Chapter 12
twelve
. . .
Praise and Other Things
WARREN
The bakery is dark when I arrive, which makes me feel better. I’d much rather be early than late.
Marley had given me a key last night with a blue ribbon tied around the ring and a look that suggested I would absolutely be blamed for anything that went wrong whether I caused it or not.
“For emergencies,” she said.
“What kind of emergencies?”
“Halston-shaped ones.”
It wasn’t helpful, but I took the key anyway.
Which is why I’m standing in Bitter Bloom before sunrise, the bakery that belongs to a woman I have known for about a week and have spent far too much time thinking about.
It would be easier if I only wanted her. Wanting someone is simple. We all want things. Ideally, we wouldn’t want our sisters’ best friends, but life is rarely perfect.
Inside, the kitchen is cold and quiet without the hum of the oven and the scrape of trays. Halston isn’t running around talking to herself, and Dev isn’t yelling about how much he loves the new movie coming out.
It feels empty.
It’s just me, dark counters, stacked bowls, and silence.
I set my bag down on the table and take out my clipboard—a necessity for my trial opening shift.
Halston is going to hate it, but I need the visibility. She can’t shut a clipboard and pretend not to see it. I need the tasks in order, time-blocked, with room for notes.
But despite her hatred for it, I know she’s going to read every word.
I turn on the small overhead light and start to prep.
When I’m done with what I have to do for the time block, I walk around the kitchen and organize, stacking the sheet pans by size and moving the flour bins half a foot closer to the mixer because for some reason there’s been a giant gap between them.
I hear her before I see her.
Keys jingle, the door opens, and footsteps make their way into the kitchen. When she sees me, her eyes are round and her mouth is open as if in a silent scream.
“You’re early,” I say, and she just stares at me, her hand pressed to her oversized blue sweatshirt.
“You’re inside my locked bakery before sunrise with office supplies in your hand.”
“I used a key,” I say, fishing for it in my pocket before holding it up.
Her eyes narrow. “Marley.”
“She said it was for emergencies.”
Halston looks around. “Was a morning shift an emergency?”
I shrug. “I think attempting a mock morning shift is.”
Her mouth opens before her eyes shift, taking in everything around her.
Her mouth closes.
She inhales through her nose like she’s attempting not to commit a felony before she can get her morning coffee.
“Good morning to you too, Master Baker,” she mutters.
Something about the way she says that title makes it sound like it belongs in a joke she’s trying desperately not to finish.
“Good morning, Hal.”
Her eyes jump to mine. “You can’t call me that before coffee, Warren.”
“You’re in a bakery. With a whole coffee setup. In fact, you’re mostly known for your coffee.”
She rubs her temples. “This is bad. I’m making coffee.”
I set the clipboard down before I smile.
The bakery smells faintly of metal and Halston’s soap. I smelled it before, about a week ago. Like vanilla cupcakes. Not sweet enough to be a perfume, but still sweet.
Her hair is damp around her shoulders and darker at the ends, and one wet curl is stuck to her cheek.
I look away.
When she returns with a latte, she grabs her apron off the hook. Placing her coffee on the table, she puts the apron on, and it catches on her hair immediately.
What ensues is a brief, violent struggle between Halston and the apron, with her flailing blindly while the apron becomes more and more tangled.
“Do you need—”
“No.”
The apron finally drops into place, her hair everywhere and her face red.
I ignore it, knowing that’s the safest bet.
“Today is a trial run,” she says as she ties the apron tightly around her waist.
“Yes, it is.”
“You’re not taking over, right?”
I shake my head. “I would never.”
“If I hate this, we stop.”
“Yes.”
“If you make me feel stupid, I’ll cry, and then I’ll be furious that I cried, and then I’ll blame you for both.”
I look at her.
“Why would I ever try to make you feel stupid?”
Sadness flickers across her face before she shakes it off.
“Good,” she says, turning toward her shelves. “Because I’m very busy being brilliant and fragile.”
“Of course.”
Her hand freezes on a mixing bowl as she looks back at me. “What part are you agreeing with?”
“All of it.”
Her lips tighten, and she looks at me for a beat longer before deciding against whatever she was going to say. Instead, she walks to the prep table and looks down at the clipboard. “What is this?”
“Opening schedule. A trial.”
She reads it, and I wait patiently by the ovens.
Her brows climb at every line.
“This is upsetting,” she says.
“It’s a draft.”
“It has times.”
