Chapter 10
ten
. . .
Available Until Oliver Loses the Will to Live
WARREN
I don’t like crowds.
I don’t think it’s a character flaw.
Crowds are inefficient. There’s far too much movement, too much noise, and way too many people standing in doorways like they’ve been assigned there.
They gesture with drinks in their hands and abandon chairs in your path.
Many speak loudly over music that’s already far too loud, and then get irritated when no one hears them.
Crowds are poorly managed proof that human beings need more instructions.
Saints & Sinners usually suits Oliver. Although it feels like it’s going through an identity crisis, the bar is comfortable in spite of itself.
Tonight, however, it’s not comfortable.
Tonight, it’s occupied by what feels like the entire Baltimore Vipers team.
Four professional baseball players crowded around a corner table are a crowd. Eight is an event. Tonight, most of the team has come in after a game, still loud from winning. They’re all being treated by other customers like gods, which obviously deeply irritates Oliver.
He stands behind the bar, jaw tight, polishing a glass that doesn’t need polishing. “This is why I don’t believe in sports,” he grunts.
Halston leans beside me at the end of the bar, her eyes bright. “You can’t not believe in sports.”
“I can. I’ve been doing it successfully for years.”
“That’s not how that works.”
He rolls his eyes.
One of the Vipers laughs from the corner and slaps his teammate on the shoulder hard enough that beer foams over the rim of his glass.
Oliver closes his eyes. “Large men in jerseys should not be treated like monuments.”
“They just won!” Halston says.
Oliver’s eyes narrow. “They won a children’s game. They didn’t cure scurvy.”
Marley, standing near the back with her phone already up, laughs. “I’m making that the caption.”
Oliver points at her. “Don’t make me content.”
“You became content when you opened a bar next to a bakery owned by her.” Marley turns her phone toward Halston. “That was your first mistake.”
Halston smiles innocently.
Which is a problem for me.
When Halston smiles like that, the room responds. People lift their heads. Customers lean closer. Strangers smile back, no matter how shitty their day has been. Tired men order second drinks and women laugh louder. Even Oliver somehow looks a little less dead inside when she turns it on him.
I hate that I notice all of this.
But I’ve been noticing it all day.
In the bakery, Halston is always in motion. She’s not chaos, exactly. That may be too strong a word. Too careless, even.
She’s not careless. She’s fast, with no one to contain her. And why would they?
She moves from one idea to the next like each one opens a door and she intends to run through them all before anyone tells her not to. Her systems are terrible. Her instincts are amazing.
Halston’s production schedule offends me personally on a deep level, but her understanding of people is better than anything I could ever measure.
Customers don’t come back because her food and drinks are strange. They come back because she remembers they ordered them.
Mrs. Alvarez doesn’t buy a Men are Decorative at Best latte because it has brown sugar and cinnamon. She buys it because Halston knows her first husband had no purpose beyond decoration and says gold sprinkles are cheaper than alimony.
A college student isn’t ordering three muffins because she can’t get banana anywhere else. She’s ordering them because Halston asked last week how her exam went and remembered that she stress-eats soft textures and offered to give her a sample of a new recipe she’s been working on.
A boy in a Vipers hat came in this afternoon, and she handed him a cookie with orange sugar on it and said it was for good luck. His mom bought six more.
That’s not chaos. It’s building relationships.
She may be unstructured and loud, but it works for her. Mostly.
The Vipers player who laughed looks toward the bar. “Oliver! You got food tonight?”
Oliver stiffens. “No.”
Halston gasps beside me.
I look down at her as she presses one hand against her chest like he’s shot her. There’s flour on her wrist from baking just a few hours ago.
I had noticed it a while ago when she walked in carrying three bakery boxes. She was a woman on a mission.
“Oliver,” she hisses. “You cannot deny hungry athletes food after a game.”
“I can. Watch me.”
“They’re large and vulnerable.”
“They’re overpaid and loud.”
“They need carbs.”
“They need volume control.”
“We can hear you!” a player calls.
Oliver looks at him. “Then lower your voice and prove it.”
The table laughs, and Halston lights up.
I see the idea form on her face before it crosses her lips.
“No,” Oliver says immediately.
She turns to him. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I know that expression.”
“What expression?”
“The one that’s going to cost me time, space, money, or insurance. Or all four.”
Marley steps closer, her phone up. “Wait. Do it again. I need the lead-in.”
Oliver scowls at her. “I will throw your phone into the harbor.”
“You say that because you don’t support women in media,” she mumbles.
