Chapter 4 #3
And then Mrs. Alvarez from the tailor shop two doors down walks in with her reusable coffee cup and the purple cardigan she wears every single Thursday without fail.
She takes a look at me, then Marley, and then Oliver.
“My husband is alive,” she announces. “So I assume this is not my emergency.”
A laugh jumps out of me. “Good morning, Mrs. Alvarez.”
“Is it?”
“Debatable,” Oliver mutters.
She comes to the counter and squints at the chalkboard. “Men Are Decorative at Best Latte?”
“Yes!”
“What’s in it?”
“Brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, oat milk, cold foam, and gold sprinkles.”
“Gold sprinkles?”
“For decoration.”
She nods slowly. “My first husband should have had sprinkles. He had no other purpose.”
Oliver chokes, and I grin.
Mrs. Alvarez sets her cup on the counter and tips her chin. “Large.”
And just like that, the day begins.
People stream in. Not too many, but enough to drown out the noise.
Regulars and neighbors. Two Vipers fans getting ready for a day game and wanting cookies. A woman with a stroller who orders three different muffins and tells me my bow is cute, and a college student who asks if the Men Are Decorative at Best Latte can be made hot.
“It can,” I tell her. “But spiritually it prefers iced.”
She nods as if that made any sense at all.
Marley works the register with terrifying competence for someone who probably hasn’t touched one in a decade, since her job at a local clothing store.
Oliver restocks napkins, glares at the espresso machine, and tells a customer, “No, I don’t work here,” while actively handing them a bag of cookies.
Lisa arrives at eleven thirty despite being told not to. She takes a look at me and hugs me so hard I squeak.
“I’m fine,” I say into her shoulder.
She pulls back. “No, you’re not.”
“Everyone keeps saying that,” I say.
“Because we have eyes.”
She puts on an apron and takes over scone duty without asking, which should irritate me but it mostly makes me want to lie down on the floor and thank organized women everywhere.
At one, my phone buzzes in my apron pocket. I check it before I can stop myself.
Boat Shoe Judas.
My whole body goes cold.
BOAT SHOE JUDAS
I just stopped in at home again. You haven’t been back. We need to talk before this becomes bigger than it has to be.
My fingers tighten around the phone.
This.
Apparently, this is not big enough yet. His cheating is a situation. My leaving is an escalation. My absence from our own home is an inconvenience.
Before this becomes bigger than it has to be.
I hear Oliver’s voice in my head. Don’t answer him.
So I don’t.
I screenshot the message and send it to Marley.
Her head snaps up from the register, and her eyes narrow.
I look back.
Oliver notices. “What?” he asks.
Marley shows him her phone, and his face goes blank.
He looks at me. “Do you want me to respond?”
“No.”
“Do you want Marley to respond?”
“No.”
“Do you want to respond?”
My thumb hovers over the screen. For a moment I think about typing something.
You made it big when you slept with her.
You don’t get to decide the size of my reaction.
Stay away from me.
Go choke on light ice.
But then he would answer. And suddenly, I’d be back inside his orbit, explaining my pain to the one person who caused it and hoping he’d validate the wound.
I lock my phone and silently shake my head. Oliver nods.
Marley smiles like she wants to cry and commit arson at the same time.
“Good,” Oliver says. I think it’s the closest thing to applause he’s ever given me.
At two, we close.
Marley flips the sign while Oliver ushers the last two customers out with the gentle charm of a man ending a hostage situation.
I turn off the espresso machine, allowing the silence to eat me whole.
My feet hurt, my pelvis aches, and my eyes burn. There’s flour on my cardigan and cold foam on my apron, and I’m ninety percent caffeine and ten percent spite.
But the pastry case is nearly empty, the cash drawer isn’t embarrassing, and most importantly, the bakery is still standing.
After Marley leaves to handle a work call and Lisa goes home with strict instructions for me to “sit down before your uterus files a formal complaint,” Oliver stays to help close.
He wipes tables while I count the drawer.
The bakery is quiet, with sunlight slanting through the front windows and catching flour particles in the air. My sign still promises FULL DRAMA on the door. Barrett Whitaker’s framed review now lives underneath the counter on a stack of pastry boxes. I refuse to look at it.
But I fail.
“You know, you don’t owe that review anything,” Oliver says. “It may have helped get people in the door, but it’s not why they’ve all come back.”
“I hate that his family is tangled in my business,” I admit.
“Then untangle it.”
“How?”
“One thread at a time.”
“That sounds slow.”
“Most things are.”
“I hate when you’re wise,” I grunt.
“I hate when people notice.”
My phone buzzes again, and I don’t look at it.
When Oliver heads outside with a bag of trash, the silence settles around me. I stand behind the counter, listening to the city outside. Tires on uneven pavement, someone laughing on the sidewalk. The building settles around me like it’s tired, too.
For the first time since Grant’s office, the silence doesn’t feel like punishment.
My phone buzzes again, and this time I look.
BOAT SHOE JUDAS
Please don’t make me chase you.
My stomach twists at the non-apology, and before I can think, I open his contact and block the number.
Oliver comes back in, looking around. He sees my face. “What happened?”
“I blocked him. I feel sick.”
A flicker of something that looks like pride crosses his face. “That can happen when you stop drinking poison, Hal.”
I look at him.
He shrugs. “I read things sometimes.”
“Newspapers?”
“Sometimes. And the internet, but it’s against my values.”
I laugh softly.
He crosses the kitchen and stops a few feet away. Not too close, and not touching. Just close enough. “You’re doing it,” he says.
“Doing what?”
“Coming back.”
That night, after Oliver leaves to open Saints & Sinners and Marley texts me seventeen thousand follow-up reminders disguised as memes, I climb the stairs to the apartment over the bar.
I shower, the pipes screaming the entire time because apparently everything in this building is going through something.
I put on clean leggings, an oversized T-shirt, and fuzzy socks from a Christmas present I shoved into my back seat, then sit cross-legged on my mattress with my sketchbook open in front of me.
For the first time in months, I draw without wondering if it’s too silly.
I draw a coastline and a crooked forest. A town built around a bakery. A road leading away from it.
My phone stays quiet. Grant is blocked. The bakery is locked. My friends are close. The squirrel is alive, and so am I.
This isn’t peace. Not yet. But it’s something, and today, something is enough.