“That’s generally how schedules work, yes.”
I watch as she reads it at least three more times, her face relaxing the more she realizes that it makes sense.
I leave Halston to finish the prep listed in this time slot and start the coffee. My hands need to do something.
The kitchen settles into quiet movement. Water runs, and the coffee machine makes a low clicking noise. I can hear every time Halston goes in and out of the walk-in, and Agatha groans every few minutes.
When Halston pulls the croissant dough out of the fridge and places it on the flour-dusted counter, I lean against the counter and watch her work.
She uses more flour than I would, but that’s manageable. Her hands move quickly at first, but slow down when she catches herself, as if realizing in real time that she’s ahead of schedule.
She looks back at me. “You want me to roll it? Or do you want to?”
“You can.”
“Are you just going to stand there and stare?”
“Yeah.”
“At the dough?”
I pause. “At first.”
Her eyes fly to mine.
“At first?” she repeats.
“I’m evaluating your technique.”
She narrows her eyes at me before turning back. “Sure, King.”
“I am.”
“I absolutely believe you.”
“You don’t,” I say with a small chuckle.
“Nope.”
I know that I need to stop. There are several rules Marley set for us. In fact, she stated them so clearly and intensely that they should be legally binding.
There will be no sleeping together again.
But having fun with her is not sleeping with her.
We’re talking about croissant dough. That’s all.
Still, Halston is in front of me, half-lit by the overhead light, flour on her hands and damp hair falling out of her messy bun, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she rolls the stiff dough out.
And suddenly croissant dough doesn’t feel innocent enough.
“Roll from the center,” I say. “Less pressure on the edges this time.”
She presses the rolling pin to the dough, rolling over it slowly. The pressure is much more even, and it stretches cleanly.
“Good,” I say simply.
Her hands stop.
I look at them, and then her face. “What?”
“You can’t say good like that, Warren.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re enjoying this.”
“I enjoy your technique. Your pressure is better.”
“Why does this sound so dirty?” she whispers angrily before turning back.
She returns the dough to the fridge before pulling out cookie dough. Grabbing the scale, she starts measuring for what looks like the first time in her life.
She places three balls of dough in wildly different sizes onto parchment paper, then weighs each one and trims a little from one side. When each reaches the weight she wants, she looks back at me.
“You’re doing really great,” I say.
She huffs. “Careful. Too much praise and I’ll start thinking you like me.”
After that, we move on to her muffin batter.
The famous banana-vanilla muffins. A fact that I learned against my will from Dev.
I’ve also learned that her customers often discuss these muffins like it has personally helped them through their worst days.
I read the recipe she places on the table while she mashes bananas, and I can feel her watching me from the corner of her eye.
“Is this a trap?” she says finally, after several minutes.
“What?”
“You’re reading my recipe without saying a single thing.”
“You said not to comment on your handwriting.”
She glares. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Your abbreviations aren’t super clear, but the formula is really strong.”
She stops mashing and watches me.
“I like that you use sour cream. A lot of people overdo the banana and lose structure.” I look back at the recipe. “You use more vanilla than most people would.”
She goes still for half a second.
She turns her head slowly. “In the recipe?”
My brows furrow. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
I look at her.
Her lips curve, just barely, and I catch on that she’s trying to make a joke.
And I know that the last thing I need to do is engage.
This is banana muffin matter. It should be one of the safest topics available.
“It says vanilla paste,” I say.
“Yeah. I’ve found that it works best.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I confirm.
“Great.” She nods with enthusiasm. “Thank you for the clarity.”
I look back at the page. “Vanilla gets dismissed too often.”
“Oh, does it?”
“Yeah.”
“As boring?”
“Yep.”
She hums, and I know that I’ve walked into something. And it wasn’t by accident.
“That’s unfortunate,” she says. “People really shouldn’t underestimate vanilla.”
“No, they shouldn’t.”
“Sometimes vanilla has hidden depth.”
I close my eyes for half a second when I hear the smile in her voice.
“Halston.”
“What? I’m agreeing with you. You should be happy.”
“You’re being weird about it.”
“I’m supporting you.”
“You’re making it difficult.”
“That, my friend, sounds like a personal problem.”
I open my eyes to find her watching me, her cheeks slightly pink and her eyes far too bright for someone who’s only talking about muffin batter.
The problem is she knows that I’m not what most people would describe as vanilla.
Not the way people mean it when they whisper it with judgment.