Chapter 6
six
HOLDEN
Laila usually isn’t so free with her touch. It takes time for her to warm up, so it’s hard to tamp down the concern rising in my chest.
She walked into the bakery looking like sunshine, but I could see the clouds in her eyes. I still can. It’s all over her face. Like she’s a walking filter, hiding her weariness from the world. We promised we’d stop pretending, but in this case, I’m not sure she even realizes she’s doing it.
“Ella needed me, so I came,” she murmurs.
I can tell she’s been running on fumes. Maybe it’s because she’s with me, but her body sags against mine, carrying the weight of whatever her mother piled on top of her this time.
Life here never seems like it’s reached its full potential until she’s here.
Like when you add sea salt to a chocolate chip cookie to elevate the flavor profile.
She’s the missing ingredient this town doesn’t realize it’s craving.
I move to step away, but her grip tightens, cementing me in place.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
She tips her head back enough to give me a half smile. “The short answer is…sort of.”
That’s Laila-speak for no.
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best I’ve got at the moment.”
“Okay,” I say.
There’s no sense in pushing Laila, because she’ll either tell me what’s going on or she won’t. Pushing will only make her draw into herself further. So I’ll give her the one thing I know she can use right now: a soft place to land.
I reach for her hand, my thumb sliding across the scar on her thumb that she got in high school.
It’s the one autumn I spent on the farm with all of them—only because we all went on a field trip—and there was a pumpkin cutting contest. She was determined to win, and she was cutting into the rind all wrong. Her hand slipped.
Now I can’t stop touching the reminder of that moment, thinking of all the ways our lives are intertwined. This scar is proof that Laila is both soft and stubborn—and my heart belonged to her before she ever knew it.
The flash in her eyes when she told me to mind my own business might’ve been the first flicker of love for me—she was, and still is, a challenge I want to protect.
“Movie?” I offer.
She nods, and that’s all it takes.
We slip into a rhythm that feels more like a memory than a routine. After all, we usually only do this once a year. I wait so she can slip her impossible heels off her feet, then lead her to the couch so she can do her favorite thing in her world. Eat junk food and watch rubbish.
I tug a blanket she gave me off the back of the couch, then fluff it so it lies across her. Her eyes lift to mine, sad little saucers of green and brown.
She tries to apologize for existing. “Your workday isn’t over—”
“Don’t do that,” I murmur. I brace my hand on the arm of the couch and lean into her. “Let me take care of you tonight.”
She chews her lip, which is how I know the fight is with herself and not with me. “I don’t know how to let you.”
“That’s okay.” I hand her the remote like it’s a treaty and a promise. “Turn on a show or a movie. I’ll go downstairs and make sure the rest of the shift is covered, or I’ll close up the shop. And then we can pick up food. Or order in. Whatever you want to do.”
She doesn’t answer, just takes the remote and curls tighter beneath the blanket.
I head downstairs to close up and reconsider my decision when McKenna’s eyes settle on mine. She waits until I’m closer before she pounces.
“Is she okay?”
“I think she’s trying to be,” I say.
“Is it her wicked momster? That’s not nearly as fun to say without the step part.”
I bite back a laugh. “Kenna, you shouldn’t talk about her mom that way.”
Even if I agree on every level that something is seriously off where her mom is concerned. My knowledge about her is limited, but I know Laila well enough to know that she keeps it that way on purpose.
A chill runs down my spine.
I’m pretty sure the less I know, the better.
“I only call it like I see it,” she sighs. “I already closed the bakery.”
Tension slides from my shoulders. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Look. I know you treat Laila with kid gloves and you prefer to keep her hidden away from everyone, but a blind man could see that her mask is half permanent.”
“I’m not trying to keep her hidden away, Kenna,” I mumble. “We just usually only have—”
Her head bobs, her wild black curls joining the movement. “A weekend. I get it. But Holden, that woman needs a friend. Or a bunch of friends.”
For a pain in my rear, my sister can be wildly astute when she wants to be.
“I’m her friend,” I say.
“Mmmm, no. You’re the love of her life.”
I swallow. She’s never called me that—not exactly. But her actions somewhat support what McKenna is saying. Laila has always been more about actions than words anyway—I’m the one with the words.
“I can’t be both?”
McKenna’s smile softens. “You can. But she needs other people, too. There are certain things only another woman would understand.”
“Kenna’s been reading those Aurora Thorne paperbacks again,” I mutter to myself. Half of her advice sounds like something out of a fairytale.
She’s the sibling I’m closest to, mostly because of age—but also because I’m nothing like my brothers.
We all have great relationships, but we just don’t click.
Not like Logan and Alex do. I happily stepped into the bakery space, living in the little apartment over it, and Logan is out playing professional football for the Frost Giants, and Alex is a bartender for the Jolly Roger Rum Bar.
McKenna does a little of everything, including helping at the bakery sometimes. We’re both homebodies, and my brothers are barely ever home.
But it’s not like I’ve never talked to her about Laila. There’s just a lot she doesn’t know about us.
She’s a little brighter when I come back through the door a little later, hands full of her favorite foods from the taco truck—and, because I can’t help myself, a pack of those store-bought sugar cookies she loves and I think are disgusting.
We watch the police drama she’s turned on and eat in comfortable silence.
As if this is perfectly normal for a Tuesday evening after work.
I could get used to this.
I want this.
Once we’re done, I gather up our trash and, because I’m too wired by her sudden appearance to sit still, I pull a container of dough out of the fridge.
I’ve got a habit of bringing extra up here from the bakery.
