Page 44 of Always the Baker

“Dinner with you and Mom.” I sighed and massaged my temples.

He grinned. “Ah, time for a home cooked meal and family time. It’ll be fun.”

I forced a chuckle. “Yeah, real exciting stuff.”

As the day dragged on, I went through the motions. Design mockups, prepping pickups, shipping packages, client calls and meetings. But my heart wasn’t in it. Every song that came on my playlist reminded me of Brax. Every glance at social media made me wonder what he was up to.

By the timeI pulled up to my parents’ house that evening, I was emotionally drained. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the onslaught of family cheer. This time, I didn’t have it in me to joke and act like I was okay because I was not. I missed my man, and he wasn’t officially my man. We’d claimed each other the first time we made love, but obviously that wasn’t true. Not with how easily he gave me up.

Yeah, I was at that point in my grief where I was trying to find any reason I could to blame him… but he wasn’t to blame. I was. If only I would have been honest and not allowed insecurity to lead me, none of this would have happened.

Mom flung open the door before I even knocked.

“There’s my girl!” she exclaimed, pulling me into a hug. “We’ve missed you!”

I managed a weak smile. “Missed you too, Mom.”

Dad appeared behind her. “Hey, honey. How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know. Living the dream.”

As we settled around the dinner table, I wished I was back in the city at a food truck with Brax. That was never going to happen again, though. I had to fight back tears and look away from my parents as they chatted away. Mom kept piling food on my plate, insisting I looked too thin, which didn’t make sense because I’d actually gained weight. She had to be saying that just because she hadn’t fed me in a few days.

I nodded and smiled in all the right places as the night wore on, but inside, I felt like I was suffocating. How could I tell them about Brax? About the whirlwind romance and crushing heartbreak? They’d never understand.

“Bill?” Mom’s voice snapped me back to reality. “You’ve barely touched your food. Are you feeling alright?”

I blinked, realizing I’d been pushing mashed potatoes around my plate for the last ten minutes. “Yeah, sorry. Just a lot on my mind with work and stuff.”

Daddy reached over, squeezing my hand. “You work too hard, honey. Maybe you need a real vacation. I told your mother to stop taking on all these projects… that she was piling too much on you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat at his understanding. “Thanks, Dad. But I’m okay, really. Just a little stressed.”

As the conversation moved on, I retreated back into my thoughts. Brax’s laugh echoed in my mind, along with the memory of his fingers intertwined with mine. The way his eyes would light up when he saw me. I blinked back tears, determined not to let my family see how broken I really was.

I was barely settledon the couch when my phone buzzed. Ember’s name flashed on the screen, and I sighed. She’d been relentless today.

“Hey, Em,” I answered, kicking off my shoes.

“Billie! Girl, you need to call him,” Ember insisted, cutting straight to the chase.

I flopped onto the couch, running a hand through my braids. “I can’t, Ember. You don’t understand.”

“What I understand is you’re both miserable. Just reach out and explain…”

“You don’t know how he feels. And I did, so what else is there to explain? I apologized for lying about who I was. It didn’t change a thing. Sorry I’m just a small town nobody, and thatmade me feel insecure. It’s a me problem, not a you problem, but he still didn’t try to stop me when I left. Well maybe a little, but I didn’t want his pity. It felt just like Ian telling me I didn’t have to leave right away but he still wanted us to be over.”

“Billie…” I heard the heaviness in her sigh, and it tore at my heart. She was frustrated with me, but she didn’t understand.

“No, Em. I screwed up. He deserves better than me.”

As if on cue, my phone pinged with a news alert. Since I was obsessed with Brax before my time in Rose Valley Hills, any time he was mentioned in a news article, I got the notification instantly. I put her on speaker and opened the link. My heart sank as I read the headline.

“Singing Sensation Brax Adams in Bar Brawl,” I almost whispered.

“What?” Ember exclaimed. “Billie, what’s going on?”

I skimmed the article, and each word was like a knife to my chest. “He got into a fight at some celebrity hotspot in Miami. It says he was drunk, belligerent…”

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