Chapter 29
One scone and half a cup of hot chocolate later, Brooklyn showed up.
“Can I talk to you?” Brooklyn asked, looking at me specifically in the group of ladies.
I frowned in confusion but got up from my chair. I glanced at Jazz, who was grinning.
“What? What do you know that I don’t?” I demanded.
“You’ll find out,” she said.
“It’s nothing bad,” Brooklyn said with a smile. “But it’s my thing, not Jazz’s.” She ran a hand down the back of the baby slung across her chest.
I wondered how the heck I was going to take care of two babies at the same time. Even with Savage by my side, I would still feel overwhelmed.
“Follow me,” Brooklyn said to me. “How are the clothes working out for you?”
“They’re perfect. Thanks so much.”
“No thanks needed. Your loaf of sourdough that Savage brought me was thanks enough.”
Her praise warmed my heart.
I trailed after her to the back of the kitchen. She went to a flight of stairs and slowly began to climb it. I followed her without a word.
“This building used to belong to my father,” she explained as we continued to ascend the stairs. “I inherited it when he passed. It used to be his leather workshop, and upstairs was a storage room. When I decided to open a bakery, I had the storage room converted into an apartment.”
She pulled out a set of keys from her pocket and unlocked the door.
“It’s not big,” she explained. “But it’s yours if you want it. For you, Savage and the babies.”
I looked around the apartment. It had a small kitchen and a bedroom, with a door to a bathroom cracked open so I could see inside.
It was quaint and cozy, and I couldn’t explain it, but it immediately felt like home.
“You’d rent the apartment to me? Really?” I asked, turning to her.
“Well, that’s the rub . . . I won’t rent it to you,” she replied.
“But you just said?—”
“Hang on, let me explain. I want something more from you than rent,” she said. “I want your homemade sourdough.”
“Huh?”
“I want it baked fresh on the premises,” she said.
“But you make homemade bread on site already.”
“Yeah, and it’s good. But yours is better. And I want the best.”
“So wait, let me get this straight; you’re offering me a rent-free apartment in exchange for making sourdough?”
“Yeah.” She beamed. “It’ll be a lot of sourdough, at some point. I don’t just plan on using it for the café. I plan on selling it by the loaf.”
“You really think people will buy my bread?” I asked in surprise.
“I do. I’d buy it myself,” she said. “I have to warn you though, deliveries come really early. If you agree to stay here, you’ll hear the trucks. And you’ll probably hear the sounds of the café too. It might be a big change after the quiet of your current place, but there you have it.”
Tears constricted my throat. “Jazz texted you, didn’t she?”
She nodded.
“Why are you offering this place to me?” I asked quietly. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” she said. “I know what it’s like to want to do it on your own. I know what it’s like to think you have to. But you don’t. I know you have Savage, and that’s wonderful, but you have me and Willa, and the club, too.”
I hadn’t spoken to Willa since having dinner at her house. And I had no idea the state of Savage and Duke’s relationship because of me.
Brooklyn looked around. “So, the apartment?”
I sighed. “I’ll take it.”
“I’ll drive you to work tomorrow,” Cozy said as she shut the passenger door. “Or rather, you can drive us to Three Kings in my car and then I’ll pick you up when you’re done. Then you can drive us home.”
“Who needs a boyfriend when I’ve got you?” I teased.
She smiled. “Well, I won’t have sex with you, so there’s that.”
I groaned.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just another way to miss him. Ten days is a long time for him to be gone.”
“He’s good then?” She waggled her brows.
“Can you lower your voice?” I demanded. “Or at least wait until we’re inside before we have this conversation?”
She shrugged and then punched in the door code. “Let’s go to your apartment. I’d invite you to mine, but all I’ve got is diet soda and some crackers.”
“You don’t cook?” I asked.
“Not really. I bake. But cooking is different.”
“Well, now I know how to repay you for letting me drive your worm-jerky-mobile. I’ll cook you dinners.”
“No, stop, don’t,” she said drolly. “It’s too much.”
I giggled. “That was convincing.”
We tromped up the stairs and I whipped out my keys but came to a halt when I saw a bouquet of orange and yellow marigolds on my doorstep.
“Someone sent you flowers,” Cozy said.
“Yes, I see that,” I said.
“Savage?”
