Chapter Three
Marin
By nine the next morning, Honeybrook had formed opinions about my fake relationship before I had finished forming coffee.
That felt aggressive.
Not surprising.
Just aggressive.
The first opinion arrived from my mother at 6:12 a.m.
Mom: Are you dating Crew again?
The second came at 6:13.
Mom: I’m asking as your mother and as a taxpayer.
The third came at 6:14.
Mom: Also Mrs. Paxton says there is a schedule.
I stared at the texts from my apartment over Webb & Whisk and considered responding with something mature.
Something calm.
Something that suggested I was a stable adult woman with a business license, a working oven, and enough emotional regulation not to threaten an entire festival committee with buttercream.
Instead, I typed:
Me: I am not dating Crew Donnelly. I am being publicly inconvenienced by him for charity.
My mother replied instantly.
Mom: That sounds like dating in Honeybrook.
I dropped the phone facedown on my kitchen table.
“Wonderful,” I told my empty apartment. “Everyone is fired.”
The apartment did not argue.
It had survived worse.
Specifically, it had survived me at twenty, when I moved in above the bakery with two duffel bags, a chipped mixing bowl from Gran, and the belief that I could rebuild an entire life through sheer will and properly laminated croissant dough.
I had been right about the dough.
The life took longer.
Three years longer, apparently, because one hockey player had walked back into town, and now my phone was vibrating like the entire county had discovered caffeine.
I poured coffee into a mug that said WHISK ME AWAY, which had been a gift from Talia and therefore a crime.
My phone buzzed again.
I flipped it over.
Talia: You alive?
Me: Define alive.
Talia: Breathing and not in jail.
Me: Unfortunately.
Talia: Gazebo photo at ten. Wear something hot but emotionally unavailable.
I stared at that.
Me: I’m wearing jeans and rage.
Talia: Perfect. Very on brand.
A second later, another text came through.
Unknown number.
I should not have opened it.
I opened it.
Unknown: Good morning, Marin. It’s Crew. Mrs. Paxton sent me the updated schedule again. I’m sorry.
Of course he texted like a man standing at attention.
Punctuation. Full sentences. Emotional accountability.
Disgusting.
I changed his contact name before answering.
Captain Problem: Good morning, Marin. It’s Crew. Mrs. Paxton sent me the updated schedule again. I’m sorry.
Better.
I typed:
Me: Why do you have my number?
His reply came almost immediately.
Captain Problem: You never changed it.
I looked at the ceiling.
The ceiling looked back with peeling paint and zero judgment.
Rude.
I had changed his contact name six times. I had not deleted the number.
That was different.
Technically.
Emotionally, it was a haunted house.
Me: That was not permission to use it.
Captain Problem: Understood.
I waited.
Nothing else came.
That should have pleased me.
Instead, I found myself staring at the screen like it owed me another sentence.
I hated that.
I hated him.
I hated that he knew when not to push.
The old Crew would have sent something soft. Something careful. Something that slid under my ribs because he had always been dangerous with quiet sincerity.
This Crew sent Understood and left me alone.
Growth looked terrible on him.
I took one burning sip of coffee, grabbed my keys, and went downstairs.
The bakery smelled like sugar and lemon glaze and impending disaster.
Webb & Whisk opened at seven, but the front windows were already fogged slightly from the ovens, and the pastry cases glowed under warm lights.
Rows of patriotic cupcakes waited in perfect formation: vanilla with blue stars, chocolate with red stripes, lemon with tiny flag toppers, and the warning cupcakes I had decided to keep selling because spite was a valid business strategy.
A small handwritten sign sat in front of them.
WARNING CUPCAKES — $4
May contain frosting, consequences, and poor choices.
By 7:30, we had sold fourteen.
By 8:00, someone asked if Crew had inspired them.
By 8:03, I raised the price to five dollars.
At 8:17, Mrs. Paxton arrived wearing her American flag visor and a smile that suggested she had slept peacefully after ruining my life.
“Marin!” she sang.
“No.”
She stopped in the doorway. “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know the tone.”
“It is a cheerful tone.”
“It is a destructive tone wearing perfume.”
Mrs. Paxton placed one hand over her heart. “You make everything sound so dramatic.”
“You texted me from six feet away yesterday to announce my fake relationship had become an official fundraiser theme.”
Her smile faltered for half a second.
Then returned, stronger and more committee-like.
“And donations increased another eighteen percent overnight.”
I set a tray of blueberry scones into the case harder than necessary.
One scone tipped.
I fixed it.
I was angry, not lawless.
“Mrs. Paxton.”
“I know,” she said, softer. “I know this is a lot.”
I did not want her softness.
Softness made it harder to stay mad.
Harder, not impossible.
“Mrs. Paxton,” I said again, “my private history is not a bake sale.”
