Chapter 24
Rose
When I unlock the bakery door to let John inside the next morning, it shouldn’t be with such a heavy sense of foreboding.
Especially after how last night ended—with a celebratory atmosphere and what felt like a true melding of our two families.
Or, at least a very healthy start. Strangely enough, I think the whole skunk thing helped.
What better thing to bond over than a bizarre coincidental story like that?
In any case, even John seemed to lighten up by the end of the evening. I didn’t miss that he and Tank both disappeared for about twenty minutes when I was setting up Lindy in my bedroom to feed Evie. I suspect Tank and John talked, but neither one mentioned it yet.
I’m still waiting for one of them to bring it up, giving them both a little space and privacy, because that seems wise.
But it is killing me.
Whatever was said, it must have been big because John chose to stay the night rather than riding back to Austin with Chelsea and Mason.
This means I have to drive him home later today, but it’s a fair tradeoff.
Plus, I wanted to stop by Trader Joe’s—a store I really miss having nearby.
Maybe the car ride will give him a chance to tell me what he and Tank talked about.
I’d really prefer talking about that now rather than the bakery, but he made it clear when he asked last night that my business is what he wanted to check up on. I barely slept, haunted by the sensation of a very heavy shoe about to drop right on my head.
“Good morning,” I say now, sounding much too formal as I lock the door behind him.
He looks amused. “You sound grim. Are we talking about your business today or end-of-life planning?”
This makes me laugh, and I pinch his arm. “That depends. Are you planning to poison me any time soon so you can get your inheritance early?”
“Of course not. Even if I was planning to poison you, I’d be the prime suspect if I also helped with your will.”
“Assuming you’d be in my will.”
He laughs. “It would be really weird if the way I found out I’m not in your will is while helping you with it.”
“I think this conversation got away from us a little bit. Start again?”
“Good morning, Mom,” he says, then gives me a hug.
John hugs are infrequent, and I have to fight not to hold him too tight when I do get one. This morning, he lets me cling to him for a few seconds longer than I know is ideal for him, not even protesting. But I can practically feel him sigh with relief when I finally let him go.
“You’re … different this morning,” I say.
“It was just a hug.”
It’s the playfulness too, though I don’t want to bring attention to it. He doesn’t like when I accuse him of working too hard or being too serious. I study him. “Maybe so. Thank you—I needed it. Is this what spending a night in a bunker does to a person?”
He smiles. “Must be.”
“How did you get here, by the way?”
“Wolf dropped me off on his way to the store. He said he needed to get some supplies for later.”
Sheet Cake may be a small town, but it works fast. Apparently after we left Dark Horse when Harper fainted and after Wolf had had a few beers, he invited everyone from last night to come to the bunker today. Kind of like an open house—or an open bunker, I guess. I’m absolutely planning to stop by.
John turns away and starts a self-guided tour of my bakery while I watch, my earlier worry bubbling up again.
He hasn’t been here before, mostly because he works too much.
And maybe I didn’t exactly invite him. His disapproval made it easy, and now, I’m realizing how much it’s come between us.
We weren’t in a fight, exactly, but it was hard to have conversations with this sitting between us.
Just one more thing the bakery has cost me. Though I’m realizing now that I really should have been the bigger person—or, at least, the older, wiser one—and forced us past this.
Unlike the Emilys, who commented on every little thing, John stays silent.
A few times, he reaches out to touch things, like the granite countertop and the fabric of the two pink toile chairs by the big window in front.
I expected his serious, assessing face, but he seems more … curious. Maybe even interested.
I’m struck by how much John resembles his father when David and I were first looking at the house we ended up buying, the one where we raised John and Chelsea.
The house I sold when I moved to Sheet Cake to start this business.
Unlike John, David didn’t touch a single thing.
But he took in all the details with keen eyes, walking through the empty house with his hands clasped behind his back, just like our son is now.
It makes me smile, and I almost tell him.
But then John turns to me and says, “This looks really nice, Mom. Professional but inviting. Feminine. In a good way,” he adds quickly. “It’s very you.”
