “Maybe he’s just really into your muffins. Can you blame him? Look at you. How do you make that apron look sexy? Out here making hot men smitten with your cinnamon rolls.”
I shoot her a look. “You’re not helping.”
She shrugs, totally unbothered. “I’m just saying, you could be his pastry dealer.”
I stare back at the guy, who’s slowly unwrapping the muffin with an alarming level of focus.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe he’s just some regular guy who eats confectionery for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not just for emotional support like the rest of us.
I blow out a breath and shift topics. “Was Damian up when you got up?”
“I don’t know,” Neve says, grabbing a croissant off the cooling tray and breaking it in half like she owns the place. “Didn’t see him. Place was quiet.”
I nod, pretending that doesn’t make something in my chest twitch.
I haven’t seen him since I left him in bed this morning.
I haven’t spoken to him either. That’s not the norm, which only puts me more on edge.
He’s probably angry about last night. Or maybe he’s just not thinking about it at all.
Maybe I’m the only one still stuck in this silence.
I glance back toward the window. The guy’s licking cinnamon foam off his thumb and reading a book, not looking my way at all.
I’m just in my head, full of too many feelings I haven’t voiced.
My silence is loud enough to make shadows out of nothing.
I close my eyes for a moment. I’m being paranoid, that’s all.
Everything is fine. It’s just my closest friend, Anxiety.
The afternoon rush hits hard. Orders fly in, and I’m sweating through my apron while still trying to keep an eye on Window Guy.
He’s still there. Same table. Same weirdly calm expression.
Relaxing like a man on vacation with nowhere else to be.
He’s working on that muffin like it’s a three-course meal—or possibly the last one he’ll ever have.
I’d be overthinking it more if I wasn’t elbow-deep in making a cake shaped like a bouquet of dicks. It’s a divorce party order. One of my best sellers. The customer requested them “elegant but threatening,” which honestly, I’m here for.
By the time I finish the last shimmering fondant vein and scrawl “Freedom never tasted so good” across the balls, I can barely keep my eyes open. My head throbs in time with my heartbeat, and my spine has given up its will to stay vertical.
I leave the rest of the day to the front crew. Jules can handle closing. Thank God I hired a great bunch of people. I trudge up the stairs, one slow, aching step at a time.
Upstairs, the apartment smells delicious.
Neve greets me at the door with a smile like she’s been waiting for me all day.
“You looked like you could use takeout and about twelve hours of sleep,” she says, gesturing toward the table.
It’s covered in Chinese food cartons. This. This is my love language. Food.
But then she glances, not-so-subtly, at Damian—lounging on the couch with a beer and that stony look on his face.
She looks back at me with the raised eyebrows of a woman absolutely about to abandon me to an emotionally loaded conversation.
“So,” she says, far too casually, “Bridger and I are going to go out for pizza.”
I blink. “You don’t like pizza.”