Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Alexis
Noah’s brown eyes bore into me from across his cluttered desk, and I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The weight of what he just said pins me to my chair like a butterfly to a board. The morning light streaming through his office window does nothing to soften the hard angles of his face.
Me? I’m the reason he moved to New Hampshire?
“Thanks to your review, Street Cucina tanked.” His hands clench into fists on the desktop, knuckles white against the dark wood grain. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I had to close within a month—and don’t tell me you didn’t know anything about that.”
Heat floods my face, creeping up from my collar to the tips of my ears.
Yes, I knew his restaurant closed. Of course I knew.
Every food writer in New York knew. But it wasn’t just because of my review.
“You failed a health inspection the week after my article came out. The restaurant had issues, Noah. You can’t put that on me. ”
“After that,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken, his voice flat and emotionless as a robot’s, “I moved in with my brother. Slept on his couch for six months. Started working at my friend’s record store in Williamsburg. My career was over. I didn’t want to look at another calzone ever again.”
The words hit like physical blows. Each sentence lands heavy in my stomach. His career was over? Because of me?
No. That’s ridiculous. The man owns a bakery with a line out the door every morning. The display cases were nearly empty when I walked in, sold out of everything but a few lonely loaves. He’s clearly doing fine.
“One night, when I couldn’t sleep.” His shoulders drop slightly, some of the rigid tension easing from his frame.
“Three AM, my brother’s Brooklyn apartment.
I started making sourdough. From scratch.
It was...” He pauses, and for the first time since he started talking, something besides anger flickers across his face.
Wonder, maybe. Or peace. “Perfect. So I started a YouTube channel. Teaching people how to make great bread with supermarket flour and oats. The kinds most people can afford. Not the fancy stone-milled flour from heritage wheat or expensive ancient grains like einkorn and kamut.”
I watch his hands relax on the desk, fingers spreading flat against the surface. There’s dried dough under his fingernails, flour dusted in the creases of his knuckles. Baker’s hands.
“I had offers from investors. Three different groups wanted to back me. Could have opened a microbakery in Brooklyn or Queens. Hell, someone even offered me a spot in the Chelsea Market.” He leans back in his chair, the old wood creaking under his weight.
His arms cross over his chest again, rebuilding that wall between us brick by brick.
“But I wanted out of New York City. The noise, the competition, the constant need to be bigger, better, trendier. I was done with all of it. Plus my brother was getting married. Really wanted me out of his apartment. Can’t blame him—thirty-two years old and sleeping on your little brother’s couch isn’t exactly a good look. ”
“And then you came here.” The words come out barely above a whisper. It’s all I can manage without setting him off again. My throat feels tight, like I’ve swallowed something too big.
“And then I came here.” His gaze travels across my face, lingering on my eyes, my mouth, and my pulse does something stupid and fluttery that I absolutely will not acknowledge. “Guess I’m not the only one that New York chewed up and spit out.”
I bite the inside of my lip hard enough to taste copper. He doesn’t get to know my story. Not after dumping his baggage at my feet like this. Not after making me responsible for his entire life trajectory.
“I like it here,” I say, lifting my chin and meeting his stare head-on.
“In Portsmouth?”
“On Pine Island. It’s slow and perfect for me.”
We stare at each other across the desk, the air between us thick and charged like the moments before a thunderstorm.
The bakery sounds fade away—glassware and plates clanking together, the chatter of customers, the bells on the door.
It’s just us in this cramped office with the smell of coffee and old paper.
Then a knock shatters the moment. The door swings open before Noah can respond, hinges squeaking in protest.
One of the girls from the front—the one who was restocking bread on the shelves earlier—pokes her head in. Her expression is apologetic but urgent. “Hey. There’s a customer saying he can taste preservatives in the bread. He wants to talk to a manager.”
Noah’s face goes dark, storm clouds gathering in those brown eyes. His whole body tenses like a spring coiled too tight. “Be right back.” He pushes up from his chair without looking at me, the legs scraping against the floor.
The office door clicks shut behind them with finality, leaving me alone in Noah’s private space. Which is... unexpected. Either he trusts me not to snoop, or he’s too angry to care. Or maybe he’s just too distracted by the customer complaint to think about leaving me here unsupervised.
I slump in my chair and blow out a breath that makes my lips flutter.
The leather creaks under me. We’re barely fifteen minutes into this interview, and it’s already a complete disaster.
I’ve never been so unprepared in my life, never walked into an interview this blind.
