Page 5 of We Can Do
“Yes.” The word is barely a whisper.
I lean forward, making sure she can’t look away, can’t escape the weight of what she’s done. Every sleepless night, every failed loan application, every rejection letter, every pitying look from former colleagues, every I’m sorry, we’re going with someone else—it all boils down to one word. One person. One review that sent my life into freefall.
“You.”
Chapter Three
Alexis
Noah’s brown eyes bore into me from across his cluttered desk, and I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The weight of what he just said pins me to my chair like a butterfly to a board. The morning light streaming through his office window does nothing to soften the hard angles of his face.
Me? I’m the reason he moved to New Hampshire?
“Thanks to your review, Street Cucina tanked.” His hands clench into fists on the desktop, knuckles white against the dark wood grain. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I had to close within a month—and don’t tell me you didn’t know anything about that.”
Heat floods my face, creeping up from my collar to the tips of my ears. Yes, I knew his restaurant closed. Of course I knew. Every food writer in New York knew. But it wasn’t just because of my review. “You failed a health inspection the week after my article came out. The restaurant had issues, Noah. You can’t put that on me.”
“After that,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken, his voice flat and emotionless as a robot’s, “I moved in with my brother. Slept on his couch for six months. Started working at my friend’srecord store in Williamsburg. My career was over. I didn’t want to look at another calzone ever again.”
The words hit like physical blows. Each sentence lands heavy in my stomach. His career was over? Because of me?
No. That’s ridiculous. The man owns a bakery with a line out the door every morning. The display cases were nearly empty when I walked in, sold out of everything but a few lonely loaves. He’s clearly doing fine.
“One night, when I couldn’t sleep.” His shoulders drop slightly, some of the rigid tension easing from his frame. “Three AM, my brother’s Brooklyn apartment. I started making sourdough. From scratch. It was...” He pauses, and for the first time since he started talking, something besides anger flickers across his face. Wonder, maybe. Or peace. “Perfect. So I started a YouTube channel. Teaching people how to make great bread with supermarket flour and oats. The kinds most people can afford. Not the fancy stone-milled flour from heritage wheat or expensive ancient grains like einkorn and kamut.”
I watch his hands relax on the desk, fingers spreading flat against the surface. There’s dried dough under his fingernails, flour dusted in the creases of his knuckles. Baker’s hands.
“I had offers from investors. Three different groups wanted to back me. Could have opened a microbakery in Brooklyn or Queens. Hell, someone even offered me a spot in the Chelsea Market.” He leans back in his chair, the old wood creaking under his weight. His arms cross over his chest again, rebuilding that wall between us brick by brick. “But I wanted out of New York City. The noise, the competition, the constant need to be bigger, better, trendier. I was done with all of it. Plus my brother was getting married. Really wanted me out of his apartment. Can’t blame him—thirty-two years old and sleeping on your little brother’s couch isn’t exactly a good look.”
“And then you came here.” The words come out barely above a whisper. It’s all I can manage without setting him off again. My throat feels tight, like I’ve swallowed something too big.
“And then I came here.” His gaze travels across my face, lingering on my eyes, my mouth, and my pulse does something stupid and fluttery that I absolutely will not acknowledge. “Guess I’m not the only one that New York chewed up and spit out.”
I bite the inside of my lip hard enough to taste copper. He doesn’t get to know my story. Not after dumping his baggage at my feet like this. Not after making me responsible for his entire life trajectory.
“I like it here,” I say, lifting my chin and meeting his stare head-on.
“In Portsmouth?”
“On Pine Island. It’s slow and perfect for me.”
We stare at each other across the desk, the air between us thick and charged like the moments before a thunderstorm. The bakery sounds fade away—glassware and plates clanking together, the chatter of customers, the bells on the door. It’s just us in this cramped office with the smell of coffee and old paper.
Then a knock shatters the moment. The door swings open before Noah can respond, hinges squeaking in protest.
One of the girls from the front—the one who was restocking bread on the shelves earlier—pokes her head in. Her expression is apologetic but urgent. “Hey. There’s a customer saying he can taste preservatives in the bread. He wants to talk to a manager.”
Noah’s face goes dark, storm clouds gathering in those brown eyes. His whole body tenses like a spring coiled too tight. “Be right back.” He pushes up from his chair without looking at me, the legs scraping against the floor.
The office door clicks shut behind them with finality, leaving me alone in Noah’s private space. Which is... unexpected. Eitherhe trusts me not to snoop, or he’s too angry to care. Or maybe he’s just too distracted by the customer complaint to think about leaving me here unsupervised.
I slump in my chair and blow out a breath that makes my lips flutter. The leather creaks under me. We’re barely fifteen minutes into this interview, and it’s already a complete disaster. I’ve never been so unprepared in my life, never walked into an interview this blind. The cracked phone screen mocks me from where it sits useless on my lap, the spider web of breaks making the screen unreadable.
But I can’t leave. Not yet. Elaine expects more than just a review of the food. She wants to know “who the baker is, what drives them”—her exact words this morning when she called to confirm I’d be here. If I turn in a draft with only the scraps I’ve gathered so far, she’ll look at me like I’ve lost my mind. Or worse, she’ll assign someone else to the story.
The clock on the wall—an old-fashioned analog with flour-dusted numbers—shows I still have time before I’m supposed to meet the cookbook author. Twenty-seven minutes, to be exact. I can’t waste it sitting here waiting for Noah to come back from dealing with his customer.
Standing, I move to the wall of bookshelves. They’re floor-to-ceiling, every inch crammed with cookbooks. Their spines create a patchwork of colors and fonts—some pristine, others worn soft from handling. Most are in English, but I spot several in French with elegant script titles, a couple in Spanish, and—I tilt my head—one in German with Gothic lettering on a faded black spine.
