No shame in my game. Just don’t wanna do morning small talk. Don’t worry, I left a note.This was followed by a winking emoji.Why are you up? What news? Everything okay? Your mom?
Courtney was probably the closest thing to a sister Ava would ever have. They’d met at Pomp nearly eight years ago now and had hit it off immediately. They had the same taste in music and movies, and a healthy pride in their work. Courtney didn’t call herself a bartender. She was a mixologist, and she took that title just as seriously as Ava took hers of pastry chef. There was a love and respect between them that was hard to come by in a city like New York.
Her phone rang in her hand, and she answered.
“Okay, I’m in the lobby of this dude’s building. What’s up? You okay?”
“You paused your escape for me? I’m honored,” Ava said with a laugh. Then she told Courtney all about the retreat.
“Oh my God,” Courtney squealed, and Ava could picture the doorman of the building—assuming there was one, though Courtney only went home with the kind of guys who had doormen—widening his eyes at her volume. “Holy shit! That’s incredible! I thought you said it was a long shot.”
“It was, trust me. I still can’t believe it. I read somewhere that this year, they had nearly fifteen hundred applicants.”
“And they chose you? A. Seriously. This is amazing. I’m so fucking proud of you. When is it?”
They spent a few minutes going over the details, the whole time Courtney throwing in little comments about how proud she was. Ava couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
There was a moment where they stayed on the phone together in silence before Courtney spoke again. “So…how do you think Goldie will take it?”
Goldie was the restaurant manager of Pomp and Ava’s boss. There was only one answer to that question, and they both knew it, answered simultaneously.
“Badly.”
Chapter Two
To say Regan felt like she was floating on a cloud the next morning was an understatement.
Nothing could get to her. Not the early hour. Not the guy on the subway who openly leered at her. Not the pile of garbage she had to walk around on the sidewalk. Not the gray, overcast sky or the threat of rain. Nothing could crap on her mood. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this light.
She flitted through the day, smiling, joking, and just basically feeling alive. Proud. Confident. When her lunch break hit, she asked Billy if she could have a word with him in his office.
He sat at his desk, his expression serious when she stepped inside and shut the door behind her, like he was waiting for a horrendous diagnosis from his doctor. “You’re quitting, aren’t you? Say it quick. It’ll hurt less.”
She shook her head and grinned at him as she pulled out a chair and sat. “I’m not quitting.”
His whole body melted down to the surface of his desk in obvious relief. He looked up at her with his cheek still on the wooden surface of it. “Oh, thank God. I had no idea what I was gonna do.”
“You’re silly,” she said. Then it was her turn to look serious. She swallowed, and it was loud.
Billy lifted his head, his relieved expression morphing into one of concern. “Are you all right? You’re not…sick or something? What can I do? What do you need?”
The flood of love Regan felt for this man threatened to swamp her, and not for the first time, she wondered what she’d done in someother life to get so lucky. “No, I’m not sick, but I do need to take some time off.”
Billy’s thick brows met in a V above his nose. “Okay.” He drew the word out, clearly waiting on more explanation.
Regan took a huge lungful of air and dove in. “I was accepted to the Bennett-Schmidt retreat this year.”
Billy blinked at her. Blinked some more, and Regan could almost see the words and their meaning get absorbed into his brain, knew exactly when he understood by the way his eyes lit up. He practically jumped out of his chair, throwing his arms out wide. “What?What?Holy shit, Regan. I mean,holy shit. Do you know how hard it is to get into that retreat? She gets thousands of applicants.Thousands.Holy shit. You did it.You did it!” And then he was around the desk and wrapping her in his lanky arms, and before she could say a word, he tore open the door to his office and yelled out, “Everybody! Listen up. Regan was accepted to the Bennett-Schmidt retreat this year. Can you believe it?”
A rumble of conversation rolled through the bakery, which then transitioned into applause and cheers that grew in volume as employees from different parts of the building got the news and joined in. Soon, the entire work force of the bakery was cheering for her, coming up to her to shake her hand, give her a hug, congratulate her in some way. She knew all of them—the early-morning workers a bit better than the afternoon/evening workers—and her pride swelled as each of them showed how proud they were of her.
If she thought she’d been floating on her way to work, it didn’t compare to the rest of the day. Billy told anybody who would listen about the retreat, explaining to longtime customers what it took to be accepted to the retreat, how proud he was of her. Billy didn’t have kids, but Regan had always thought he would’ve made a great dad. Today only solidified that.
Despite the festive atmosphere in the bakery, she still did her job, spending the day making a list of things she was low on so Billy could get his order in on time, thinking up fresh ideas for next week’s Deal of the Day, and then baking more rustic cherry tarts—because they’d been a huge hit yesterday—along with her signature lemon bars, some basics the bakery carried every day that included three kinds of cookies, somebrownies, and blueberry muffins. And all day, her coworkers came up to her, hugged her, asked her questions about the retreat, told her how proud they were.
Regan had never felt such confidence or pride.
When two o’clock rolled around and she knew she needed to punch out, Billy stuck his head in the break room. “Hey, can you come down to the basement before you go? I want to check something with you quick.”
