Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
YOU’VE BEEN ONE HELLUVA MAMA TO ME
LOUISIANA
“Well, I’m not surprised. Evie’s the only person other than Aunt Joe who can put him in his place,” my sister calls over her shoulder, her voice carrying easily over the hum of the kitchen.
Her hands move with practiced grace, spreading pale pink icing over her signature strawberry cupcakes like she was born to do it—smooth, confident, sure.
The scent of vanilla, crushed berries, and warm sugar lingers in the air, sticking to my skin like summer heat.
Sophie isn’t wrong. Hell, none of us expected it would take Evie three—nearly four—days before she let Maddox drag his sorry ass back home.
Evie and Maddox are a damn mess sometimes.
But that is the thing about them—their love never needs to be pretty to be real.
They don’t tiptoe around each other or patch things over with fake smiles and forced apologies.
They fight hard, love harder, and always find their way back, even if it means crawling through the wreckage.
And somehow, they are stronger for it. It is a kind of brutal honesty I both respect and envy.
I finish placing the blackberry danishes into the front display case, carefully lining them up in neat, even rows.
Each one glistens with a sticky sheen, dark purple filling just barely peeking out from golden folds of pastry.
If I leave them crooked, Sophie will be on my ass about it—she has an eye for presentation and a tongue like a whip when it comes to her standards.
Me? I’d slap those bitches in there like they owe me money and call it a day.
I wipe my hands on a towel tucked into my waistband and head back into the kitchen.
The linoleum sticks slightly under my soles from the morning’s sugar dusting, and the clatter of baking trays, the low thump of the stand mixer, and the occasional hiss of steam from the industrial dishwasher builds a familiar soundtrack.
As I pass her, I glance at Sophie. She’s got one foot propped on the lower cabinet door, her hip cocked as she leans in over the counter, lost in her rhythm.
There’s a streak of flour across her temple, a dusting of powdered sugar clinging to her shirt, and her soft hums thread through the air like background music to a life she’s built from the ground up.
Butter and Crumbs is her baby—born from too many sleepless nights, a little stubbornness, and a hell of a lot of heart.
She poured herself into every corner of this place, from the chipped mason jars on the counter to the chalkboard menu she made me rechalk by hand every damn week.
I split my time between Bangers and helping her keep this dream afloat—whatever she needs, whenever she asks.
Cleaning up, restocking shelves, testing new flavors that don’t taste like garbage.
I might not be a baker, but I know how to show up, and that counts for something.
I pause for a moment, leaning back against the counter, watching her work.
A soft smile pulls at my mouth. Sophie has always had this gift—this quiet, unwavering ability to create something beautiful out of nothing.
She doesn’t need grand gestures or applause.
Just flour, butter, and her stubborn heart.
No wonder the whole damn town came running back the moment her doors opened.
Just don’t ask me to cook. I can’t even boil water without supervision.
A fact Aunt Joe loves to remind me of, usually loud enough for everyone in the tri-county area to hear.
If it’s a family gathering, I’m not the one sweating over the stove—I’m the one showing up with two bags of ice, a cooler full of drinks, and no shame in my game.
But don’t get it twisted—I may not cook, but I damn sure eat.
I’m the one double-fisting plates, balancing another in my lap, already planning my second round before the first bite hits my tongue.
Nobody ever has to worry about me going hungry.
Sophie glances up from her cupcake decorating, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. “How’s the nursery coming along? You finish it yet?”
I pick at a hangnail on my pointer finger, peeling the skin back until it stings. I don’t look at her. Just focus on the sting and the burn, something sharp enough to distract me. “Not yet.”
There’s a pause—just long enough to make the air feel heavier. Sophie wipes the sugar dust from her fingers onto her apron, then steps closer. She reaches out and places her hand over mine. Warm. Steady. A weight I’m not ready to carry.
“Lou,” she says, so soft it barely registers. My name leaves her lips like a prayer whispered in a chapel—tender, reverent.
It guts me.
My throat tightens, dry and raw, like I’ve swallowed glass. My nose burns. My eyes sting, brimming with tears I won't let fall. Not here. Not in front of her.
