Page 13 of Sweet Rivals

PotatoBake888: Goodnight, TheBakingChick.

TheBakingChick: Goodnight.

Chapter Ten

The next morning, I woke up far lighter than I had for weeks. The Food Fest was over, the disarmingly handsome, unfortunately famous man would be back to his life and out of mine, and I could refocus all of my attention on the task at hand—making strides toward my bakery. I organized my food-themed Squishmallows, pulled my hair into a messy bun, and then threw on my leggings and a t-shirt before starting my coffee and feeding Mouse. The sky was blue, and the salty air held a crispy, fresh quality to it. All was right in the world.

I took in a deep breath of fresh coffee and warm breezes before mixing in some sugar and cream and walking out the door.

As I walked, my mind flashed back to the night before, a flush creeping up my cheeks. “You are a grown woman, Jenna. You are allowed to kiss a man.” I said out loud.

That didn’t mean I would turn into a helpless sap, pining after him. In fact, despite the heat running through my body, I felt the exact opposite—glad he was gone. My past epic ventures into love may have been epic failures, but I could keep cool, calm, and collected around the opposite sex.

If anything, my past relationships only fortified my defenses against a dreamy gaze and sexy biceps. The last time I gave my feelings a little more slack was with Dan from Delaware. I had met him one morning on my walk. He was taking pictures of seagulls eating from the trash can, before turning his camera on me. He acted like I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The fact that he deemed trash-eating seagulls a worthy photo opportunity probably should have been a red flag.

Still, it was the romcom meet-cute that all of Cat’s books had ever promised, and I couldn’t help but be charmed. We spent the whole week together. Him pretending to be a townie, and me pretending to be a vacationer. It felt so easy. Of course, I worried about the long-distance thing, but Delaware wasn’t that far. We could visit on weekends and talk every night. That lasted all of a week before the time between our calls extended into oblivion.

I shook my head. None of that. I wouldn’t feel sorry for myself. It was a good thing. I didn’t want to be tied to anyone at this stage of my life. I didn’t want some guy insisting that I move away from my favorite place in the world to be his sidekick while he followed his dreams and mine languished. It was all a sign from the universe that I was on the right path. I couldn’t get distracted.

My pep talk left me speed walking with confidence down the boardwalk until my bakery came into view. Something looked different about it, but I couldn’t tell what until I was right on top of it. Then my heart fell through my feet and the earth blinked from existence until I was free-falling through disbelief and despair.

The For Sale sign had been removed from the window, replaced with: Coming Soon.

“No,” I whispered.

I pulled out my phone with shaking hands.

Jenna: I need you!

Cat: Magic Cafe

Jenna: No, the bakery

Cat: THE bakery

Jenna: Yes! The only bakery that matters! Hurry.

Cat: OMW

I paced in front of the bakery, a black pit forming in my gut and growing exponentially until it would surely form a quantum singularity that would suck in the bakery, the boardwalk, and me before moving on to all of Cape Shore, leaving nothing but apocalyptic disaster in its wake. Somewhere, my rational brain knew that I was being overdramatic, but that quiet little voice was too insignificant to withstand the floodgates that had held my emotions in check my whole life. I cringed at the mixed metaphor, but this clearly wasn’t the time for flowery prose from my subconscious. This was the time for haphazard chaos.

I had hung everything I had on this one dream, on this one hope that would realign my life, myself, my purpose. It would redefine my whole existence. I wouldn’t be quiet, good girl Jenna who was so lame that she still worked at her parents' restaurant. I would be confident, bakery- owning, bad ass Jenna who could hold a conversation with strangers. Jenna who could say no, make decisions, tell people what she needed without cushioning it with apologies—and Jenna who doesn’t think about herself in third person like she has lost her ever-loving mind.

It felt like an eternity waiting for Cat. But for all our distance over the last few years, she always managed to show up when it was important, which turned out to only be this one time. But it was especially important, so it made up for the lack of need.

Cat arrived out of breath as if she had jogged the whole way there, which she probably had. Neither of us had cars, so we were relegated to hauling ass over the radius of the town. We should have probably invested in bikes.

“What is it? What’s going on?” Cat stopped in front of me and bent over, hands on her knees as she caught her breath.

“Look!” I said pointing toward the bakery.

Cat squinted at it for longer than she should have before she gasped, standing and bringing her hand to her mouth. “Coming soon? What does that mean?” she asked, her face squinting in confusion. “Did you?”

“Not me, I would have told you if I had somehow discovered hundreds of thousands of dollars over night,” I said.

“Then who?”

“I don’t know! But I just … I know that it was naive to think that this building was just magically waiting for me, but the longer it sat here, the more I thought that maybe it was. Maybe it would all somehow work out. Now … I feel like my dream is over.” My voice hitched with emotions as tears threatened to spill.

---