The rest of the opening passes in a blur. By noon, I’ve sold out almost completely. The cases have only a few items left. The register is full. The line outside has finally stopped forming. People are lingering at the tables, enjoying the space, talking to each other like this is a place they’ve always belonged.
Jax helps me clean up at one o’clock, which is shocking because he’s not usually helpful with actual labor, but he seemsinvested in the success of this day. Birdie is also helping. Piper has stopped taking photos and is clearing tables. Even Ryder is involved, which means someone has probably asked him to be involved, but he’s here anyway.
Jace has disappeared at some point—I didn’t see him leave, but his absence hits me the way absence hits when you’ve started looking for specific people. I look around the kitchen and the truth lands: he’s not here and I don’t know when he left.
By two o’clock, the bakery is clean and the people have all gone home. Dotty’s mugs are washed and put away carefully. The flowers are still on the shelves, still beautiful. The benches are cleared. The register is closed. The day is done.
I’m standing in my empty bakery at two in the afternoon on the day of my grand opening and I’m thinking about the next two weeks like they’re a countdown to something I’m not ready to face.
Fourteen days until I have to decide what my life looks like.
Fourteen days until I have to choose whether to stay in Ashwood Falls or go to Portland.
Fourteen days until I have to accept or reject the future that I promised myself.
Chapter 18
Jace
Marco arrives on a Tuesday.
Piper texts a photo. Man in loafers. No socks. Alaska doesn’t forgive that.
“Incoming,” Piper’s text says. “Gabby’s ex. He’s at The Ashwood Café.”
I don’t go to Dotty’s immediately. I tell myself it’s because I have work—there’s a cabinet order waiting, something about hidden drawers and precision measurements—but it’s a lie and I know it’s a lie. I’m I avoid. Wait for him to disappear the way outsiders do when Alaska rejects them.
He doesn’t disappear.
By Thursday, Marco has been to the bakery. I know this because the whole town is talking about it, and small towns are the opposite of secret. He’s charming, apparently. He’s from Austin. He’s in the pastry business. He’s Gabby’s ex. He wants her back.
The problem is that she’s not there when he shows up at the bakery. Piper tells me this. She appears at my workshop like she does, with updates, like she’s my personal intelligence agency, which she absolutely is.
“He showed up looking for Gabby,” Piper says. “She was at a vendor meeting with Patrice. He waited for an hour. Bought a salmon croissant. Ate it. Looked like he was having a religious experience. Now he’s staying at the B&B and telling people he’s going to convince her to come back to Austin.”
I don’t respond. What’s there to say? The future that’s been lurking in the background for weeks is suddenly showing up in loafers and telling Gabby’s story to anyone who’ll listen.
“He seems slick,” Piper continues. “Very well-practiced. Very ‘I’m a successful man from a city and I’m here to remind you that you were meant for somewhere better.’ That energy. I don’t like him.”
I still don’t respond. But I stand up from the cabinet work and I put down my tools and I say, “Where is she now?”
“Café,” Piper says. “Probably looking for you. Wants to warn you that?—”
But I’m already moving.
The walk from my workshop to Dotty’s takes about five minutes if you’re moving like you’re angry and someone’s made you remember why anger exists. Marco is sitting in a window booth when I arrive. He’s drinking coffee out of one of Dotty’s hand-painted mugs and he looks like he belongs there, which he absolutely doesn’t.
The café is full and it’s suddenly still.
Dotty takes one look at me and then at Marco, and she says clearly to everyone in the café, “Machine’s broken. We’re out of coffee.”
The machine is not broken. I can see it working perfectly behind the counter, steam rising from the group head like it’s personally offended by the accusation. But Dotty’s made a decision and when Dotty makes a decision, the laws of physics rearrange to accommodate her. Marco looks confused, which is the correct response to being ejected from a café by a womanwho could probably broker peace in the Middle East if she applied the same energy.
“But I’m drinking coffee,” he says.
“That’s the last of it,” Dotty says. “I’m closing.”
It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Dotty doesn’t close until seven. But she’s moving around the café like she’s orchestrated something and she’s sure about it. She’s turning off the espresso machine. She’s cleaning the counter. She’s treating Marco like he’s a problem that requires containment.