I leaned down and picked up the bouquet and handed my keys to Cozy. She opened the door for us, and I walked into the apartment and set the bouquet onto the counter and then reached for the card.
Miss you, babe. ~Savage
My heart flipped over in my chest.
“Ugh, you’ve got a dopey grin on your face,” Cozy groaned and then spoiled it with a grin.
She went to the tea kettle and filled it with water before sticking it on the stove and turning on a burner.
“These are gorgeous,” I said, burying my nose in the fragrant bouquet.
“Are you going to tell him you’re moving into Brooklyn’s place?” she asked. “Or let it be a surprise?”
“I’ll tell him. I mean, I’ll be moving all his things to the new place.”
“I can’t believe you’re moving out just when we became friends.”
The tea kettle started whistling so I went to the cabinet and pulled out two mugs. “Wanna try the tea you gave me?”
“Sure.”
I fixed us two cups of tea and we took our mugs over to the couch. I sat down and a wave of exhaustion poured over me. “We’ll still see each other all the time.”
“No, we won’t,” she said, her tone sad. “You’ll start nesting and get all wrapped up in Savage and then when the babies come?—”
“Hey, you can’t shake me now,” I said with a tender smile. “I’m not used to having friends. I didn’t have any growing up and now I’m sort of collecting them. Sorry, but you’re stuck with me.”
“You didn’t have friends growing up? Really? Were you a loner?”
I nibbled my lip when I said, “My parents were very strict and religious growing up. And when I was fourteen, they moved our family to a farm.”
“Where are they now?” she asked. “Or are you not close to them?”
“They died a week after my eighteenth birthday,” I said, looking away from her.
“Oh, Evie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I asked.”
A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. “It’s okay. It was a . . . strained relationship but they were my parents, you know?”
“Yeah.”
Thankfully she dropped the subject.
We sipped our tea in silence, and I wondered if I’d said too much.
She eventually went back to her place, giving me some time to myself. I tidied up the apartment, every now and again sniffing the bouquet.
My phone buzzed and I leapt at it with excitement.
“Well, hello,” I greeted with a wide smile.
“Hey, babe,” Savage said. “How are you doing?”
“Terrible.” My tone was light. “You haven’t even been gone that long and I can’t handle it.”
“I feel the same way. You get the flowers?”
“Yeah, they’re beautiful.”
“Just like you.”
My heart melted in a puddle, and I nearly cried because of my hormones, but I somehow reined it in.
“So you should be proud of me?—”
“I’m proud of you.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to tell you,” I said with a laugh.
“Tell me.”
“Well, I finally met Cozy and we’re friends now. She’s even giving me driving lessons in her car.”
“I’m glad you guys are friends, but why are you driving her car? What’s wrong with yours?”
“The battery is dead.”
“What the fuck? It’s brand new.”
“I’m saying.”
“I’ll text a prospect to get it taken care of, but the minute it’s fixed, I want you practicing in that car. It’s a fucking tank and I know you’ll be safe on the road.”
“Okay. But there’s more.”
“More? What else is there?”
“We’re moving into Brooklyn’s apartment over the bakery. It’s perfect for us, Savage. It’s homey and quaint, and Jazz and Brielle will be right downstairs most mornings, which I love. And Brooklyn said she won’t charge us rent, if I bake sourdough on site so she can sell it.”
“I told you not to worry about rent,” he said.
“Please, Savage. I need this.” My tone was soft, pleading. “I need to know I can take care of myself. I need you to know that too.”
He sighed. “If I gain twenty pounds because we live above a bakery and we’ve got a steady supply of baked goods, you can’t get mad at me.”
I giggled. “We can call it sympathy weight. Because I’m going to gain twenty pounds easy. Probably fifty.”
“You’ll be beautiful,” he assured me.
“You say the perfect things,” I sighed. “I wish you weren’t missing our baby class. I don’t want to go without you. Maybe I’ll take Cozy.”
“I got the class postponed.”
“You what?”
“Yeah, I called and asked if she could push it back.”
“How did you make that happen?” I demanded.
“Magic,” he joked. “I threw myself on her mercy and said I was a first-time dad and that I didn’t want to miss anything. I must’ve said the right thing, because she delayed the class.”
“Savage . . .”
“Evie, I gotta get back on the road. I’ll call you tonight from the motel, and babe . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Be naked. We’re going to have some fun together.”