“I say it because phones are expensive and you need a threat with weight.”
Halston grabs one of the bakery boxes stacked on the bar and places it in front of her. “Late-night menu test.”
“No,” Oliver says firmly.
“Yes,” Marley says.
I say nothing. My safest strategy all evening.
Halston opens the box. The smell reaches me first.
Butter. Brown sugar. Pepper and what I think is melted cheese. Warm and sharp. She’s been working on these since this afternoon. I watched her test three versions and reject two because one was “too polite” and another “felt like private equity.”
I told her flavors can’t smell like private equity, to which she told me to shut the fuck up.
Inside the box are small, savory pastry twists, golden and glossy, with green herbs baked into the layers and small containers of dark sauce tucked into the corner.
One Viper stands immediately. “What are those?”
Halston smiles. “Victory twists.”
Oliver stares at the ceiling.
The player approaches the bar, drawn by the pastries like a man in a cautionary tale. He’s tall, blond, and wears a plain hoodie over his broad shoulders. He looks young, the way most of the professional baseball players in this city tend to.
“What’s in them?” he asks.
Halston leans both palms on the bar. “Cheddar, caramelized onion, black pepper, a little jalapeno and a mustard-brown sugar glaze.”
The player’s eyes widen. “Damn.”
She picks up a twist with a napkin and hands it to the player. “First one is free if you give me honest feedback.”
The player reaches for it, and she pulls it back.
“And by honest,” she adds, “I mean useful. If you say good and nothing else, I’ll make Oliver explain baseball to you for an hour.”
“I’d rather remove my own appendix,” Oliver mutters.
The player laughs and takes the pastry, biting into it.
Everyone watches him.
But I watch Halston.
Her face is eager and alive with the anxiety of someone who cares far too much to ever pretend otherwise. It’s one of the things I don’t understand about her yet. She’s so unafraid to expose her wanting.
Of approval or a reaction. Even of connection. She hands people pieces of herself and waits with visible hope.
The player chews, and his eyes close. “Oh, hell yes!”
Halston points at him. “I think that counts as useful.”
He swallows. “It’s buttery, but it has that kick to it, you know? And that sauce is insane.”
“Good insane?”
“Like I’d put it on everything.”
She nods. “Excellent.”
He gestures behind him. “Yo! You guys need these!”
The Vipers respond immediately.
Chairs scrape, men rise, the voices get louder, and someone asks if there’s any meat.
He hasn’t met his protein goal for the day.
Someone else asks if they can buy the whole tray.
One player asks Oliver if the bar is “fancy now,” which makes Oliver look like he’s ready to commit violence with a peeler.
Halston is already on the move.
She pulls the two other boxes onto the bar next to the first and starts arranging the pastries on small plates Oliver clearly disapproves of her using. Marley circles everyone with her phone.
“Late-night collab test. Bitter Bloom and Saints & Sinners. Oliver is unhappy, so we know it’s working.”
“Fucking Christ.” Oliver turns away and tends to a customer at the bar.
I notice Halston move before anyone else does. Her eyes slide to Oliver’s before glancing at the chalkboard hanging on the wall that reads Whiskey Flights and Pretzel Bites!
But unfortunately for her, Oliver turns at the exact moment she reaches into her pocket, a chalk marker gripped in her hand.
“No,” Oliver says sternly.
“It’s a menu. It needs a little joy,” she replies.
“My menus don’t need joy.”
She looks at him as if he confessed to a felony before kneeling on a chair in front of the board without a second thought.
I move before my mind has fully decided to, my hand closing around her waist to steady her as she sways.
She freezes, and I do too.
I’m only touching her to prevent her from hurting herself. Nothing more, nothing less.
Except she’s warm and familiar, and I can’t help but feel my dick harden as her beautiful eyes meet mine.
The noise dulls, and all I see is her naked beneath me, her fingers in my hair.
“Warren.” Marley’s voice cuts through the memory.
My hand leaves Halston’s waist immediately, and she grips the chair to steady herself.
“Thank you,” Halston says, clearing her throat. Her cheeks are a distinct shade of pink.
I step back and look at my sister. Her eyes narrow behind her phone.
Oliver rolls his eyes. “I hate this so much.”
Halston begins writing.
LATE NIGHT VICTORY TWISTS
BAR + BAKERY TEST MENU
AVAILABLE UNTIL OLIVER LOSES THE WILL TO LIVE
The Vipers cheer while Oliver mutters something incoherent. Marley laughs, zooming in on the board with her phone.
Halston jumps down, and I watch her adjust her cardigan.