Chapter 37 Piper
Icouldn't stop thinking about his hand.
A week since the almost-kiss and I could still feel the ghost of it. Hovering near my face, not quite touching, trembling slightly like he was holding himself back with everything he had.
Can I—?
He hadn't finished the question, but he hadn't needed to. I knew what he was asking, and I knew what I wanted to answer.
And I'd stepped back anyway.
I rolled over in bed, punched my pillow, tried to force my brain to shut up. It was 5:15 AM and I had to be at the bakery in an hour. I needed sleep, not this endless loop of what if I hadn't moved and what if I'd just let him and would his mouth still taste the same.
The worst part? I didn't regret saying no. I regretted wanting to say yes.
I'd spent eighteen months building walls. Eighteen months convincing myself I was fine alone, that I didn't need him, that I'd moved on. And he'd nearly demolished all of it with one almost-kiss in my bakery after closing.
My phone sat on the nightstand, screen dark. I hadn't heard from him since that night, but I hadn't really expected to. Liam was respecting my boundaries like he always did now.
Which was exactly what I'd asked for.
So why did it feel like loss?
I grabbed my phone, squinted at the screen. Pulled up my calendar to check today's catering orders.
November 17th.
My stomach dropped.
November 17th was his birthday.
I stared at the date for a full minute. The day I used to plan weeks in advance—reservations at his favorite restaurant, a cake from scratch, something thoughtful wrapped in paper he'd tear through like a kid on Christmas morning.
This year I'd completely forgotten it was coming.
I set my phone down, picked it up again, then put it back.
Texting him felt like... what? A step forward? A step back? A step somewhere I wasn't sure I was ready to go?
But ignoring it felt cruel. We weren't together, but we weren't strangers either. We were… something. And that something probably warranted a happy birthday text.
I got out of bed, made coffee, stared at my phone some more.
The problem was Maya had blocked his number after the breakup, and I hadn’t bothered with unblocking it.
I’d thought about it, of course, but Maya woudn’t have it.
One of those self-preservation moves she had insisted on while I ugly-cried on her couch.
You need to heal, Pipes. That means no drunk texting at 2 AM.
I pulled up my blocked contacts, found his name, then hesitated with my thumb over the unblock button.
This felt… significant. Like opening a door I'd deadbolted shut.
I unblocked him before I could overthink it, then stared at the empty text thread for another two minutes.
Finally, before I could lose my nerve:
Happy birthday!
I hit send. Immediately wanted to throw my phone into the ocean.
The response came faster than I expected.
Thanks. You're up early.
I glanced at the clock. 5:32 AM.
Could say the same about you. Swim day?
Nope. Busy day at the station. No rest for the wicked
Something about that made my chest hurt. I typed back before I could stop myself.
Any big plans today?
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
Working a double. Pretty low-key.
I read it twice. Working a double… and that was it. No dinner plans, no celebration with friends, just another shift at the station.
That's it? Just work?
Yeah. Beats sitting in my apartment staring at the walls.
The words landed heavy. He was spending his birthday alone, working because he had nothing better to do.
I set my phone down and kooked at my kitchen. At my stand mixer and the ingredients I kept stocked for exactly this kind of impulse.
I could bake him something. It’d just be a small gesture. Drop it off at the station when he wasn't there, leave it with whoever was on duty.
Nothing dramatic, and surely nothing that required conversation or explanations.
Just... something that said I remembered.
Maya walked into my apartment at 6:47 PM, took one look at what I was doing, and stopped dead.
"Is that chocolate-espresso?"
I didn't look up from sifting cocoa powder. "I gave you a key for emergencies."
"This is an emergency." She set her purse down with the kind of deliberate slowness that meant I was in trouble. "You're making his cake."
"It's just a cake."
"It's the cake. The one you used to make him every year.
The one with the espresso buttercream that took you four hours and made the whole apartment smell like a fancy coffee shop.
" She leaned against the counter, arms crossed.
"So let me ask again: why are you making your cheating ex-fiancé his favorite birthday cake at seven o'clock at night after working all day? "
"It's his birthday."
"Yeah, and? It was also his birthday last year. You didn't bake him shit then. You got drunk on tequila and burned a photo of him in my sink."
"That was your idea."
"And it was therapeutic." She grabbed an apple from my fruit bowl, bit into it. "So what changed?"
I cracked an egg into the mixing bowl, watched the yolk break and bleed into the batter. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess. Or… everything."
"Super helpful, thanks."
"He's been coming by the bakery. We're... talking. It's been good."
"Good like 'civil customer' good or good like 'I'm catching feelings again' good?"
I didn't answer. Instead, I turned on the mixer.
