Page 44 of Prayers for the Prickly

“Is it too early to start asking how you’re feeling?” I asked once I’d swallowed.

“Probably. How about you save it until I’m round and waddling, then you can inquire all you want, since the answer will probably change every five minutes.”

“Fair enough.”

“Did things stay steady after I left?” I asked, curious and a bit in awe of the way he’d gotten people in there.

“It sure did. People asked about the soda pop taffy all the way until closing. We’ve already brought in another portable register in preparation for the morning rush, and my cousins Kitty and Bren are going to come in and help Stella run them so I can keep refilling the cases.”

“Nice!”

“Yup. We’ll see what the numbers say tomorrow, and start inputting them into the spreadsheet, that will create a bunch of charts we can compare before we launch a new line of candy. There’s supposed to be a sweet spot between when the novelty of the previous candy begins to die down, and when the market is ripe for a new product to not just catch but hold customers’ attention. Once we figure out what the wave looks like we’ll be able to plan further into the future. Right now, everything is a bit random and on the fly. I just mix up batches of things when I get inspired, but for long-term sustainability, as well as time and resource management, a bit of planning is in order.”

“Whoa, okay, hold on. I might want to start bringing a notebook to the table so you can school me on all the things I should be thinking about in regard to my own shop.”

“Are you serious right now?” he asked, eyeing me from across the table.

I’d already come about halfway out of my chair, my hands clutching the arms while I tried to decide if I’d be better off slinking away as fast as I could and hurrying back or sinking back down in my seat and pretending I hadn’t said anything.

“Unless it will piss you off for me to leave the table in the middle of the conversation, I’d love to grab my notebook,” I replied, going for the truth and letting him tell me which was acceptable.

“Grab it, I’ll wait,” he said, the pinched frown gone from his face. “And stuff my face with more of this amazing food.”

As I hurried down the hall, it dawned on me that he truly hadn’t been sure if I was kidding or not about grabbing the notebook. That was fair. It could have been interpreted different ways. I’m glad he didn’t mind me wanting to learn from him. When I’d opened the shop, it had been without any consideration for all the things I didn’t know.

When I returned to the table, he repeated his previous statement so I could write it down while he kept munching. When I finished, I left it open by my hand while I dug back into my plate. I had no intention of picking his brain, I just wanted it handy in case he said something that resonated with me.

“The whole inspiration thing is what had me in the kitchen two hours early every morning that you were gone,” he explained.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just that you missed me?”

“Ohh, it was a whole lot of that, too. But lying in bed and listening to the waves without having to hear your snoring had a lot to do with it, too,” he replied, winking at me from beneath spiky bangs.

“So, were you back in your kitchen when everything took place in the chocolate shop or were you closer to the action?”

“I was in the bakery, getting lunch,” he explained. “I didn’t see Olly’s mom head in there because my back was to the door while I was waiting in line to grab breakfast, but I heard her when I went to poke my head in to see if Ever was planning to take a break soon or if he wanted me to order something for him before I headed back to my kitchen. I walked in on the tail end of her telling Ever that Olly was needed at home and that he was much too young to think about mating with anyone. Then she really got nasty and said that she’d ruin Ever’s business and see to it that he needed to move far away from here to ever outrun the things she’d tell people if he didn’t stay the hell away from Olly.”

“Damn,” I muttered, running my hand over my head. “I-I don’t have words to describe her. Unhinged? Delusional? I don’t know if Pops can legally make someone do something about her, since he was never married to her, but someone needs to see to it that she gets a mental health check before she does some real damage to someone.”

“I hope he’s looking into it.”

“He is.”

“I’m glad Olly chose to move in here and create some distance,” he said. “If she’s not ashamed to say such nasty shit in public, then you know she doesn’t hold back at home.”

“That’s why Olly moved in with my folks,” I explained. “He told the judge that he hated living with her and that she always yelled at him and called him names whenever anything went wrong. He said he wanted to live at our house where there was never any yelling unless someone was cheering for a game. Olly said the judge asked him who his favorite team was and when he said Toronto, he asked Olly how he thought they would do against Vancouver that year. When Olly started telling him all of the things he’d learned about the sport when he was at our place and how our uncles had taught him to skate and helped coach the peewee hockey team he played on, he said that the judge leaned in and really listened. In the end, the judge decided in favor of the people who were actively participating in Olly’s life, and at that point, she just dropped out of sight and rarely bothered to reach out and check on him or send a card for his birthday or holidays and shit.”

“And he still rushed to help her when she got hurt? Why?”

“He’s her only kid, a fact that she loves to hold over his head. He let her make him feel obligated, despite the fact there had been plenty of times over the years when Olly really would have appreciated her showing up for him,” I said. “I hate it, but the fastest way to get him to shut down is to start talking to him about his mother. That’s one of the few times he truly gets stubborn.”

“You did a good thing letting him stay with us.”

“I should have asked instead of telling, though,” I pointed out.

It had only hit me that I’d done that when I’d been back at the shop taking over Olly’s duties so he could get his things moved in.

I watched him freeze with a scallop touching his lip and slowly lower it as he blinked at me and cocked his head.

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