Chapter Seven
Marin
Water coming through a bakery ceiling is not a sound.
It is a threat with rhythm.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
By the time Crew’s truck screeched—not stupidly, but fast—into the alley behind Webb & Whisk, my brain had already invented twelve disasters and assigned them all dollar amounts.
The roof.
The ceiling.
The mixer.
The flour storage.
The custom Fourth orders.
The inspection paperwork.
The fundraiser cupcakes.
The tiny patriotic sugar stars I had spent three hours cutting because apparently I enjoyed suffering in seasonal shapes.
Crew put the truck in park.
I had my seat belt off before the engine stopped.
“Marin—”
I was already out.
The alley behind the bakery smelled like wet brick, hot pavement, and panic. My mother’s car sat crooked near the back door, which told me everything I needed to know because my mother was a woman who corrected other people’s parallel parking at funerals.
The back door was propped open with a flour bucket.
Also bad.
Very bad.
“Mom?” I called.
“In here!”
Her voice came from the kitchen.
Too high.
Too controlled.
The exact voice she used when pretending the house was not on fire.
I ran inside.
Then stopped dead.
The back kitchen looked like Honeybrook had decided to install an indoor waterfall without permits.
Water dripped steadily from a swollen seam in the ceiling near the walk-in cooler, spattering into three mixing bowls, one stockpot, and a roasting pan my mother must have shoved under it in a hurry.
The floor was wet. Not flooded, thank God, but slick enough that my heart tried to exit my body through my throat.
A brown stain spread across the ceiling tile like bad news blooming.
My mother stood beside the prep table holding a stack of towels.
Talia was on the phone near the sink, one finger pressed to her ear.
And directly under the leak, because apparently my life had become a training video on poor choices, sat six trays of undecorated cupcakes.
“No,” I said.
My mother turned. “I moved the flour first.”
I stared at the cupcakes.
“Mom.”
“And the sugar.”
“Mom.”
“And the mixer.”
“Mom.”
Her face crumpled for half a second before she rearranged it.
“I didn’t see the cupcakes until after.”
That was when the panic hit fully.
Not dramatic panic.
Worse.
Silent.
The kind that made the room tilt and the edges of things too sharp.
Those cupcakes were for the noon pickup.
Apron preorder customers were coming. Channel Seven was coming for approved finished-cupcake B-roll.
Mrs. Paxton had already announced the pickup window.
The roof fund was at seventy-two percent, and Webb & Whisk had become the central nervous system of an event I had not wanted but had chosen to carry anyway.
And now water was dripping through my ceiling like the building had joined the committee.
I moved toward the trays.
Crew caught my elbow.
Not grabbed.
Caught.
Because I had almost stepped into a puddle.
“Floor,” he said.
I looked down.
Water shone under the fluorescent lights.
I swallowed.
“Thanks.”
He let go immediately.
Good.
Bad.
No time.
Talia hung up the phone.
“Plumber is on another call but coming. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty.”
“That means forty-five,” I said.
“Probably.”
Crew was already moving. “Where’s the shutoff?”
I turned. “What?”
“Water shutoff.”
“This isn’t a faucet leak.”
“Could still be supply line above the ceiling. Where’s the shutoff?”
I stared at him.
Because apparently while I had spent three years emotionally condemning him, he had been out there becoming useful in emergencies.
Rude.
“Basement,” my mother said. “Back stairs. Left wall.”
Crew looked at me.
“Okay if I go?”
Why was he asking?
Why was that one question so annoyingly correct?
“Yes,” I said. “Go.”
He went.
Fast.
Not performing.
Not waiting for anyone to admire his jaw while he saved plumbing.
Talia pointed after him.
“I hate to say it.”
“Don’t.”
“That was hot.”
“Talia.”
“He asked permission to access your basement while wearing responsible forearms.”
“This is a crisis.”
“I know. I’m coping through commentary.”
My mother looked between us.
Then toward the basement stairs.
Then back at me.
“Marin.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You had a mother face.”
“I have one face.”
“Everyone in my life has several faces and lies about it.”
Mom pressed her lips together.
That meant she wanted to smile.
Possibly cry.
Possibly ask if Crew had gotten taller.
He had.
Unfortunately.
Another heavy drop hit the roasting pan.
Plink.
I flinched.
No.
Focus.
“Talia, move those trays away from the leak. Mom, grab the rolling rack. Anything dry goes to the front counter. Anything splashed gets tossed.”
My mother’s eyes widened. “All of them?”
“If water touched it, it’s gone.”
“But—”
“It’s ceiling water. I’m not poisoning donors for America.”
Talia grabbed two dry trays. “That slogan probably won’t make the sign.”
I moved around the puddle, snatched gloves from the box, and started triage.
Three trays were definitely gone.
One tray had splash risk.
Two were safe.
Six dozen cupcakes down to two dozen.
My chest tightened.
Do not cry.
Not over cupcakes.
Not over wet ceiling tiles.