Maya raised her voice over the whir. "Piper Fucking Hayes, are you catching feelings?"
I turned off the mixer. "I unblocked his number this morning."
"Oh my God."
"And I texted him happy birthday."
"Oh my God."
"And he's spending the day alone working a double shift with no plans and it made me sad, okay?
" The words came out sharper than I meant them to.
"It made me sad that he's alone on his birthday.
So I'm making him a cake. I'm going to drop it at the station when he's not there and leave. That's it. End of story."
Maya studied me for a long moment, apple forgotten in her hand. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "You still love him."
"I don't—" I hesitated. "I don't know what I feel."
"But you feel something."
"Yeah. I feel something."
She sighed, tossed her apple core in the trash, then came around the counter to stand next to me. "Okay. I'm going to say this once, and then I'm going to shut up and help you make this stupidly complicated cake."
"Maya—"
"Just... be careful, okay?" She bumped my shoulder with hers. "I've seen you broken and I don't want to see it again. And if he fucks this up, I'm going to set his truck on fire."
"That's arson."
"That's love, baby." She grabbed the vanilla extract. "Now show me how to make this fancy-ass buttercream before I regret it."
The cake sat in a white bakery box on my passenger seat, secured with a seatbelt like it was an actual person.
I'd already second-guessed this decision four times. Once while frosting it. Once while writing "Happy Birthday" in careful script across the top. Once while boxing it up. And now, driving through Riverside at 8:30 PM, heading toward Station 47.
My hands were sweating on the steering wheel.
This was a normal thing to do, nothing special about it. People dropped off baked goods at fire stations all the time. It was practically a cliché. I was just another grateful citizen thanking the local heroes with sugar and butter.
Except… I wasn't.
I was a woman driving across town with her ex-fiancé's favorite cake, hoping he'd understand what it meant without her having to say it out loud.
The plan was simple: park, walk in, hand it to whoever was at the front desk, say "This is for Captain Sullivan,” and leave. No conversation, no awkward explanations. Just a gesture, clean and simple.
I turned onto Oak Street and Station 47 appeared ahead—red brick, three bay doors, lights on in the common room windows.
My heart was doing something complicated in my chest.
I could still turn around, drive home, and eat this entire cake myself. There was still time for me to pretend I'd never had this stupid idea.
But I didn't turn around.
Instead, I pulled into the parking lot, looking for a spot near the entrance.
And that's when I saw him.
Liam stood near his truck in the side lot, talking to a woman.
She was attractive—dark hair, well-dressed, professional-looking in a way that made my stomach clench.
They were standing close, heads bent toward each other like they were discussing something important.
He held a gift bag in one hand. Nice paper, tissue paper poking out the top.
The woman said something and he smiled. It wasn’t the careful smile he'd been giving me lately, but something easier. More relaxed.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel and I focused on the bag he was holding. It had to be a gift, the kind you get from someone who matters.
She touched his arm, the touch brief and casual. It spoke of comfort between them. Liam didn't pull away, just kept talking, gesturing with his free hand while the gift bag dangled from the other.
My foot found the brake without me telling it to.
I sat there, engine idling, watching them. She laughed at something he said. He looked down at the bag in his hand, then back at her, said something that made her nod enthusiastically.
My chest felt hollow.
I didn't know who she was, but I knew exactly what this was. A woman bringing him something on his birthday. Him standing in a parking lot with a gift, smiling at her in a way that suggested this wasn't their first conversation. This wasn't casual.
He'd said he was working a double. Said it was just another birthday, low-key, nothing special.
But he hadn't mentioned her.
Maybe he hadn't wanted to. Maybe it wasn't any of my business anymore.
Maybe while I'd been slowly opening up, carefully letting him back in, he'd been moving forward. Moving on.
With someone else.
I put the van in reverse, backing out as quietly as possible before he could turn around and see me sitting there like a fool.
The cake shifted slightly in its box. "Happy Birthday" written in careful script across pristine white frosting. Four hours of work, eighteen months of baggage, and one stupid, hopeful gesture that suddenly felt like the most humiliating thing I'd ever done.
I drove home with blurred vision, hands shaking on the wheel, throat so tight I could barely breathe.
The cake sat in its box on my passenger seat, perfect and useless.
I didn't let myself cry until I was inside my apartment with the door locked behind me.
Then I cried for everything: for the cake I'd made, for the almost-kiss that haunted me, for the hope I'd let myself feel, for the woman in the parking lot who got to smile at him on his birthday while I sat alone in my kitchen at midnight, staring at a chocolate-espresso cake I couldn't bring myself to throw away.
Maya's warning echoed in my head: Be careful. I don't want to see you broken again.
Too late.
I was already breaking.