by Sara Whitney
If he didn’t want to want her, she wouldn’t force her way back into his life. But there was one thing she could do: she could show him that she’d heard what he’d said and that she was walking away from their relationship as a slightly better person. She could show him that she wanted him to have his business on his terms, not the ones she’d insisted on.
An idea formed in her mind, and she drained her glass and peeled herself off the couch, her mind clearer than it had been in days. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Is it a shower?” Richard eyed her stained shirt. “Because that might be a good place to start. You smell like the bottom of my gym bag.”
“Too mean,” she muttered as she shuffled toward the hallway. “You’re legally obligated to be nice to me until I sort myself out.”
“Be sure to wash your hair too!” was her best friend’s compassionate response.
In the bathroom, she stood under the spray and let the hot water wash over her. She’d learned to accept Erik’s love. That meant she could also learn to love herself, right? She could find her worth outside of work successes or her mother’s approval or any of the countless ways she’d spent her life seeking validation. Finn loved her regardless. So did Richard and Byron. Even Jake was fond of her in his own way. That was something. That was the start of thinking of herself as a person of value on her own merits.
Fifteen minutes later, she was clean, sweet-smelling, and seated in front of her laptop. While Richard clicked through the Netflix offerings and settled on Barbarian Time Brigands: The Quest for Dragons, she opened her design program, took a deep breath, and got to work on an apology the best way she knew how.
Thirty-Three
Everything was perfect, and Erik had never been more miserable.
“You ready?”
Gina stood next to the door with a red Have Your Cake apron wrapped around her waist, her hand on the Closed sign, and anticipation on her face. Erik took one more look around his shop with a mixture of pride and sorrow. The glass display cases were crammed with plump cupcakes wearing hats of pastel icing, and an array of glossy single- and double-tier cakes covered the countertops. The colorful chalkboard hanging behind the cases boasted the day’s specials, and the colorful pennant banners gave the shop a festive feeling. He was standing in the middle of what should’ve been a triumphant moment, but he was as hollow inside as a baked meringue.
Gina heaved an impatient sigh and announced, “You’re moping. Let’s go.” She flipped the sign on the glass door over to Open and moved to stand next to him in front of the display cases. The grand opening was officially underway. They stood shoulder to shoulder, expectation thick in the air as… nothing happened. The bell above the door remained stubbornly silent, and the only movement on the sidewalk in front of the building was a kid skateboarding past in ripped jeans. Erik reached for his phone to check the time, but his pocket was empty, which meant he’d left it upstairs when he’d changed into his service clothes. If he went up to retrieve it, he might be tempted to hide there all afternoon, so he forced himself to stay put.
“This is going great so far.”
“Yeah, good thing I’m here to help with crowd control.” Gina bumped his arm, and he looked down at her and tried to muster a smile.
A few more moments passed in silence as they both stared at the door.
“How’d your talk with Christine go?” Their prep for the open house had been intense, so this was his first opportunity to ask.
She turned from the view of the empty street in front of the store and flashed him a brilliant smile. “Good. Better than good. She apologized, and then I apologized. She misses me. Next step is her coming to Chicago for a visit.”
“Guess I better get baking then. What’s her favorite—”
The jingle of a bell interrupted his question, and he straightened to greet the first customers. The pair of sixtysomething women offered him wide smiles, which he returned as best as he could. “Welcome to Have Your Cake bakery. Let me know if you’d like to sample anything.”
The taller woman dug her elbow into her petite friend’s side. “See anything you’d like to sample, Joyce?”
“Shush!” the second woman admonished before turning to Erik and patting her short curls. “We saw you on the news and thought you were too adorable to believe, so we had to come see for ourselves.”
Gina snickered, and a flush spread from the roots of his hair on down. Every last misgiving he’d ever had about making himself the face of the bakery zoomed front and center.
“Take your time,” he muttered, turning on his heel to hide in the kitchen. Gina could deal with the two silver-haired thirst buckets. But within five minutes, he heard the bell jingle again, and then again and again. He closed his eyes, groped for his inner calm, and stepped back out to the public area.
He stopped short and blinked in surprise at the dozen people milling in the waiting area while a maniacally enthusiastic Gina tried to organize them into a line.
“A little help, big guy?” she called over her shoulder.
He jumped into motion and stepped behind the counter to start fielding questions about gluten from a woman in yoga pants as he boxed up a dozen chocolate ganache cupcakes for a sandy-haired man in a plumbing company T-shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gina package two Boston cream cakes for the first two women through the door.
The taller one winked at him as they paid. “Don’t worry, cutie. I’ll be back next week to pick out a birthday cake for my niece!”
The crowd kept up a steady flow over the next three hours, a mix of curious neighborhood residents and Wake Up, Windy City! fans who’d made the drive to check out his shop—and, occasionally, him. Which he hated. But weirdly, he didn’t once burst into flames or sink through the floor in agony at being forced to interact with strangers who were there to gawk at him rather than his creations. In fact, no matter what brought them in, most ended up leaving with a cake here or half a dozen cupcakes there, and he didn’t hate that. At times he’d almost say he enjoyed it—or he would have if he weren’t heartbroken over the person who was conspicuously absent. Still, he managed to bury his discomfort and stepped around the counter to pose for selfies when customers requested it, at one point telling a trio of teenage girls, “Be sure to tag us. It’s @HaveYourCakeBakery.”
