Jace is in the back of the kitchen by then, pretending to check the electrical for the new cooler, which he definitely doesn’t need to check. I can see his shoulders. I can see the way he’s not turning around.
I make a choice. I walk over to him.
“So,” I say, trying to find the tone that will make this okay. “That was exciting.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Marvin’s a character.”
“He is a good guy.”
“He is. He—” I stop. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to ask what’s wrong without asking what’s wrong. “Jace, are you?—”
“I’m fine,” he says. He turns around. And he looks fine. His face is neutral in the way it usually is, except I’ve learned his neutral now. I can see the difference between his calm and his absence. This is absence.
“You don’t look?—”
“The shelf is coming along,” he says. And he’s moving back to the work, back to the wood, back to the thing that keeps his hands occupied and his mind somewhere else. “I’ll have it done by tomorrow. Ready for the opening.”
I could push. I could stand here and insist that something is wrong. But I’ve also learned something about Jace in the weeks we’ve been working together—pushing him is like pushinga door that might not open. It might stay locked. It might lock harder.
So I let it go.
The rest of the afternoon moves like we’re both pretending we didn’t see something we weren’t supposed to see. I work on the soufflés. He works on the shelf. The vanilla bean sits on the counter, perfect and waiting. By six o’clock, the shelf is installed and it’s beautiful—clean lines, exactly the right height for displaying the pastries, looking like it belongs in this space.
It looks like it was built by someone who understands both architecture and hope.
By seven, Patrice comes by with the updated business plan. She’s holding copies and looking official, which is Patrice’s default state. She’s been helping me get the numbers right, making sure I understand the actual financial picture instead of just the dream version. Financials were always something Marco handled so I could focus on the baking. It’s what made us a good team, until it didn’t.
“Okay,” she says, spreading the documents across the table. “The soft opening exceeded projections by about forty percent. If the grand opening matches that trajectory, you’re looking at—” She taps the paper. “—you’re looking at real sustainability here. The 60-day clause gives you a window to prove it, and you’re proving it.”
I look at the numbers. They’re good numbers. They’re numbers that say maybe I don’t have to leave. Maybe I can stay in this town with the moose and the midnight sun and the man who builds furniture like he’s building permanent things even though we’ve never discussed permanence.
“What about the contingency?” I ask.
“The contingency,” Patrice says carefully, “is that you have about two weeks left on your 60-day clause. After that, either you renegotiate with the attorneys, or you make a decisionabout selling the business and moving forward with—” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She knows I know what comes after. Portland. Portland where I can start my life over sans Marco and Valentina. Where I can be whoever Gabby Diaz is without a cheating ex-husband and a back-stabbing best friend.
Jace is listening to this conversation while he’s pretending to examine the shelf for imperfections. I can see him not-looking at me. I can see the muscles in his jaw working like he’s chewing something bitter.
“I don’t have to decide today,” I say to Patrice, and I’m also saying it to the room, and I’m also saying it to him.
“No,” Patrice agrees. “But you’ll have to decide soon. That’s the reality of the clause.”
After Patrice leaves, taking her spreadsheets and her gentle reminders about timeline and choice, there’s a different kind of quiet in the kitchen. The working kind of quiet turns into the waiting kind. The kind where something is obvious and neither of us is acknowledging it.
Jace finishes checking the shelf. He walks back to me. He’s moving like someone is pulling him forward on a string he can’t see.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I answer.
He reaches out. His hand goes to my waist. It’s not tentative—it’s certain. Like he’s been planning this gesture and has decided on precision over hesitation.
I’m suddenly aware of everything. The flour dust on my apron. The way the late evening light is coming through the kitchen windows. The fact that Patrice just delivered a timeline that feels like a countdown and Jace’s hand is warm on my side and neither of these things should go together but they do.
“The soufflés look good,” he says.
“They’re perfect,” I say. “I finally got them right.”