Page 17 of Simply Yours

And then, just like that, she was gone.

Five

CAITLIN

The moment Caitlin looked up from wiping down the counter, her stomach lurched.

A bug.

Abug.

Right there, in thecheese.

Her breath caught as she watched in stunned horror, her mind struggling to catch up with what she was seeing. The teenage girl at the prep station, barely old enough to drive, had just plucked something dark and wriggling from the shredded cheeseshe had already dumped onto the pizza.And if that weren’t bad enough—if Caitlin hadn’t already felt the deep, nauseating dread curling in her gut—she realized the girl was about to slide the contaminated pizza into the oven as if nothing had happened.

A strangled noise rose in Caitlin’s throat. She opened her mouth to scream, to protest,to fire someone on the spot, but at that exact moment, the bell above the front door jingled, signaling a customer.

She had two choices: remain professional and pretend like the absolute apocalypse of food safety violations hadn’t just happened—or explode in a fiery blaze of wrath.

"Pizza! Pizza! What can I cheese ya! Cheese ya!" she shouted, her voice just a little too high, a little too strained as she forced a customer-service smile. "I’ll be right there!"

Then sheboltedtoward the back like a woman possessed.

Her heart pounded as she yanked the pizza out of Becky’s hands, holding it away from herself like it was toxic waste.

"What. Are. You.Doing?" Caitlin hissed, eyes blazing as she fought the urge to gag. “No. No. No.” She shook her head, as if she could shake away the sheerwrongnessof what was happening. “You make another pizza, and youdumpthe cheese if it’s contaminated. We do not, under any circumstances, bake something likethat.”

Becky blinked, chewing her gum with all the carelessness of a kid who didn’t understand that Caitlin was two seconds from losing her mind.

“Henry said?—”

"I don’t care what Henry said!" Caitlin snapped, her patience dangling by a thread so thin it was practically nonexistent. “There is never an acceptable amount of mold or bugs in food."

Becky hesitated. "But..."

"No," Caitlin cut her off, jabbing a finger at the pizza as if it had personally betrayed her. "No bugs. No mold. End of story.”

Becky made a face, clearly unimpressed. “But there’s bugs in everything…”

Caitlin’s entiresoulrecoiled.

“La! La! La!”she sang, clamping her hands over her ears like a child refusing to hear the worst news of her life. “No, there isn’t…”

Becky, unfazed by Caitlin’s escalating meltdown, only shrugged. “Yes, there is. In fact, in coffee beans, it’s a shockingly high amount of?—”

"LA! LA! LA!"Caitlin shrieked,genuinely shrieked, her voice bouncing off the tiled walls as she squeezed her eyes shut. She refused to hear this. She had spent her entire life blissfully ignorant of whatever horrifying truths Becky was about to unleash, and she intended to stay that way.

“Donotruin coffee for me,” she warned, cracking one eye open, her voice trembling with desperation. “I need it to exist. The three C’s, Becky. We’ve talked about it. Coffee is the purest thing in the universe, straight from God. No bugs. No chemicals. No nitrates. And did I mentionNOOOOO BUGS?!”

Becky just smirked, all too pleased with herself. “I mean, technically?—”

"MAKE. ANOTHER. PIZZA. BECKY. PERIOD." Caitlin bellowed, her sanity hanging by a thread. Becky sighed dramatically, popping her gum before finally, finally, turning back toward the prep station.

And then—laughter. A deep, rich chuckle carried through the air, rolling over her like the warm scent of freshly baked dough and melted cheese.

Her stomach twisted.

A customer.

---