Chapter 2 #2
As basic as it is, her answer does more than she knows to ease the ever-present tension in my gut when it comes to this bakery and her.
Hailey returns, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Nick. Apparently, our parents donate them every year, but don’t put it as an order in the system since we don’t get paid.”
Rachel makes a quick sound of exasperation before stopping herself and turning away.
Hailey holds her hands out helplessly. “We don’t have the cookies.”
Ah, shit. My first job is in the crapper. Still, I don’t want Rachel and Hailey to feel bad about it. It’s not their fault.
“No sweat,” I tell them. “I’ll pick some up at—”
“Don’t say the grocery store,” Rachel says, turning back toward me, her finger pointing accusingly. “And we honor our promises. Even if we didn’t know we made them.”
“I… Okay.” I’ll go along with whatever she says.
“How are we going to make five hundred cookies?” Hailey murmurs to her sister. “Should I call Sydney?”
Rachel bites her lip. “No, she deserves her day off. I’ll make it work. I always do.”
A couple comes in and I step aside so they can browse the pastry case. As Hailey answers their questions, Rachel runs a hand through her dark hair, wisps of it escaping her ponytail, and closes her eyes, the lines bracketing her mouth suddenly appearing more pronounced.
“I can help.” The words escape before I can snatch them back. What am I doing? She already rejected my offers of help yesterday, first to examine what went wrong with the oven, then to clean up. “If you want,” I add lamely.
She gives a half-smile. “I don’t make customers help with their own orders.”
“Well, it’s technically not an order. It’s not in the system.”
That earns me a slightly wider smile, almost like it’s against her will, but I’ll take it, fist pumping the air on the inside.
“Don’t you have to get back to the fire station? I can deliver them later.”
“It’s my day off.”
She blows out a breath. “Even worse. You shouldn’t be working on your day off.”
I shrug. “Yeah, but I just dumped a lot of extra work on you. It’s the least I can do.”
She hesitates, biting at her lip again as she stares at the double doors to the kitchen. “Normally, I’d never say yes. But five hundred…” She makes a helpless noise. “Come on.”
I catch Hailey’s look of surprise as I follow her sister to the back.
“What cookies are we making?” Rachel asks, retightening her apron strings. She hands me a spare apron hanging on a wall hook, and I quickly put it on, copying the way she does it with the strings looped around the back and tied in the front, then put on the gloves she hands me next.
“I have no idea,” I admit. “Chief didn’t give many details.”
She takes a deep breath. “Okay. Snickerdoodles it is. Kids like those.”
Sure. Whatever she thinks is best.
She tells me we can do four batches of 125 cookies, then sets me to work lining trays with parchment paper while she does some quick calculations to figure out ingredient amounts.
“Okay, ten blocks of butter,” she murmurs and when she pulls them out of the walk-in cooler, my eyes nearly bug out. That’s an obscene amount.
She sets a portion of already softened butter aside and dumps it in an oversized stand mixer, setting it to low. “Can you measure out six cups of sugar?” she asks, gesturing to a shelving rack in the corner with labeled airtight containers.
I do as she asks and watch her slowly add the sugar in to the mixer.
“Can you get me ten eggs? They’re in the cooler.”
Ten? Jesus? And that’s just for this batch? How much is this all going to cost her in ingredients alone?
She instructs me on what to do next for the dry ingredients, measuring them out and whisking them together in the biggest bowl I’ve ever seen while she adds the eggs to her butter and sugar.
Though our conversation is sparse and purely cookie-related, I find myself relaxing the longer we continue, like maybe I can actually be around her without spazzing. God, does she have any clue about the crush I had on her back in high school?
I sat behind her in ninth grade algebra, and I spent more time captivated by the fall of her long, dark hair than I ever was about equations. She kept it in a ponytail every day, the same as she’s wearing it now, and sometimes the ends would brush my desk.
I vividly imagined wrapping my hand around the thick mane and gently tugging, desperate to see how she’d react, if she’d finally notice me, with no real intention of actually doing it. Back then, there was a lot I didn’t do. I was an observer, not a doer.
And the things I did, I’d give anything to take back.
“So how’d you get roped into this?” she asks, startling me out of my reverie. “Since it’s your day off.”
I keep whisking the dry ingredients, blending it all together. “I have to help with fundraising for the fire station.”
Her brows raise. “Voluntold?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, something like that. I’m even in charge of planning our next fundraiser.
” There’s another beat of silence, and I push past my natural instinct to leave it at that.
When will I ever have a chance to talk to Rachel like this again?
“It’s actually part of my punishment. I broke protocol putting out the fire here the way I did. ”
Her forehead wrinkles. “What’d you do?”
“I…” Shit. I shouldn’t have told her that. I should be making myself look good in front of her. Not like an idiot. “I wasn’t thinking right. Just followed Sydney here without my gear or telling anyone at the station.” Another pause. “Guess I’m lucky I didn’t get suspended.”
She’s quiet, concentrating on breaking the eggs before she responds. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah?” It’s all I can seem to say, as her small smile directed my way is a shock to my chest.
“I wouldn’t have anyone to help me with these cookies, otherwise.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say. I still can’t believe she let me help her. That she didn’t kick me out the moment she saw me in the bakery, even if I put out that fire.
It doesn’t make up for what I did.
That firecracker going off in the wrong direction. The dry leaves piled against the weathered wooden side of the bakery acting as kindling. And the sudden wind fanning the flames, making conditions just right.
I’d stared at the growing flames, horrified, unable to stop it. That time of my life is hazy, so soon after Mom’s death, but I remember that moment crystal clear. The panic that should have made me run, but instead kept me rooted to the spot, the fire feeding it.
Not wanting to go home to a husk of a father. Instead, considering stepping forward. The flames were warm, and I was so cold inside.
The direction of my thoughts had finally propelled me to move, appalled and disturbed, running as fast as I could down the alley behind the bakery to the fire station two blocks away.
I found out later Rachel and her family had been inside their apartment upstairs at the time.
The memory sickens me all over again and I set my bowl down, taking a moment to compose myself.
She’s over there working at the mixer, unaware of my thoughts. Unaware that I wish I could make things up to her.
Being forced to do community service at the fire station after juvie had turned my life around in a lot of ways. But one thing I could never bring myself to do was go to the bakery again.
To face her.
Rachel will always be a what-if. But this time…
Well, maybe this time, I won’t completely fuck it up.