The cracked phone screen mocks me from where it sits useless on my lap, the spider web of breaks making the screen unreadable.
But I can’t leave. Not yet. Elaine expects more than just a review of the food.
She wants to know “who the baker is, what drives them”—her exact words this morning when she called to confirm I’d be here.
If I turn in a draft with only the scraps I’ve gathered so far, she’ll look at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Or worse, she’ll assign someone else to the story.
The clock on the wall—an old-fashioned analog with flour-dusted numbers—shows I still have time before I’m supposed to meet the cookbook author. Twenty-seven minutes, to be exact. I can’t waste it sitting here waiting for Noah to come back from dealing with his customer.
Standing, I move to the wall of bookshelves.
They’re floor-to-ceiling, every inch crammed with cookbooks.
Their spines create a patchwork of colors and fonts—some pristine, others worn soft from handling.
Most are in English, but I spot several in French with elegant script titles, a couple in Spanish, and—I tilt my head—one in German with Gothic lettering on a faded black spine.
I pull out the German cookbook, its spine cracked from use, pages yellowed with age.
Brot und Geb?ck . The copyright page says 1987.
Does Noah read German? That would be... impressive.
Unexpected. Though I realize I don’t actually know where he’s from.
Our interview three years ago was all surface—his menu, his inspiration for Street Cucina, his plans for expansion that never happened.
Nothing about the man himself. Nothing about his family or where he grew up or how he learned to cook.
I slide the book back and let my fingers trail along the spines.
Every single one is—either directly or tangentially—about bread.
Cornbread. Pita bread. New Orleans bread.
German bread. Books on the science of gluten development, the history of grain cultivation, the cultural significance of bread across civilizations. And sourdough. So much sourdough.
It’s almost obsessive, this collection. No, scratch almost—it is obsessive. But there’s something beautiful about that kind of singular focus, that dedication to mastering one thing completely.
My finger stops on a familiar spine. The burgundy and gold of Kitchen Lore Publishing—the same house that hired me to edit the sourdough bread cookbook.
I pull it out carefully. Artisan Breads at Home by James Whitmore.
The pages are covered in flour fingerprints and bits of dried dough.
Noah’s handwriting fills the margins—neat but hurried notes about fermentation times, hydration percentages, how to adapt for humid weather, shortcuts for home bakers without professional equipment.
“Try 70% hydration for beginners” is written next to a ciabatta recipe.
“Add 2 hrs bulk ferment in winter” is scrawled beside the sourdough section.
Footsteps echo in the hallway, heavy and purposeful. I shove the cookbook back into place and step away from the shelves, moving to the window like I’ve been admiring the view of downtown Portsmouth this whole time. My heart pounds stupidly fast.
But no one comes in. The footsteps fade toward the back of the bakery, probably just an employee heading to the storage room.
I move to the other end of the bookshelf, where a single framed photo sits between two massive bread encyclopedias.
It’s slightly dusty, like it hasn’t been moved in months.
Noah stands in front of Street Cucina, its red awning bright and optimistic behind him.
Next to him is an older man with the same strong jaw, the same dark eyes, though his hair is silver at the temples.
His father? Uncle? Whoever he is, he’s beaming at Noah with unmistakable pride, one hand on Noah’s shoulder in that way fathers have of claiming their sons’ victories.
Something twists in my chest, sharp and unexpected.
I shake my head hard enough to make my earrings swing. Noah’s restaurant didn’t fail because of me. I reported the truth. That’s what food critics do—we report what we experience. Don’t shoot the messenger and all that.
But standing here in his office, surrounded by evidence of his obsession with bread, with proof of how hard he’s worked to rebuild.
.. The YouTube channel he mentioned. The move across the country.
This bakery that smells like heaven and has customers lining up.
In the last half hour of Noah venting and my studying his office, it feels I’ve learned more about him than I would have if I read the brief the publishing house sent me.
He clearly loves what he does. And does it well.
I’m starting to see a different picture than the arrogant chef I remember from three years ago. The one who barely looked at me during our interview, who dismissed my questions about his suppliers with vague non-answers.
The door flies open so hard it bounces off the wall. Noah strides in, his jaw set in a hard line that could cut glass. The soft wonder from when he talked about sourdough is gone, replaced by something cold and final.
I turn toward him, my mouth already opening to ask about the customer complaint. “Hey?—”
“Out.”
The word lands like a slap. “What?”
He points at the door, his body radiating fury. His finger shakes slightly, whether from anger or something else, I can’t tell. “We’re done here. Time for you to get out.”