Page 15 of Knot Baked Out For This
She's all controlled chaos and hands in constant motion—pointing at things, underlining words in her journal, gesturing with her pen like she's conducting an invisible orchestra that's playing a symphony only she can hear. My own shoulders start to unclench for the first time since I woke up, the bakery's tense waiting silence replaced by Reverie's caffeine-level enthusiasm that's somehow contagious.
She jumps topics with the speed and unpredictability of a pinball in a machine operated by someone having a seizure.
"I wrote a romance novel once," she confides, voice dropping to a stage whisper like it's classified information that could topple governments. "It was about a vampire baker who falls in love with her werewolf mailman. People said it was too much, but I think they were jealous of my plot twists and also the steamy scene in chapter seven involving bread dough. Speaking of which—are you doing themed treats for the Harvest & Haunt Festival? Because there's a parade and last year I saw an actual Alpha dress as a giant doughnut with sprinkles and I have photos if you need inspiration or just want to question humanity's collective decision-making."
She pauses for breath. Or possibly to check if I'm still conscious and following this conversation, which is moving at speeds that should require a seatbelt.
I am. Barely. My brain is struggling to keep up but in a good way, like a pleasant workout rather than an anxiety spiral.
I nod slowly, trying to match her energy and failing spectacularly because I'm running on four hours of sleep and pure anxiety. "I'm definitely doing samples for the festival. Probably the s'mores bars—they're kind of experimental but I think they'll work—plus a pumpkin cheesecake truffle situation. Haven't nailed the color yet though. Orange food dye is trickier than people think. Too much and you look radioactive. Too little and you just look beige and sad, and beige is the opposite of festive."
Reverie scribbles that down in her journal without looking, her handwriting barely legible but deeply enthusiastic, like her pen is trying to keep up with her brain and losing the race.
"Orange is absolutely a high-risk, high-reward color situation. I wrote a poem about it once—'Ode to a Pumpkin Scone.' Not my best work, honestly kind of terrible, my creative writing professor said it 'lacked cohesion and possibly sense.' But your pastries are inspiring, so there's definitely potentialfor a sequel. Maybe 'Sonnet for a Cinnamon Roll'? I'm workshopping titles."
She looks up with wide, honest eyes that hold absolutely no trace of irony or manipulation or any of the warning signs I've learned to watch for in human interaction.
"Seriously though, I'm just really happy you're here. Everyone always says Omegas bake better—which is kind of weird and reductive if you think about it too hard because why would our designation affect our ability to mix flour and butter—but nobody ever gave us our own space to just exist and create without someone hovering and making it about pack dynamics or whatever nonsense. I think you're going to change things here. Like, for real, not in a cheesy inspirational poster way but in an actual tangible way that matters to people."
And there it is—the catch in her voice, the genuine emotion beneath all the chaos and enthusiasm. That breathless, vulnerable support that feels almost too good to be real, too pure to trust.
It's overwhelming in a way I wasn't prepared for. My instincts twitch, old nerves that have been conditioned by too many false friendships and ulterior motives sending warning pings through my nervous system. Too much, too soon. I don't always trust kindness when it lands this fast, this enthusiastically, because in my experience it usually wants something in return.
But Reverie's not backing off or pivoting to an ask or showing any of the telltale signs I've learned to watch for. She's not fishing for free pastries or trying to recruit me into some pyramid scheme or whatever.
She's already moving around the display case with surprising care, arranging the cookies on the tray with the focus of an artist, making each line perfect, trailing her hand along the edge ofthe counter like she's cataloguing details for a story only she's writing in her head.
"You don't mind the smell of cat, right?" I blurt out, because apparently my defense mechanism when someone is being nice to me is to immediately volunteer my flaws before they can discover them organically. "That's Muffin. She's upstairs somewhere, probably judging us. She runs quality control, which mostly means knocking things over and depositing hair on every surface."
I point at a stray orange hair on the register, exhibit A in the case of "Hazel Holloway: Unprofessional Cat Lady."
Reverie's face lights up like I just told her Christmas is coming early and bringing puppies.
"Cats are basically deities walking among us. I follow three famous ones on TikTok and their content is consistently better than most humans. Muffin is an excellent name and she deserves her own book series where she solves mysteries and also eats a lot of treats and judges people for their life choices."
And just like that, my walls lower another inch. Maybe two inches. Possibly several feet, actually, because this girl is somehow dismantling my carefully constructed defenses with nothing but genuine enthusiasm and cat appreciation.
It's impossible not to like her. She's like if autumn itself became a person and decided to be aggressively supportive of everyone it met while also maintaining an alarming caffeine intake.
We fall into an easy, weird rhythm that shouldn't work but absolutely does—her firing off questions at machine-gun speed, me answering between tasks, the shop filling with actual laughter that isn't forced or performative or designed to make someone think I'm fine when I'm not.
I start humming under my breath without thinking about it—a bit of "Monster Mash" because it's been stuck in my head sincethe van ride. Reverie doesn't judge. If anything, her leg starts bouncing in time, like she's got her own internal soundtrack going and mine just happens to sync up perfectly.
We're mid-conversation about whether there's such a thing as too much vanilla in a cookie (there is not, there will never be, this is a hill I will die on) when the door chimes again.
This time it's softer, almost apologetic. The kind of bell ring that says "I'm here but I don't want to be a bother" which immediately puts me on edge because I've learned that people who announce themselves as "not a bother" are usually about to be extremely bothered about something.
Two women drift in with the cautious energy of locals who are here partially for pastries and mostly for reconnaissance on the new Omega running a business without an Alpha hovering over her shoulder making sure she doesn't mess it up.
One's got expertly styled hair that's defying both gravity and the humidity that's currently making my own hair look like a sentient disaster auditioning for a role in a horror movie about haunted scarecrows. The other sports a cardigan covered in tiny candy corn that's somehow both adorable and vaguely threatening, like she's really committed to the season but also might be slightly unhinged about it.
They scope the place with small-town precision—taking in everything, cataloguing it for later dissection, probably already composing their reviews for whatever group chat or coffee klatch will hear about this within the next fifteen minutes. Their eyes sweep over the display cases, the decor, the chalkboard menu, Reverie, and finally land on me with the kind of assessment that feels more like a home inspection than a greeting.
They come up to the counter, not quite ignoring Reverie and me, but definitely treating us like we're part of the furniture. Decorative. Present but not quite real or worthy of direct acknowledgment until they've decided what they think.
"Hi," I muster, practicing my best "I am totally not phased by life and definitely didn't almost have a panic attack this morning" smile that probably looks more like a grimace. "Welcome to Hazel's Hearth & Home. Can I get you something sweet?"
They order with the kind of deliberation that suggests this is a Major Decision with lasting consequences. One wants the maple croissant ("Is it fresh?" Yes, Linda, I baked it this morning at a time when normal people were sleeping and I was having an existential crisis over butter ratios). The other gives the cookie display a thorough examination that feels more like a quality assurance audit before finally, reluctantly deciding on a pumpkin scone.