He barely recognized himself, but it’s what Josie would want him to do.
His feet ached by the time things finally slowed to a crawl with five minutes to go before the end of the event. “Thanks again for your help,” he said, but Gina just waved him off from where she was collecting dirty plates and wiping crumbs from the café tables.
“Don’t mention it. Besides, I know it’s not what you pictured.” She brushed past him with a tub of dishes to take to the sink in the back, leaving him to his thoughts.
She wasn’t wrong. He’d pictured working side by side with the woman he loved. The woman he’d pushed away in anger. And he was still angry with her, but then again… at least two-thirds of the people through the doors had mentioned the morning show, and he’d booked eight appointments for wedding consults. It felt good. Looking around and knowing his place was full of satisfied people felt good. Success felt good.
He’d done that, yes. But so had Josie. And she deserved to be proud of that.
He was in the middle of inventorying the remaining supply of raspberry-lemonade and chocolate ganache cupcakes when the bell above the door tinkled and a dour, rail-thin woman in a severe black jumpsuit entered the shop. She looked around with pinched lips before turning her cool gaze on him.
“Is my daughter here?” she asked without preamble.
It took Erik a long moment to connect the dots. “Mrs. Ryan?” he asked in surprise. She inclined her head and continued her unimpressed inspection of the bakery while his brain struggled to explain how this brittle woman had brought the vibrant ball of energy that was Josie into the world. “She’s not here.”
Pamela breathed hard throu
gh her nose. “Isn’t that just like her. Changing plans on a whim without bothering to tell anyone.” Then a wisp of interest moved across her face for the first time since she’d entered the bakery, and she crossed to the far wall where Erik had hung Josie’s photos in plain black frames.
“These are lovely. What a smart use of exaggerated lighting to elevate everyday objects.” She leaned closer to examine a shot of a row of eggs, one of them cracked and bleeding its yolk onto the counter. Next to it was an image of a glass bottle of heavy cream dotted with condensation, luminescent as it emerged from the darkness surrounding it. “Who’s the artist?”
“Are you kidding me?” He stormed around the counter to jab his finger at the photos. “It’s your daughter. Your middling-talented daughter did that.”
“Really? I’d never have guessed.” Pamela brushed her straight, dark hair back to peer closer but didn’t take the bait.
Erik’s teeth snapped together. Was it possible she didn’t recall the specific insult that had sent Josie careening into his arms that hot afternoon in the delivery van? He’d thought nothing could hurt worse than a mother who abandoned you, but it seemed he’d underestimated the other kinds of hurts a thoughtless parent could inflict.
She turned away with a final sniff. “I guess every hobbyist gets lucky once in a while.” She stalked away from Josie’s art on her sky-high heels. “Do you expect to see her later tonight?”
“I don’t.”
At his brusque words, something almost gleeful moved across her brown eyes, so like and yet unlike her daughter’s. “Well, that didn’t take long,” she said with a dismissive wave. “I suppose that means I’ll just have to track her down some other way before I leave town.”
“No. You won’t.”
She froze at the unexpected whipcrack of his voice.
“Pardon me?” she asked incredulously.
Erik drew himself up to his full height, which gave him a good foot on the tiny woman. “You will not call Josie until you’re prepared to treat her and her work with respect.” Pamela’s thin lips dropped open as he continued. “She’s smart and talented, and she sure as hell deserves more love than you’ve ever given her.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Just where do you get off—”
“I’m the one who does love her,” he said. “She’s got the quickest, funniest mind and kindness that she clearly didn’t inherit from you. You’re lucky to have Josie in your life. You don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve her. But she sure as hell deserves us both trying harder than we do.”
He was breathing hard by the end of his unexpected speech, and Josie’s mother stared at him in shock for what felt like an eternity before she coolly lifted her chin. “Typical. She attracted a man just as hotheaded as she is. Good luck with your little business, Mr. Andersson.” Without another word, she spun on her pointy heel and minced from the store, brushing by two men as she did. When one of them started a slow clap, Erik’s awareness returned to his body, and he recognized the people standing at the entrance with amazed grins on their faces.
Byron continued his dramatic clapping while Richard crowed, “Bravo! I’ve been wanting to give that harpy a piece of my mind for years.”
Gina appeared from the back with wide eyes. “Is it safe to come out?”
“I don’t know. Are you done shouting at everybody?” Richard asked Erik, who groaned and slumped into a chair at the nearest table.
“Richard, Byron, this is my friend Gina. Gina, these are the newlyweds who started it all.” Erik gestured around the shop, then pointed the newcomers toward the display case. “Flip the sign to Closed and help yourselves.”
They were all seated around the table and slicing into the strawberry-champagne cake Richard had selected when Gina asked, “Was that Josie’s mom who called you hotheaded? Hotheaded?”
The other three dissolved into laughter as Erik grumbled, “I fucked up.”