“No,” she agreed quickly. “Of course not.”
“And Crew Donnelly is not a prize.”
“Certainly not.”
“And I am not a girl in a story the town gets to narrate because it’s bored between pancake breakfasts.”
Her face changed.
That one landed.
Good.
Maybe.
I did not like hurting Mrs. Paxton. She had driven half of Honeybrook to oncology appointments, organized every coat drive since 1998, and once used a bullhorn to shame a roofing company into finishing a widower’s porch before Thanksgiving.
But she also treated boundaries like decorative ribbon.
Pretty.
Optional.
Easily cut.
She came closer to the counter and lowered her voice.
“You have every right to say no.”
That should have been comforting.
Instead, it made my chest ache.
Because I did have every right.
And I also knew exactly how much money the veterans center needed.
I knew the roof leaked over the west hallway when it rained hard. I knew the kitchen ceiling had water stains shaped like Texas. I knew the center had hosted grief groups, job fairs, holiday meals, VA paperwork nights, and every awkward high school volunteer hour this town could produce.
I knew Tom Donnelly went there on Tuesdays to help men older than him fill out forms he pretended were simple because he knew pride was fragile.
I knew Tom had once sat at my bakery counter after Crew left and said, “You do not have to forgive my son for me to love you, kid.”
Then he bought a cinnamon roll and left me a twenty-dollar tip on a four-dollar pastry.
Mrs. Paxton watched me remember it.
I hated that too.
“One photo,” I said.
Her mouth twitched.
“Marin—”
“One photo,” I repeated. “Then we discuss anything else after I decide whether I still have a business or if the entire town has turned into a comment section.”
Mrs. Paxton nodded.
Too quickly.
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What did you do?”
“I did not do anything.”
“That is the exact voice people use when they have done three things and laminated one of them.”
The bell over the bakery door jingled.
Talia walked in carrying two iced coffees and wearing sunglasses indoors like she was either famous or hungover.
Possibly both.
“Good morning, victims.”
I pointed at Mrs. Paxton. “She did something.”
Talia handed me a coffee. “Obviously. Her visor is at a guilty angle.”
Mrs. Paxton touched the visor. “It is not.”
“It’s tilted eight degrees toward conspiracy.”
“Talia.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
Mrs. Paxton sighed.
Then her phone chirped.
She looked at it and visibly decided to become busy with her purse.
My stomach dropped.
“Mrs. Paxton.”
“Well,” she said, “I may have mentioned to Dotty that we would be taking the kickoff photo at the gazebo.”
“Mentioned,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“To Dotty.”
“Yes.”
“Who runs the festival account.”
Mrs. Paxton’s smile became very small.
“And the Honeybrook Happenings page.”
My coffee suddenly tasted like betrayal.
Talia leaned toward the front window.
“Oh.”
I did not like that oh.
I turned.
Outside Webb & Whisk, Main Street looked like Honeybrook had decided a Tuesday morning needed bleachers.
People were walking toward the town square in clusters. Not hundreds. But enough. Too many. Women from the library. Two firefighters. The barber. A pack of teenagers with phones. Mr. Delaney from the hardware store holding what appeared to be a folding chair.
A folding chair.
For my humiliation.
I turned back slowly.
Mrs. Paxton had the decency to look nervous.
“How many people know?” I asked.
She adjusted her purse strap.
“Define know.”
Talia sipped her iced coffee. “That means all of them.”
The bell over the door jingled again.
Crew walked in.
Every molecule in the bakery became annoying.
He was wearing dark jeans and a white T-shirt under an open navy overshirt, sleeves pushed to his forearms like he had consulted a committee on how to look calm and ruinous.
His hair was still slightly damp, which meant he had showered recently, which meant my brain supplied images it had no legal right to supply before ten in the morning.
He looked at me first.
Not the cupcakes.
Not Mrs. Paxton.
Not Talia.
Me.
His gaze moved over my face like he was checking for damage.
I hated that it was gentle.
I hated more that it found some.
“Morning,” he said.
Talia leaned close to me. “Oh, he got worse in daylight.”
“I know,” I muttered.
Crew’s mouth flickered.
He heard me.
Of course he did.
Hockey players could miss emotional obligations from three years ago but hear insults across pastry cases.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
I stared at him.
“Absolutely not.”
He nodded once. “Fair.”
“That was not an invitation to look guilty.”
“I am guilty.”
“Quiet guilt is still guilt.”
“Would loud guilt help?”
“No. But it would be less attractive.”
The second the sentence left my mouth, I wanted to snatch it out of the air and shove it into the bread oven.
Talia froze.
Mrs. Paxton beamed.
Crew went very still.
I pointed at him. “Do not enjoy that.”
“I’m not.”