“It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling,” she says.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Soph.” It comes out low and rough, like gravel scraping pavement. Meaner than I meant it to be. But she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t take her hand back. She just stays there—calm, rooted—like the storm brewing in me doesn’t scare her.
Her wheat-colored eyes hold mine, steady and unshaken. There’s a kind of patience in them that makes my chest ache, because I know I don’t deserve it. Not when I’m this bitter. This broken.
“It’s okay to be angry, Louisiana. It’s okay to be jealous.”
No.
It isn’t.
It’s not okay to look at Maddox and Evie—two people who’ve clawed their way out of fire and come out the other side—and taste bitterness at the back of my throat.
It’s not okay to watch them build a life I’ll never have and feel like my insides are collapsing, like I’m made of glass and someone keeps tapping me with a hammer, one hit at a time.
It’s not okay to ache for something my body took from me before I even knew how much I would grieve it. To want something so bad it feels like a scream trapped under my ribs.
Jealousy isn’t supposed to live beside love.
Grief isn’t supposed to stain joy.
But here I am—cracked wide open—choking on both.
And no amount of soft words or steady hands can make that hurt any less.
“You can’t keep bottling it up,” Sophie says. Her voice is gentle, like a hand smoothing hair back from a fevered brow. “You’re a ticking time bomb, Lou. Sooner or later, you’re going to explode.”
I laugh—an awful, broken sound that punches out of me like a gut wound. "Explode?" I choke out. "Explode?" I stagger back, the room tilting around me, my fists clenching so tight my nails cut into my palms.
My vision blurs as I stumble backward, the room pitching slightly, like the floor’s been pulled a few inches off center. I brace myself against the edge of the prep table, but it does nothing to steady me. My fists clench so tight my nails carve crescents into my palms, sharp and burning.
“I don’t get to explode,” I hiss, shaking my head like I can rattle the rage loose.
“You think I have the luxury to fall apart? It’s easier to be the good time.
The loud laugh. The reckless one who never gives a shit.
It’s easier to let them think I’m fine than show them what’s actually rotting inside me.
Easier to be the fucking joke than let anyone see the truth. ”
Sophie’s face twists, her mouth opening like she wants to argue—but what comes out is a crack, rough and trembling, her voice bleeding with everything she’s held back.
“You’re not just a good time, Lou,” she says, her words shaky, but fierce. “You’re a damn pain in my ass.”
My breath catches.
“You’ve hovered over me my whole life, trying to fix every little thing—every broken nail, every scraped knee, every God damn mistake—like it was yours to carry.
You took on everything. Like you could shield me from all of it.
And maybe you did. Because of you…” Her voice breaks completely, ragged now.
“Because of you, Mama leaving didn’t hurt as bad as it should have. ”
The words land like bricks in my chest. Each one hitting a place that has already been cracked wide open.
But she doesn’t stop. Sophie steps forward, slow and deliberate, the air between us trembling like it’s holding its breath.
Her eyes—those familiar, warm, wheat-colored eyes—are swimming with something raw.
Something she’s never shown me before. Then, gently, without saying a word, she reaches out and hooks her pinky around mine.
The smallest touch. The simplest gesture. But it guts me more than anything else ever could. Like she just reached into the black hole inside me and found the last thread still tethered to hope—and held on.
She leans in, voice low, like it might break if she pushes too hard—but the words don’t need volume. They land sharp anyway, cutting through the air between us.
“You always thought I was too young to remember.”
I freeze. Something ancient in me flinches.
“But I do, Lou. I remember everything.”
Her eyes—those soft wheat-colored eyes—shine now, not just with tears, but with years. With ghosts. With grit.
“I remember Mama passed out cold on the floor, that vodka bottle tipped over like it belonged there. Like it was just part of the damn furniture. I remember the way her snoring used to rattle the walls, and how you never hesitated—not once—you’d just scoop me up like it was normal, like this was just how life worked.
I remember how you bathed me in the kitchen sink because the tub was too damn cold and the heater never worked.
I remember the smell of those little frozen dinners you’d split between us when Daddy was pulling doubles at the mill. ”
Her voice thickens. So does the air.
“I remember watching you give me your last bite—God, Lou, you were just a kid yourself—and you still did it without even blinking. Like loving me meant going hungry sometimes, and that was just…the deal.”