Chapter 17 #2
Everyone cheers. It’s embarrassing and wonderful and I’m blushing so hard I can feel heat in my face.
I scan the crowd looking for Jace. He’s in the back of the bakery, near the kitchen, watching.
His jaw is tight. He looks like he’s feeling something specific and the effort of not expressing it is physically present.
I catch his eye across the room and he nods at me, just a small acknowledgment, just acknowledging what he sees: You’re doing this thing. You’re making it work.
It’s the perfect moment.
Then the math hits.
The 60-day clause ends in less than two weeks.
Only days. And then I have to choose—negotiate with the attorneys to stay and take in my inheritance, or go through with the sale that I promised I’d consider.
I’ve been so focused on the opening, on the bench, on Jace, on building something, that I haven’t actually thought through what the next two weeks mean. I haven’t let myself think about it.
Two weeks and then the decision becomes real.
The party is still happening. People are eating.
The dogs are playing. Old Al is still snoring.
Birdie is talking to one of the customers about sourdough starters.
Piper is taking photos and probably narrating them to the internet.
Ryder is directing traffic. Tessa is laughing at her dogs.
Patrice is making sure Brooklyn doesn’t destroy the pastry case.
Jax is still talking loudly about unprecedented demand and economic trends.
Jace is standing in my kitchen watching me like he’s memorizing this moment.
But I’m standing in the middle of my successful grand opening doing complicated math about what comes next.
Dotty appears at my elbow. She’s always appearing at elbows. It’s a trained skill, probably developed over years of managing a café and knowing exactly when people need intervention.
“You’re doing that thing,” she says quietly.
“What thing?”
“That thing where you’re looking happy while you’re panicking about failure. You’re not failing. Look around.”
The bakery is full. Empty cases. Happy faces. Sunlight on flour dust. The mugs that Dotty made are arranged like art. The flowers are beautiful.
“I have less than two weeks,” I say to Dotty. My voice sounds small even to me.
“Before what?”
“Before I have to decide if I’m staying.”
“Oh,” Dotty says. “You’re thinking about that.”
“The 60-day clause was always the deal,” I say. “Jace knows. You all know. After 60 days, I either sign the inheritance paperwork or I sell and go move to Portland.”
“What do you want to do?” Dotty asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. And it’s true. I don’t know. I don’t know how to choose. “I don’t know how to choose between the life I planned and the life I’m living.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Dotty says, gently. “You could plan differently. That’s allowed. You could decide that this—” she gestures at the bakery, at Jace in the back, at the chaos of a community showing up to celebrate something I built from nothing —”is worth changing your plans for.”
“I’m terrified I’ll resent him,” I say. I’m being honest with Dotty in a way I haven’t been honest with anyone except maybe Jace. “That I’ll stay for him and eventually hate him for making me choose something different than what I planned.”
“You’re not staying for him,” Dotty says.
It’s said with the certainty of someone who’s watched a lot of people try to build relationships and has opinions about what works and what doesn’t.
“You’re staying because you love baking in this kitchen and you love living in this town and you love the person, sure, but you’re not staying for him.
You’re staying for you. There’s a big difference. ”
She goes back to the register, already counting cash, because Dotty doesn’t do anything halfway. She’s a person who commits fully.
The rest of the opening passes in a blur.
By noon, I’ve sold out almost completely.
The cases have only a few items left. The register is full.
The line outside has finally stopped forming.
People are lingering at the tables, enjoying the space, talking to each other like this is a place they’ve always belonged.
Jax helps me clean up at one o’clock, which is shocking because he’s not usually helpful with actual labor, but he seems invested in the success of this day.
Birdie is also helping. Piper has stopped taking photos and is clearing tables.
Even Ryder is involved, which means someone has probably asked him to be involved, but he’s here anyway.
Jace has disappeared at some point—I didn’t see him leave, but his absence hits me the way absence hits when you’ve started looking for specific people. I look around the kitchen and the truth lands: he’s not here and I don’t know when he left.
By two o’clock, the bakery is clean and the people have all gone home. Dotty’s mugs are washed and put away carefully. The flowers are still on the shelves, still beautiful. The benches are cleared. The register is closed. The day is done.
I’m standing in my empty bakery at two in the afternoon on the day of my grand opening and I’m thinking about the next two weeks like they’re a countdown to something I’m not ready to face.
Fourteen days until I have to decide what my life looks like.
Fourteen days until I have to choose whether to stay in Ashwood Falls or go to Portland.
Fourteen days until I have to accept or reject the future that I promised myself.