“Thank you,” I say quickly, trying to hide my shock.
I resist the urge to immediately point out all the choices I would make differently, starting with the stark white paint that would look better in a softer cream.
And the round tables, which I wish were square.
After spending time in Kalli’s coffee shop, I realized that wider, square tables are actually cozier and give you a little more room to spread out.
Anyway. Those are all tiny things, which I’m sure John isn’t thinking about.
I should simply appreciate him being supportive instead of being nitpicky about aesthetics.
But thinking of changes I’d make is a way of avoiding the more serious budget issues.
The same way it’s tempting to focus on something small like the outdated wallpaper in your dining room rather than the leak in the basement threatening the integrity of the foundation.
I gesture to the table in the corner that already holds my laptop. “Shall we sit?” I ask, once again slipping into formalspeak. This time, John doesn’t say anything about my tone. It’s probably obvious I’m having an internal freakout.
I open the laptop but don’t enter my code. “You didn’t tell me—how was sleeping in the bunker? I’m jealous. I haven’t even been there yet.”
John’s expression shifts to something a lot more boyish than I’m used to as he leans forward, elbows on the table. “It was awesome. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
While he spends the next several minutes telling me all about the things Tank has already told me, I nod along while my stress level continues building to volcanic levels.
That is, until John finally stops and smiles. “Are you done stalling now? Want to show me the books?”
I drop my head in my hands. “Ugh. Is it that obvious?”
“A little bit. Is it that bad?”
“I think I’m going to close the bakery,” I blurt, peeking at him from between my fingers. His expression is blank. Which is better than smug.
“Well, that’s unexpected. Why?”
Sighing, I pull my hands away from my face and tap in my password. I’ve prepped with all of the things the Emilys helped put together the other night. The spreadsheets showing the financials, plus the two-month projection. Spinning the laptop around, I push it toward John.
“Have a look.”
He scans and clicks while I clasp my hands tightly in my lap, waiting for an I told you so.
Instead, after a moment, he closes the laptop and slides it back across the table to me. “The Emilys helped with that?”
“They did. They’re amazing.”
“I should have been helping you,” he says, and there’s a stubborn set to his jaw.
“John, it’s fine. And it’s not your fault. If you’d helped, I’d be in the same boat.”
“I didn’t mean that I could have done a better job, I just mean that I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive.”
“Oh,” I say, then stop. Because I don’t know what else to say to this.
“But you’re going to give it two more months? That’s what the projections looked like.”
“No. I was thinking … about not reopening at all.”
This has been a nagging thought in my mind for days.
Honestly, the numbers ended up being less impactful than the realization that I haven’t been really thriving in Sheet Cake.
I’ve barely been living. Every single ounce of my energy has been about the business.
And most of that hasn’t been about baking, which is the thing I really love.
It’s been the business-y things, which I absolutely don’t love, and which multiplied the moment I decided to open a storefront.
There’s a whole gulf between running a cottage baking business and a bakery.
Had the air conditioning not died, I might not have had this realization for months. I might have driven right up to the edge of that two months before I realized it wasn’t going to work.
Tank would have continued being only my very handsome landlord, who occasionally came in looking for hummingbird cake.
I might have continued spending most days alone, talking to at most, a handful of customers and falling into bed, too exhausted to realize I was lonely.
John might not be sitting across this table from me. I wouldn’t have recognized that in my fierce determination to make this bakery work, the tradeoff had become my personal life.
It’s the little details like a broken air conditioner and a delay in the parts being delivered—seemingly innocuous small things—that stack together to frame out a whole new storyline.
The broken AC led me to Tank. The skunk—for reasons I still haven’t fully worked out—led to Tank’s daughter and mine finding the right men to marry.
I’m not entirely sure where my new story is leading, but it definitely involves Tank in a starring role. And the more I’ve thought about it this week, the more certain I am that it means not running myself ragged with the bakery, which simply isn’t what I imagined it to be.