Page 121 of Loving You

Quinn puts the phone down, so I walk up to our table.

“Get this,” she steps in closer, her perfume surrounding me. “Danny and Cherry are at the table to our right, and Hudson and Sadie are at the table to our left. Natalie and Tobias are here, too, but they are up front. I can’t believe Cherry and Danny joined as a couple.”

I couldn’t care less, but the way her face lights up makes me smile again.

She makes me smile.

Fuck.

“Okay, who’s ready to get started?” Brooke announces as she walks out of the bakery to the front of the group. She quickly goes over the rules and how we don't have electric mixersbecause the cords in the street are a hazard, but we have plenty of space in the oven to bake. We can pick between cookies or cupcakes. There will be a winner for each, and the judges for today are the town’s favorite old man trio, Bartly, Marty, and Phil. Then she tells us all to get started and disappears.

Quinn and I work quickly, and as soon as I’m mixing the dough into our cupcakes, I ask, “How hard is it to set up a social media page online?”

“That depends on who's doing it. It’s really easy to start one and get a couple of pictures up, but it’s the maintenance part that gets tricky. Why?”

“What if I set one up for the shop?”

“You should,” she replies with a lot more eagerness than I expected. “I can help you do it. I can even help you get a link on there that lets people see your schedule and potential openings. It would be easy to track those who are interested, and you can email or call them based on how they fill out any forms.”

I’ve stopped mixing to just stare at her.

“You have so much content already, and I think the small-town part will be a selling point to clientele who like to remain discrete. You never have to share a name, and I know you don’t like to show your face, so you won’t need to. It’s completely possible to make a faceless account. I mean, it wouldn't hurt to maybe have a post that we can pin to the—why are you looking at me like that?”

I chuckle. “You just sound like you’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Oh, well, it crossed my mind this week.”

“A social media page for the shop?”

“Ways to help you so that people like Cherry’s father can’t take anything away from you again.”

She looks away cleaning up our space so that she can stay busy.

Has she been thinking similar thoughts to mine this week?

“Okay, teams,” Brooke calls out. “The ovens are ready, so please keep an organized line when you start to come into the shop.”

Cherry’s red hair flashes right in front of me as she and Danny make their way to the bakery.

“I still can’t believe that those two are competing together.” Quinn steps up next to me, keeping her voice quiet. “Do you think it could be serious?”

“Maybe,” I say, not giving a shit right now what’s going on with Danny or Cherry.

Hudson and Sadie are stationed on our other side. Sadie is sitting on the table, and Hudson in front of her, leaning over her crossed legs. She's laughing as they feed each other a spoonful of cookie dough.

My heart swells watching the two of them so fucking in love, they don’t care who sees.

Then I look over at Natalie and Tobias. They are each wearing a baby carrier, baby included, as they go over the recipe. Natalie starts to laugh as she holds it in front of Tobias, and he holds up the two eggs we were given. They both erupt into more laughter as they set the eggs and recipe down, clearly abandoning their work. They step closer to each other and kiss quickly.

“All right, I think we are ready,” Quinn says, holding up the muffin trays. “Do you want me to take them, or do you want to do it?”

“Let’s do it together.” I take one of the trays.

“Okay.” She beams and then spins for the door.

“Who do you think is going to win?”

“Us, duh. Come on, Asher, have faith.”

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