Sutton grinned wide, all teeth. "You're allowed to have a crush, Lil. The world won't end."
"I barely know him," I said, a little too loudly. Mrs. Martinson glanced up from her lemon bar in surprise. I lowered my voice. "And anyway, why do you care? Are you into him? Y’all seemed pretty comfortable with each other." I immediately regretted the last words.
Sutton laughed. "No way. He was like another smelly, annoying brother to me growing up. But I do care about him. Always did, even when he left us all for bigger and better things. And I’m curious because you deserve something interesting. Not just . . ." She trailed off, looking at the dough. "Well, not just this," she finished softly.
The bell over the door went off again, and we both turned, but it was just a UPS guy with a clipboard. I let out my breath, long and slow, and started shaping the dough into rolls, spacing them out on the baking sheet.
Sutton moved back to the pastry case, but not before throwing one last look over her shoulder. "You know, Ford had his reasons for leaving. I gotta believe he has his reasons for coming back. Maybe you should give him a chance if the opportunity arises.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help the heat creeping up my cheeks. "Don't you have a bakery to run?" I called after her.
She stuck out her tongue and went to ring up Mrs. Martinson for a to-go order, her laughter echoing in the air like cinnamon dust.
I shaped the last roll and tucked it into the pan, then stared down at my flour-dusted hands. Sutton was wrong about one thing. I didn't deserve something interesting. I just wanted something safe. And nothing about Ford Brooks seemed safe.
But the memory of his blue eyes still burned under my skin, bright as a warning.
I tried to ignore it. But some things, once you touch them, just won't let go.
By seven, the bakery was empty except for the hush of the old refrigerator and the sweet scent of the day’s work. I wiped the last streak of icing off the counter and leaned into the clean surface, letting my forehead rest against the cool laminate. The buzz in my head hadn’t faded; every time I stopped moving, it filled up the silence.
I did my closing routine on autopilot—wrapping trays, sweeping the flour into neat piles, double-checking the ovens. All the while, my brain replayed the last few hours in obsessive detail: the way Ford’s eyes had found mine, the way his laugh curled around his words, that raw second when he cringed and then tried to smile like nothing hurt. And under it all, a thread of worry. That look in his eyes, like he’d ran from here for a reason.
I shook it off, flipped the lights to low, and locked the front door. Whittier Falls at dusk was a watercolor—the sky going deep blue at the edges, a band of fiery orange over the peaks, shadows pooling in the street. Beauty at its most raw, most natural. I slipped my jacket on and pulled the hood up, even though the mid-September cold hadn’t really bitten yet.
As I walked down Main, my boots tapping a rhythm on the cracked sidewalk, I could feel eyes on me from the inside of every lit window. The entire town was an open-concept living room; everybody watched everybody. And tonight, I was sure, half of them were thinking about Ford Brooks.
I made it two blocks before the voices reached me. I was passing the Dusty Barrel, its windows fogged over and its sign buzzing like a swarm of hornets. Three men huddled outside, boots kicking at the curb, their heads bent together. I tried to cross the street before they noticed me, but their voices carried.
“—never shoulda come back, not after Ty. You remember what his dad said about the trial?”
Another voice, slurred but certain: “There wasn’t no trial. He just skipped town.”
“He skipped town because he was guilty as sin,” the first voice insisted. “They found Ty’s truck burned out in the gorge. Only person saw him last was Brooks.”
A third voice, softer: “Nobody ever proved anything. Boy’s had a shit life.”
The first voice again, loud enough to make my shoulders jump. “Shit life, my ass. Boy’s a billionaire, they say. Anyway, it don’t matter. Once a snake, always a snake.”
I kept walking, eyes locked on the sidewalk. I knew if I looked up, I’d see them staring, daring me to disagree, or maybe daring me to add my own bit to the story. I was nobody to them. As much of a nobody one can be in Whittier.
No, I was just the former battered wife. The single mom. The weird girl who worked for Sutton and never showed up to church picnics.
Still, the words stuck. Ty Higgins. Ford Brooks. The gorge.
I shivered and wrapped my arms tighter around myself. The men’s laughter faded behind me, but the rumor buzzed like a wasp in my ear. I tried to remind myself it didn’t matter—not to me, not to my life. I had enough to worry about without collecting someone else’s history.
But I could still see the look on Ford’s face, the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes, the way he’d taken that punch and then laughed it off like he deserved it.
I reached my building, paused under the flickering porch light, and let my breath out in one long fog. The cold finally found me, needling up through my boots, but it felt honest at least. Something you could trust.
I let myself inside and shut out the night, but the questions followed me up the stairs.
The banister leading up to my apartment was chipped and uneven, painted over too many times by too many landlords. The pharmacy on the ground floor had a new sign, but nothing else about the building had been renovated since the eighties, I guessed.
When I unlocked my door, the first thing I heard was the soft, static-y hum of the baby monitor. Noah’s babysitter sat on my old futon, her knees drawn up under her chin, attention locked to her phone. She looked up when I came in, eyes big and guilty, like she’d been caught shoplifting.
“He was good today,” she said, as if it was a surprise. “Didn’t even fuss when I put him in pajamas.”
