10. Daisy
DAISY
I’m elbow-deep in cinnamon dough when my friend Zelda raps on the front window of the bakery, her signature staccato knock edged with impatience.
I mutter a minor hex to keep the dough in its proofing bowl, wipe my hands on my apron, and unlock the door, letting in a burst of late-afternoon chill—and even more of Zelda’s irrepressible energy.
Zelda’s cheeks are pink from the walk up the hill, and she’s panting, but her eyes lock onto me with the predatory focus of someone who’s heard a juicy rumor and won’t rest until it’s wrung dry.
“You look like you’re bracing for a hurricane,” she says, her gaze darting from the flour-crusted sleeves of my apron to my face.
Her tone is as bright and eager as a puppy’s, so I can’t help but smile.
“Maybe I am. You want coffee?”
“Not unless you’re adding whiskey. My calves are killing me.”
She plops herself onto the counter stool and props her feet on the brass rail below.
“So, Daisy…how’s your emotional forecast? Sunny with a chance of Enoch?”
“Ha. More like gale-force awkward.” I pour us both coffee before answering. “He’s coming over for dinner tonight. Here. I'm cooking.”
Zelda gasps dramatically.
“Oh, we're past dating. We've advanced to homemade meals.”
“I know.” I groan into my mug. “That somehow feels even scarier.”
I add the merest wisp of clover honey to my coffee and lean against the counter, cradling the mug between my palms.
“It feels...official somehow. Like we're pretending to be actual adults who have dinner together. I don't even know what that means for someone like him.”
Zelda’s phone pings, but she silences it without looking.
“You get to decide what it means. You, Daisy Flowers, with your heart on your sleeve and your hair in a bakery bun. You call the shots.”
“Thanks, but I feel like I need a user manual. Or better yet, a magical cheat code.” I raise my voice toward Clover's office. “Can you give me a potion for confidence?”
From the back room, Clover answers before I even see her.
“You don't need a potion. You need a plan.”
She pokes her head through the office doorway, gives me a knowing look, then disappears again.
Zelda immediately takes over.
“Okay. What's the plan?”
She folds her hands on the counter like she's leading a strategy meeting.
“We use the old Thistlebrook method. Step one: wear something that makes you feel like you could take over the world. Step two: laugh at his weird jokes. Step three: look him in the eyes until he blushes.”
“Demons don't blush,” I point out. “At least, not like people do.”
“Oh, they absolutely do.” Zelda grins. “I heard the tips of their ears turn pinkish-white.”
I blink.
Immediately my mind replays the day Enoch leaned over my shoulder to correct a spreadsheet, the very edges of his ears turning the faintest cherry-blossom pink.
“You're kind of evil for knowing that.”
“I'm observant,” Zelda says smugly. “Which is why you keep me around.”
A moment later Clover reappears, her hair a wild tangle, cinnamon-dusted spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She studies us like we're two loaves she's deciding whether to bake or throw out.
“Daisy, darling...did you finish last week's receipts?”
I straighten automatically.
“Of course. I digitized everything, just like you wanted.”
Clover throws a paper towel at me.
“Show-off.”
Then her expression softens into something unmistakably maternal.
“What's got your aura all fizzy? This isn't your first date.”
“Enoch's coming over for dinner,” I admit, already blushing. “I want to impress him, but I also want to...I don't know...not make a fool of myself.”
Clover laughs, warm as honey.
“Trust me, sweetling. Every time that man walks through this door, his eyes find you first. All you have to do is be your marvelous self.”
She pauses, then grins.
“If you really want to push his buttons, though...wear something with sunflowers. He thinks they're adorable. And maybe let your hair out of that tragic bun.”
It occurs to me how little I actually know about what Enoch wants.
The only time he's ever commented on my hair was to say, rather thoughtfully, That color doesn't exist in hell.
I took it as a compliment.
It could very well have been a warning.
“I keep feeling like tonight is some kind of test,” I confess quietly. “And I don't know the right answers.”
Zelda tilts her head.
“What if it is? Don't we all test each other a little in the beginning?”
I want to disagree, but she's probably right.
“Except in this case, if I fail, he could literally vanish into a puff of sulfur and existential dread.”
“Or,” Clover says, “he could sweep you off your feet and take you on a week's vacation to the Astral Plane.”
“There are pastries there?”
She grins.
“Only the best. The croissants float.”
Zelda leans forward again, no longer teasing.
“What scares you most?”
I pick at a bit of dried dough stuck to my palm.
“I think...” I hesitate. “I'm afraid I'm not enough. Or maybe I'm too much. That he'll get bored. Or overwhelmed. Or that I'll disappoint him the same way I always disappoint myself.”
For once, Zelda doesn't joke.
“You're a handful, Daisy.”
I wince.
“But you're also the whole damn bouquet.”
Something in my chest loosens.
“He'd be lucky to have you.”
Clover simply nods, as though this has always been an obvious truth.
The oven timer dings, filling the bakery with the buttery perfume of fresh bread—a smell that's always felt like a hug from the inside.
I hurry toward the ovens while Zelda grabs a pair of potholders and performs an unnecessarily dramatic dance as she helps me unload the trays.
“See?” she says. “We're a well-oiled machine. You just need to bring that same energy to dinner.”
I roll my eyes.
“Not sure how well oiling Enoch will go over.”
Zelda wheezes so hard she nearly drops a loaf.
“Oh my God, Daisy. Maybe save the puns until after dessert.”
We arrange the bread on the cooling racks, and I try to picture tonight: my hair down, a dress that doesn't scream practical baker, and Enoch sitting across my little kitchen table. I imagine looking him in the eyes until those smoke-dark irises catch the tiny flecks of gold I love so much.
I'm not sure I can pull it off.
But if I let anxiety win now, I'll always wonder.
And I don't want to be that person anymore.
Clover shoos us toward the front of the bakery, insisting the bread will cool just fine without our constant supervision. She brews herself a cup of tea by the front window before gesturing for us to join her.
It feels strangely ceremonial.
Like a pre-date blessing.
“Last chance,” she says. “Confidence charm? Glamour? Tiny hex for your own amusement?”
I actually consider it.
Then I shake my head.
“I want to do this myself.”
“He'd know anyway.”
Clover smiles.
“He would.”
“And it's better that way.”
Zelda nudges my shoulder.
“So...what are you wearing?”
“A dress.”
It's only half true.
There's a blue one hanging in my closet with the tags still attached, bought last summer for an occasion that never happened.
Zelda points triumphantly.
“The blue one! I knew it!”
She shoots Clover a victorious look.
“I told you she'd finally wear it.”
Clover merely sips her tea.
“She will if she wants.”
A small smile tugs at her lips.
“If not, she'll seduce him with cinnamon swans and unfiltered sincerity.”
“Will not—”
The protest dissolves into a giggle before I can finish it.
The afternoon drifts by. Customers wander in and out—a man with a clockwork hearing aid, a new mother steering a stroller capable of crossing mountain ranges, a pair of teenage girls whispering about the coven bake sale.
The world keeps spinning, blissfully unconcerned with whether I'm wearing blue or black or flour-covered overalls.
Eventually the bakery quiets again.
Zelda stretches, her joints cracking loudly.
“I should get to class.”
She tries to sound annoyed.
“Atlas will have a meltdown if I'm late.”
The blush climbing her neck tells a very different story.
I pretend not to notice.
At the door she pauses, smiles over her shoulder, and lowers her voice.
“Good luck.”
Then she winks.
“Rock his world.”
I laugh.
“I'm hoping to survive appetizers.”