Chapter Three
Tris
“You know that jerk-face?” I ask Ainsley, genuinely shocked, after Levi storms out, and I return behind the counter to deal with the crime scene I left earlier.
Seriously, I murdered these poor croissants.
RIP, I think to myself as I toss out the last one that somehow managed to wedge itself between the cooler and the espresso stand.
It’s a tighter squeeze than when a girl I know tried to fit her size-six finger into a size-two engagement ring from her clueless, now ex-fiancé. Like, how?!
“Levi?” Ainsley asks me, turning her head to the side.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what Tom called him,” I say, throwing a hand up toward the direction of the door. “Although I can think of several other names that seem more fitting at the moment.”
Ainsley laughs. “Oh boy. Guess you found the one hornet’s nest you shouldn’t’ve kicked.”
“The wha—?” I cut myself off. Nope, not even going to ask what that means. I’m pretty sure I’m starting to speak Ainsley. “Yeah, well. I don’t know what his problem is.” I violently scrub away the dried-up syrup off the counter while reliving the whole interaction.
“He’s probably still hurtin’ after everything that happened.” Her face transforms into one filled with a soft sadness.
I’m about to ask her what she means by that when a pink-haired girl walks up to the register.
She’s so short. With her curly pink hair and big blue eyes, she reminds me of one of the Bratz dolls I collected growing up.
Before Ainsley greets her and becomes busy, I remember there was something else I wanted to ask her.
“Hey, real quick!” I point to the kitchen in the back, where we bake all of the fresh pastries and food.
.. Well, where she bakes all the fresh pastries and food.
“I noticed a bag of organic flour in the back, kind of off to the side. I was thinking maybe I could use it to make a sort of vegan organic pastry for some of our customers.” Also, for me, considering if I eat one more pastry, I’m going to need a new pair of jeans, which I really can’t afford at the moment.
“Umm.” Ainsley looks at me with the most concerning expression, like I’m asking if it’s okay to juggle knives, before pinching her lips together.
She turns away, eyes flicking to the pink-haired girl waiting patiently at the register.
I know that look. She’s buying herself time, calculating the odds of this blowing up in our faces, and probably trying to come up with a gentle, Ainsley-approved way to tell me absolutely not.
But something shifts. Her shoulders drop, the tension leaving her like she’s already accepted whatever chaos I’m about to unleash. She turns back to me with a resigned sigh.
“Okay.”
For a second, I just blink at her. Okay? That’s... new.
She steps up to greet the woman at the register, and I have to physically shake off my surprise at being told I’m allowed to touch the oven again, after what happened last time.
Long story. Traumatic for everyone involved.
Especially the fire alarm and a charred pair of oven mitts that will never see the light of day again.
I make sure everything out front is stocked and in place before slipping into the back, excitement flickering through the exhaustion as I tighten my apron.
“Alright. Creating a new recipe that’s never been attempted before by a person who’s never successfully baked a thing in her life. .. What could go wrong?”
With that little burst of self-positive reinforcement, I get started. After a quick Google search, which turns into three because apparently there are a lot of ways to replace eggs in vegan baking, I finally have a general idea of what I’m doing.
I’m not even vegan, but I do know that slapping a fancy word like “plant-based” or “vegan” on something usually means you can upcharge, which means more money, which means Ainsley might stop hovering over my shoulder like I’m a toddler with a lighter.
It’s been four months, and yet she still barely leaves me alone for longer than her half-hour break.
I’m surprised something useful from my Marketing Strategy 101 class has resurfaced in my brain.
I guess I showed up that day. Must’ve been an off week, one where I wasn’t bouncing between here, Fiji, and Milan, pretending to study while drinking cocktails out of coconuts and shopping at the fashion capital of the world.
But hey, if past-me accidentally learned something, present-me is absolutely going to use it.
I scan the shelves lining the back wall, stacked with mismatched bowls and chipped ceramics that somehow work together, moving carefully so I don’t rattle anything.
The last thing I need is Ainsley hearing me and running back here because she’s changed her mind.
When I finally spot the right-sized bowls, I ease them down like they’re the last of the season’s Louis Vuitton tote.
Once everything is laid out in front of me across the large, dark wood and steel prep table, I mix the ingredients, deciding that bananas are the way to go for the egg replacement.
