Page 16 of You Cake My Breath Away

“What do you want me to say?” I ask. “Y’all kept this from me for almost two years!”

Shantel blanches at my raised voice and throws her hands in the air. “You stopped baking. Archer went back and forth on what to do with the place because we never thought you’d get back to that person who came alive in the kitchen. Just…please go check it out. He’s done a lot of renovating.”

“I bet it looks like a dungeon, not a bakery.”

A pillow hits me in the face. “It’s beautiful. But he needs you to show him where you want things hung.”

“I’ll show him where he can hang himself,” I mumble. Shantel wields another pillow and I throw up my hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop.”

My mind pushes forward like a freight train carrying all the questions I refuse to speak out loud.

Why is he doing this? He doesn’t care about me or my feelings. He made that clear at his sister’s wedding when he instigated and egged on his friends to give my desserts a bad review. He never had a problem telling Jessie he didn’t want to do something,so why is he working on a bakery for a woman he can’t stand to be in a room with more than once a week?

His gentle face when he stood outside of my car and begged me to stay pops into my mind. It was the face of the Archer I knew back in college. The one who asked to be my partner in Chemistry. The one who brought me my favorite caramel macchiato on the nights we all stayed up cramming for finals. I saw the caring man I used to call a friend come through the person I’ve learned to put up my defenses around.

A fluttery feeling wreaks havoc on my stomach, but I push it away. He may have finally told me about the bakery, but it doesn’t make up for the way he’s pushed me away or his dishonesty over the last year.

Chapter nine

Archer

Ten Years Ago

Brisk air creeps through the cracked window, sending goosebumps down my arms as I fan the pungent smell of marijuana toward the small opening. Jessie tosses me the empty pizza box like it’ll help eliminate the smell faster than the fan already in my hands. Grease from our supreme pizza trickles down my arm, and I lick it up, savoring the taste of garlic, peppers, and onions.

“I think I hear someone.” Jessie’s eyes shift to the door.

My arms pump faster, and the fear drains away some of my high. If Mom finds out we were smoking again, she’ll rip me a new one. Never mind the fact that I got it from her best friend’s son, who says he took it from his mother’s stash.

Footsteps move closer, someone coughs, and Jessie joins me with a pillow. We move in tandem, arms frantically flapping as we try to push out the smell.

“I told you we should’ve smoked at the park,” I whisper-yell.

His brown eyes narrow in my direction. “We couldn’t order pizza to the park.”

“Have you ever tried to order pizza to the park?” I cough through the burn in my chest.

“No, but—”

“Kids, kids,” avoice says behind us.

Spinning around, I find my brother standing in the open doorway, his blonde hair sticking up like he’s done nothing but run his hands through it all evening. His laptop case is haphazardly slung around his shoulder, black slacks looking as fresh as they did this morning when he went to class, but the dark circles under his eyes have reappeared. I don’t know how he manages working while attending medical school.

“Dude, you scared the shit out of me.” Jessie pulls him in for a bro-hug.

Sebastian falls to the bed, resting his head on the pillow as he shoots off rapid-fire texts. “What’re you slackers doing?”

“Slackers?” I ask. “Mom had me fix the garage door sincesomeoneran into it the other night.”

Jessie groans. “Come on, man. I’m sick of hearing you moan and groan about it.”

Sebastian’s phone goes off, triple dings echoing through the small room. His attention shifts to the screen, mouth pressed into a pout. He sits up and taps out another message.

“Damn it,” he says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, eyes drifting to the TV where a carpentry show I’d love to host is on HGTV. “Your Friday night fling cancel on you again?”

Jessie chuckles. “Who stood you up, Seb?”

---