Page 49 of Never Let You Go

Well. Hot damn.

Emma pushes her chair back. “Chris, you didn’t forget our date, right?”

My body freezes.

He frowns. “Date?”

“Next week.”

“Oh, right. Tax appointment. Right.”

“I’ll put it in your calendar,” Emma says as she sashays to the fridge, pen in hand, and adds her name on the magnetic calendar full of Skye’s playdates.

“Whatever,” Christopher says, holding the door to the bakery open for me. He folds behind me, his warmth and scent doing funny little things to my insides.

Still, from this point on, I’m totally off-kilter.

My breads have odd shapes. My muffins are different sizes. And I can’t focus on making perfectly calibrated dinner rolls. For the next two hours, Isaac is keeping me on track, looking over my shoulder.

“Alex!” Isaac’s voice comes through to me.

“Huh?”

“Hurry!” He’s holding an oven door open, waiting for me to load my tray of dinner rolls. The temperature dial is falling.

I try to shake my brain free of thoughts of hidden staircases and Emma, and rush to him. I can’t see the floor or anything below the level of the large tray I’m holding, but I already know my way around here, so I don’t slow down.

I cut corners.

I hit something.

Something that crashes with a loud bang.

And then, I’m stepping in crunchy, sticky stuff, and I see Kiara’s face pale.

Then she storms out.

I can face one mess, but not two. I’m not dropping our rolls on the floor. Focus on your first task, then the next, then the next. I hop over whatever is on the floor, lose balance, and thrust the tray of dinner rolls onto Isaac’s unprepared hands. He teeters and two rolls plop on the floor. I steady myself, grab the tray back from him, shove it in the oven, close the door, and manage to remember to set the timer.

Then, I pick up the two fallen, unbaked rolls, and with my hands full, turn around to face the disaster I just created. An explosion of colorful crumbs and sticky paste awaits me. What was seconds ago the latest batch of fresh macarons is splattered on the floor. Kiara is gone somewhere to cool off—thank god. Willow’s eyes are shiny. She’s biting her lower lip and seems on the verge of either crying or laughing.

I’m so ashamed of destroying their hard work that a tear falls down my cheek, and I can’t even wipe it off because my hands are full. I look at the sticky goo in my hands, get on my knees, and start capturing all the pieces of macarons with it.

“What’s wrong with Kiara?” Christopher barks as he enters the bakeshop, then stops in his tracks as he takes in the disaster and my attempt at fixing it. I stand, my hands covered in bread dough, macarons crumbs, and filling like some kindergartener doing finger painting with play dough, tears of shame lining my eyelids.

I blink, and they start rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably.

He runs his hand over his face. “Alexandra, stop,” he says in a low growl. “Willow, what happened.”

“Alex bumped into the tray that was sticking out—”

“The tray was sticking out?”

“It was.”

“Okay then. No more trays sticking out.”

“Nope.”

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