“This isn’t so hard.” I stir a few more times before placing them onto the baking tray meticulously.
I don’t need any extra messes. As I place the batter on the tray, an idea hits me, and I smile as I mold them into hearts.
“Perfect!” I set a timer and head back to the front, excited and ready to work.
Around a half-hour later, it’s finally time to pull my heart-shaped Organic-Vegan-Banana-Biscuits out of the oven.
And this time, I actually remember to put an oven mitt on before touching the tray.
I don’t need any more burns like the monster blister I earned this morning wrestling with those stupid croissants.
I take a look at my hand, where one finger is bright red and definitely going to take a few days to heal. Man, I hate those things.
I slide the tray onto the prep table and stare down at them with a ridiculous sense of accomplishment. They look... awesome. Like, shockingly awesome. For the first time in months, a feeling I barely recognize stirs inside me.
I’m happy.
Over biscuits.
Organic. Vegan. Banana. Biscuits.
Who even am I right now?
Creating something from the handful of ingredients I had to work with, and seeing the result right in front of me, puts a real smile on my face and fills me with the first sense of accomplishment that I’ve had since I started working here.
I did that. Me. I’m still smiling when Ainsley walks into the back.
“How’d that batch treat ya?” she asks, pushing through the swinging door with that breezy cheer she always has. She steps toward the table before stopping dead in her tracks as her eyes go wide.
Instantly, my smile drops. My arms cross over my chest like a reflex, and my face tightens. Her hand instinctively goes to play with one of the flowers in her long, dirty blonde hair, and it’s enough of a tell for me to know that something’s wrong.
“What’s that look for? They’re perfect. I even made them into cute little hearts!”
Ainsley flicks her gaze between me and the biscuits. Once. Twice. Three times. And on the third pass, her mouth twitches like she’s physically holding back laughter.
Laughter.
At my biscuits.
I worked so hard on these, and now she’s laughing at them? My throat prickles. I don’t get it. God forbid something I do turns out decent without the universe snickering about it. I bite the inside of my cheek, locking down the flash of hurt trying to climb its way up.
“Oh, Tris,” she says with so much sympathy that it practically drips off her words.
“What?” I say sharply, my anger boiling to the surface.
She gives me one more sympathetic smile before biting her bottom lip to hold back more laughter.
“What is it?!”
“Just—” She walks around the table and grabs me by the shoulders. When she tries to move me, I don’t budge. “Let me show you, Tris.”
After a beat, I concede and let her guide me to where she was standing.
“Now.” She backs up, positioning herself in my original spot. “Look down and tell me what you see.”
I glare at her, a show of defiance, before finally lowering my gaze. At first, I don’t see the problem, until it hits me like a paparazzi flash on a bad hair day.
“Oh my God, no!” I shriek, hands flying to cover my mouth. The anger and annoyance I’ve been harboring evaporates instantly, replaced with uncontrollable hysterics.
Ainsley joins in, and soon we’re both laughing so hard tears are streaming down our cheeks.
“I made ballsack biscuits!” I choke out between fits of laughter, barely able to catch my breath. “I can’t unsee this!”
We both laugh impossibly harder until it feels like we’ve used all the oxygen in the room.
“Maybe they taste better than they look? They smell good,” Ainsley offers, reaching desperately for the bright side, if there is one. I’m... not convinced.
I slowly reach for one as she does the same.
“Cheers, to...” I look at the biscuit, then at Ainsley. “To officially going nuts.”
We laugh harder as we cheer our heart-shaped ballsack biscuits together and take a bite.
It only takes three chews, maybe two, to realize that something went terribly wrong. Ainsley is trying so hard not to spit hers out that it’s comical. Honestly, watching her fight for her life over this biscuit makes me like her even more.
“They’re not bad,” she forces out between slow, painful chews.
I watch, by some miracle, as she swallows it. Mine? Still sitting in my mouth.
I reach for a paper towel and spit my bite straight into it. “They’re so awful,” I laugh.
“Okay, I lied. They’re so bad. Back home, we’d be callin’ in the chickens because this is not meant for people,” Ainsley admits sheepishly, but is cracking up.
“Can I still tell people they’re nut-free?” I ask before breaking into a fit of laughter again, because what else can I do?