“Not your fault.”
“No, but it’s still shit. For what it’s worth, Noelle, I might have done it first, but you did it better.”
She scoffs, but I step forward, and it dies on her tongue.
“I’m serious. I’m proud ofÉpices et Sucré, and I’ve done better than I could’ve hoped, but you’ve made something amazing here. And with a lot less experience. It’s incredible.”
“Thanks,” she replies, looking unconvinced.
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not… Okay, yes, the bakery has done well. But how much of that is because of me and how much of it is because of who my family is?” Bitterness seeps out of her, her brows pinching together, but she quickly recovers. “That makes me sound ungrateful, and I’m not, I just?—”
“Noelle. You don’t have to explain yourself. You can be grateful for the support and frustrated that it’s smothering,” I point out gently.
“I never said smothering.”
“You didn’t have to. I live and work across the street from you. I’ve been watching you for months, and I can see the toll it’s taken on you.”
The edges of Noelle’s lips lift in a soft smile. “You’ve been watching me, huh?”
Shit. “Uh, I mean, I… Fuck. I don’t suppose you can pretend I didn’t say that?”
“Nope.” Noelle pushes off the island and heads toward my pile of mess by the sink. “But I won’t ask any follow-up questions. Come on—let’s tackle this chaos and get out of here.”
“You don’t have to help,” I say, quickly rushing over.
“I don’t mind.” She grabs the stack of mixing bowls and a spatula to scrape out the remnants. “For the record, I don’t dislike you as much as I did a few weeks ago. Though you probably guessed that from the kiss.”
“I figured.”
We’re both quiet as we clean. She scrapes and I sort the mess into piles: trash, rinse for the dishwasher, hand wash, put away. I wash, and she puts things away and rinses. All things considered, we get through it quickly.
Noelle closes the dishwasher, turns it on, and clears her throat, looking over her shoulder at me. “Back to what startedthis whole conversation: I’m sorry for kissing you, and it won’t happen again. It was inappropriate.”
Right. I try not to let the disappointment I have no business feeling show as I answer, “Of course. You’re right. I’m a lot older than you.”
I drain the sink and dry my hands on my apron. When I look up, Noelle is looking at me strangely.
“What?”
“That’s not what I meant. We work together, and that could get messy quickly. Your age isn’t an issue.”
She said she looked me up on Facebook, but maybe she doesn’t realize how old I actually am. “I’m almost forty-seven.”
“I know.”
“And you’re thirty.”
“Believe it or not, I knew that too.”
I squint at her. “My point being, I’m old.”
Noelle snorts, pulling the claw clip from her hair and clipping it to the strap of her denim overalls. I watch her lilac waves tumble down her back, momentarily dizzied by the way they catch the light.
“You’re not old.”
She stretches her neck, her eyes closed, and my mouth goes dry.