Not over a day that had started with frosting tension, detoured through Tom nearly fainting, and was now trying to drown my business.
Do not cry in the back kitchen.
The bakery did not have time for tears.
A metallic groan came from the basement.
Then Crew’s voice, muffled through the floor.
“Try the sink.”
Talia turned the faucet on.
Nothing.
“Off!” she yelled.
The dripping overhead slowed.
Drip.
Drip.
Pause.
Drip.
Then stopped.
For one beautiful second, everyone in the kitchen froze.
The silence sounded expensive.
Crew came back up the stairs carrying dust on one shoulder and a spiderweb in his hair.
I should not have noticed the spiderweb.
I definitely should not have wanted to brush it away.
“There’s a valve tagged kitchen line,” he said. “I shut it off. Plumber can check.”
My mother put a hand to her chest. “Thank you, Crew.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
My mother softened visibly.
Traitor.
Every woman in this town had apparently formed a coalition against my peace.
I pointed at the leak area.
“Do not stand under that.”
Crew looked up and stepped back.
“Right.”
“And don’t touch electrical things.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“And if you see a ceiling tile sag more, say something.”
“I will.”
Talia leaned toward my mother. “She gets bossy when scared.”
“I heard that,” I snapped.
“Correctly bossy,” Crew said.
I looked at him.
His face was serious.
But his eyes remembered.
That line from the veterans center.
Correctly bossy.
My throat tightened in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with water damage.
I turned away.
“Cupcake count,” I said.
Talia checked the rolling rack. “Safe: twenty-four vanilla, twelve chocolate, maybe twelve lemon if we inspect them.”
“Toss the maybes.”
“Marin—”
“Toss them.”
She nodded.
Good.
Nobody argued.
Because they heard it in my voice.
I was holding on with both hands.
My mother started mopping. Talia moved salvageable cupcakes to the front. Crew grabbed a stack of towels and laid them along the wet floor without being asked, which was infuriating because it gave me nothing to criticize.
I criticized anyway.
“Not that towel.”
He looked down.
“It’s old.”
“It’s monogrammed.”
“It’s stained.”
“It says Webb & Whisk.”
“It also says 2018 Holiday Cookie Crawl. Let it die with dignity.”
His mouth twitched.
I threw him a gray towel.
“Use this.”
“Yes, chef.”
My stomach did a stupid flip.
I pointed at him.
“No.”
“What?”
“You do not get to yes-chef me in a crisis.”
“I apologize.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not fully.”
Talia made a sound from the doorway.
My mother suddenly became very interested in the mop bucket.
I grabbed a clipboard from the shelf by instinct, then froze.
Absolutely not.
No clipboards.
Never clipboards.
I shoved it back like it had hissed at me and grabbed a legal pad instead.
Crew noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He looked at the clipboard.
Then at me.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Your nothing has eyes.”
“I’m respecting your stationery choices.”
Talia laughed from the front.
I ignored her and started writing numbers on the legal pad.
Orders: eighty-four cupcakes for noon pickup.
Available safe cupcakes: thirty-six, maybe forty-eight if I wanted to risk lemon.
I did not.
Needed: forty-eight more minimum.
Fifty if I wanted buffer.
Water shut off meant no sink in the back kitchen. I could use bottled water if necessary, but sanitation and cleanup became a nightmare. Front handwashing sink still worked if isolated? Maybe. Maybe not. Plumbing was mysterious and rude.
Could bake at Talia’s apartment? Too small.
Mom’s kitchen? Not commercial approved.
Veterans center kitchen? Maybe.
My eyes lifted.
Crew was watching me think.
Not interrupting.
Just waiting.
I hated that he knew thinking needed room.
“I need a commercial kitchen,” I said.
Crew nodded once.
“Veterans center.”
“Maybe.”
“They have ovens.”
“Old ovens.”
“But working?”
I looked at my mother.
She nodded. “Last pancake breakfast, yes.”
Talia appeared in the doorway. “Health permit?”
“For a fundraiser transfer, if ingredients are from here and transport is controlled, maybe okay.” I rubbed my forehead. “I need to call the inspector.”
Crew pulled out his phone.
I pointed at him.
“Do not call for me.”
He lowered the phone.
“I was going to call Eddie to ask about kitchen access.”
Oh.
Right.
Useful.
Annoying.
“Fine,” I said. “Do that.”
He did.
I called the county inspector and left a message that sounded calmer than my pulse. My mother kept mopping. Talia updated Mrs. Paxton with careful wording that did not include the phrase bakery ceiling betrayal, though I suggested it twice.
Crew ended his call.
“Eddie says the kitchen is open. He’ll meet us there. Ovens work. Tom is still home, sitting, eating soup, supervised by Mrs. Bell.”
“Mrs. Bell is there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. She can frighten him into compliance.”
Crew’s mouth twitched again.
Then my phone rang.
County inspector.
I answered so fast I almost dropped it.
“Yes, this is Marin Webb.”
I explained.