“Can I help you?” she asked, a little short.
I told her my name, and her face was blank.
Then it cleared up, and she said, “Oh, honey,” and the way she said it told me everything I needed to know. “Greg Hoffman doesn’t live here anymore.”
“This is my house,” I said, because I couldn’t accept what I already knew. “I live here.”
“We’ve been here for months,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
She asked if I had anywhere to go. She started to open the door wider, like she could scoop me off the welcome mat and into a new reality, and I… I ran.
My hands were shaking so hard I dropped my backpack and left my laundry all over the walkway like a piñata had exploded. I made it to the corner before I sat on the curb with my head between my knees and counted everything I could see—cracks in the sidewalk, screws in the metal plate around the water meter, the pattern of holes in a storm drain—because my breath was exploding out of me in starts and bursts, and I couldn’t get enough air to fill my lungs.
Now those same hands won’t stop shaking. My tongue has gone useless in my mouth. The edges of my vision narrow, and I look around in a panic.
I turn toward the nearest exit. The door is fifty feet away. It might as well be a mile. The kitchen is closer. I move. It’s not walking, exactly. More like the way you steer yourself through a crowded room when you realize you’re going to be sick and you’re trying to beat your body to the bathroom.
The men’s words are still sitting in the air like fishing line I can’t see until it catches. Thief. Sham. Good-for-nothing. Not good enough compared to a Richards. Not good enough for Paige.
It’s not that I’ve never had those thoughts about myself before. But hearing them out loud. Hearing the confirmation that I’m not good enough, will never be good enough. That everyone can see past the mask I wear.
My vision wobbles. The bricks go soft around the edges and then sharpen again, like the camera can’t decide which setting to use. There’s a sound behind me—shoes, quick—and then Charlotte’s voice, low and steady. “Ben, are you all right?”
I don’t stop.
I don’t explain. I don’t apologize. I just keep going, through the kitchen, down the back hall. I hit the exit with my palm and push out into the night air.
The air hits my face, and for a split second, it’s too much and not enough. I take the steps two at a time, cut across the lot, and keep going, not toward the river, not toward the sidewalk. Not toward Paige.
Behind me, Charlotte calls my name. I don’t turn around.
I just get in my truck and slam the door.
I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I can’t stay here.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Paige
I’m staring at the clock as if I can mentally will the minute hand to move backward.
It’s ridiculous—I know it’s ridiculous—but I can’t seem to stop glancing up every two minutes, waiting for the tiny black line to move, waiting for the door to rattle, waiting for his silhouette in the glass.
The bakery is technically closed; the bell is flipped, the lights in the front half turned down to a soft, amber hush, the cases empty except for two lemon cookies I couldn’t bring myself to sell because they cracked in a funny way.
The back still smells like sugar and heat and the last batch of scones I pulled a lifetime ago, but the hum in my body has shifted from busy to brittle. The kind of nervous electricity you get on the edge of a storm.
He said he’d come by.
I told myself all the reasonable things first. It’s the dinner rush. Someone called out. He’s buried under receipts because Wednesdays are always weirdly busy. The Wandering Pint is never boring, and Ben is the kind of person who will short himself sleep before he’ll short anyone else help.
But the hour mark clicks past and my phone still sits face-up on the counter, a dark, stubborn rectangle. No text. No “ten minutes.” No “be there soon.” When I finally give up and call, it goes straight to voicemail. The phone doesn’t even try to ring.
The sample platter looks smug about it, which is insane because it’s a paper plate. I’ve arranged a little army of minis: two-bite cupcakes with brown butter frosting, two more with salted caramel frosting, quartered blondies with a lemon glaze, a neat row of shortbread dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt.
The idea was to taste through film festival pairings so we could land on something fun. Chocolate and stout? Cinnamon and a spiced ale? Lemon and—God help me—whatever miracle he pulls in a keg that tastes like spring.
I guess we didn’t technically make plans set in stone, but he said he would come by after I closed.