“No, Pam needed to hear that,” Richard said decisively.
“He doesn’t mean with Pam,” Byron said, and Erik looked up to find himself the object of the man’s kind gaze. “Do you really love her that much?”
Erik took a deep breath. “Yes.” For the first time ever, talking about his emotions with a group felt right. “I was pissed at her, sure, but I also get why she did what she did. And I said some things…” His voice trailed off as he replayed the crushed look on Josie’s face in the station hallway, and once again, he lost hope of ever making things right. “I hurt her.”
His hands clenched into fists at his own stupidity. There wasn’t a moment of the fight that he didn’t regret, except the part where he’d tried to get her to see that she didn’t need other people’s approval to love herself.
“She’s ridiculously forgiving, you know.” Richard paused in the act of slicing himself a second piece of cake to brandish the server at him in a threatening fashion. “But you have to mean it. Do you mean it?”
Erik pushed the pointy end of the server away from his chest with the tip of his finger. “Yes. Of course. I just don’t know if she’d be willing to listen.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” Gina announced. “I grabbed your phone when I ran upstairs for a fresh apron. She texted.”
He snatched it from her to read the message Josie had sent earlier that day, and a trickle of optimism moved through his veins. “She wishes me luck on the grand opening, and she sent me a…” He swallowed convulsively before he could continue speaking. “A new logo.”
He turned the screen to the others so they could see the text-only logo featuring his bakery name in a spare, masculine style that once upon a time he might have chosen for himself.
“That really does look more your speed,” Gina said. “I like it.”
“I hate it,” he shot back. And to his surprise, he truly did. Not only was he attached to the current logo for sentimental reasons, but he was the face of the bakery he’d built with help from the people he loved. Making peace with the upheaval of his childhood had helped him embrace that. He wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t Pops. And now he was ready to build his future on his own terms. He just hoped it would include his favorite redhead.
“I’m keeping the first logo my girlfriend made for me,” he announced to the table. “Now I just need to get her back.”
Richard looked up from his own phone with a grin. “I might be able to help with that.”
Thirty-Four
Of all the weekends for Josie to have zero evening work events, why’d it have to be this one? Instead of brandishing a clipboard and overseeing a chichi cocktail party or handing out oversized scissors for a cheesy ribbon-cutting ceremony, she was pushing her way through the crowd gathered near the entrance of the Wicker Park bar where she’d promised to meet her friends for a night out. Lucky her.
Bass-heavy music assaulted her ears once she was inside, and she was jostled by no fewer than four aggressively cologned men before she joined Finn and Tom at their booth. Her roommate took one look at Josie’s wan complexion and turned to ask Tom sweetly, “Could you grab us another round?”
He pressed a kiss to her palm and vanished into the crowd, and Finn shifted closer to Josie on the bench so she wouldn’t have to shout over the ambient noise. “What’s wrong? He still hasn’t texted back?”
Josie swallowed the crushing pain over her phone’s daylong, heartbreaking silence.
“So why not just show up at the bakery this afternoon?” Finn asked.
“I’m sure it was hard enough for him to get through. No need to introduce our emotional baggage too.” It had killed her to stay away though. She pulled her phone out and checked it one more time. The bakery open house had ended hours ago, which meant there’d been plenty of time for Erik to text back. But there was nothing, not even from Richard, even though she’d texted him a summons to join this barhop of despair.
Looked like she was well and truly dumped.
“I hope he had a few familiar faces there at least,” Finn said. �
�Tom and I were going to go, but his boss’s birthday party ran superlong and we missed it.”
“You two are a couple of Disney characters,” Josie muttered.
“Lady and the Tramp, right?” a new voice asked.
The women looked up to see that Jake had joined Tom while he was at the bar, so they shifted again to accommodate a fourth at the table. Once they were seated, the men started sharing highlights of that afternoon’s Cubs game while Josie stared moodily at the group occupying the adjacent table, who were laughing and clinking glasses and passing around a box of cupcakes. Everybody at that table looked like they were having a great time, while Josie was suffocating under the weight of Erik’s absence. He might not talk as often as anyone else in her social circle, but she adored his quiet contributions: the upward tilt of his lips, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the well-placed, if infrequent, quip.
Had he not gotten what she was telling him with that new logo? She now understood that his wants were different from hers, but apparently it was too little, too late. She cut her eyes upward to control the burn of tears, then lifted her drink to her lips, tasting neither the gin nor the tonic inside but in need of some activity to keep herself from screaming.
“Okay, this is weird.”
Jake’s voice in her ear startled her, and she turned to find him with a beer bottle halfway to his lips, eyebrows raised.
“What?”
“You. Completely ignoring me tonight. So weird.”
It was weird. The demise of her relationship—the best relationship she’d ever been in—should leave her itchy and ready to explode. She should be pestering Jake and scoping out the best-looking guys in the club. She should be standing on the bar with a bottle of tequila in each hand, pouring drinks for everyone in the room. She should be picking a fight with a bouncer. Anything she could do to stop the buzzing in her head, no matter how bad the idea might seem the next morning.