Not really because I want or need it, but maybe I subconsciously am hoping for exactly this.
For Laila to show up on a random weekday, and I can bake her cookies.
As I’m rolling it out on the counter, she gets up and pads over to the other side of the counter, perching on a stool to watch. Laila barefoot in my kitchen with her hair knotted on top of her head is a memory that’s going to brand me forever.
She’s wearing my old Frost Giants sweatshirt—the one I left spread across the bottom of the bed.
It hangs off one shoulder, sleeves swallowed halfway past her hands, and it hits me harder than it should.
I don’t know when she started borrowing my clothes again, but I’m not about to ask for them back.
It doesn’t take long for the kitchen to smell like cinnamon and sugar. She absently traces circles in the flour at the edge of the dough, like she’s doodling in the margins of a notebook.
“You look exhausted, honey,” I murmur.
She looks up, eyes soft. “I guess it’s a good thing you have connections: a best friend that deals in caffeine and a whole family that deals in sugar.”
“Technically, Quinn is Kenna’s best friend,” I say.
She shrugs. “Details. Once Upon a Brew is sort of home away from home.”
It was always where everyone hung out in high school, not that I had time to partake in the activities most high school kids did. But I made time when Laila asked, and I suppose it stuck.
“McKenna asked about you. Downstairs.”
“She’s probably worried about you,” she says. “I’m not usually here in the fall. I promise I won’t keep you from work.”
I stop rolling and plant both hands on the counter. “Kenna knows I’m an adult who can make my own decisions. She’s worried about you.”
Laila blinks in surprise. “Me?”
“You’re not as covert as you think you are. Plus, rumors are already running rampant about your sister and Luke. Everyone is on guard, La. They know something is up.”
She’s quiet for a minute, likely processing everything I just said.
I promised myself I’d give her more time to settle in before I prodded her for information, but between the extra work Vera dumped on me for Homecoming, Laila’s surprise appearance, and the general stress that surrounds this time of year—well, it’s a lot.
“Mom pushed me to come here and help Ella.” She brackets the word help with finger quotes and sighs. “Ella doesn’t need help. I’ve seen the plans—it all looks perfect.”
“Come roll dough,” I say, offering her the rolling pin.
“You trust me with dough?”
“You’d be surprised what I trust you with. Besides, it’s a good way to work all this out while you talk to me.”
She pushes away from the counter and comes around to my side, and I hand her an apron—a holiday one with gingerbread all over it—and she laughs as I tie it around her waist. With renewed energy, she attacks the dough, rolling it with far more aggression than necessary.
But I don’t say anything. I just watch. And listen.
“Technically, she didn’t tell me to come. She just made a lot of snide remarks, and my spidey sense told me I needed to intervene. I can’t figure out what Mom’s endgame is, but I don’t like the way she’s fixated on this wedding. It’s not normal.”
“What’s not normal about it?” I ask.
There’s a soft furrow between her brows as she rolls and talks. Flour has somehow smudged her cheek, and she’s got more color than she’s had all evening.
“I don’t know,” she huffs out. “I’m used to the way she micro-manages everything, but this feels different. This is going to sound crazy, but it’s like she wants Ella to mess it up somehow.”
“Why would she want that, La?”
She smacks the dough with the rolling pin. “I don’t know. But I have a plan.”
I grin, despite the growing unease in my belly. “Of course you do.”
“I already told Ella, but I’m going to feed her a fake wedding.”
“A what now?”
She tucks stray hair behind her ear, and I see a flash of the girl I knew in high school. “Mom complained that the wedding is too small, and that since Gilded Vows is attached to Holly Everheart, it needs to be more grand. So, I’ll give her what she’s asking for.”
“That seems like a lot of extra work.”
She shrugs again—like it’s her go-to answer for everything at the moment.
“If it gets her off Ella’s back, it’s worth the trouble. So,” she blows out a breath, “I’m not sure how much we’ll get to do this.”
“It’s busy season—I’m pretty swamped too.”
She stops rolling and looks up at me. “We’ve never done this before.”
“We’ve done all of this before.”
“Not on a Tuesday night. Not without a clock at the end of the trip,” she says.
I straighten. “There’s no clock?”
“Not like the usual one. I’m here for sure through Holly’s wedding on the third.”
My mind does vaults to calculate how many days that is. Ten days. I want to ask about after, but I also don’t want to push my luck. We’ve never spent this much time together. We saw each other every day in high school, but that was kid stuff.
This is something entirely different. And huge.
“Then we make the best of it. We fit each other in when we can.”
“I’m staying at the Enchanted Hollow Bed-and-Breakfast.” She smiles.
I grin back. “Sam might’ve texted me already.”
“Nothing stays quiet here, does it?”
“Never in the history of ever.”
She looks back down at the dough and grimaces. “Holden, I murdered it.”
“It’s fixable, honey,” I say, gathering her in my arms.
Her laugh—a real one this time—catches on a sigh. “You always say that.”
“That’s because it’s always true.”
She leans into me, tired but present, and I press a kiss to her temple. This is my idea of domestic perfection. Baking in my kitchen, curling up on the couch with Laila after.
If we can squeeze time like this out of the next ten days, then maybe forever isn’t as hard to reach as I thought.
“Give me the mess,” I whisper into her hair. “No more highlight reels, remember?”
The oven chimes, and cinnamon blooms through the room—her smile lifts, unguarded. If hope had a scent, it would be this. We’ll leave our own breadcrumbs and see where they lead.
She nods against my chest; it’s small, but it’s a choice.