Page 17 of Knot Baked Out For This
Reverie pulls out her journal again, already scribbling something with the intense focus of a student taking notes in a class that will definitely be on the final exam and also determine the fate of humanity.
"Already brainstorming promotional angles—'Omega-Owned and Overpowered: Hazel's Hearth & Home Where the Pastries Are Better Than Your Opinion.' Unless that's too aggressive? I can workshop it. Maybe add more exclamation points for emphasis. Or possibly fewer exclamation points for mysterious intrigue."
"It's perfect," I say, and I mean it with every fiber of my being. "Maybe lose one exclamation point for readability. But otherwise absolutely perfect."
We fall back into easier conversation, the tension from earlier dissolving like sugar in hot water, melting away until I can almost forget it happened. She tells me about the festival logistics with the enthusiasm of someone planning a military campaign. Her failed "pumpkin mousse pie" disaster from last year that apparently achieved sentience and had to be defeated with a spatula in what she describes as "an epic culinary battle for the ages." Whether there's such a thing as too much vanilla in a cookie—there is not, we're in complete agreement on this, it's scientifically impossible to have too much vanilla.
Reverie licks icing off her thumb with absolutely no self-consciousness, tells another story about her creative writing professor who apparently hated all of her work but "just didn't understand genius when he saw it," and before I know it, my hands have stopped shaking entirely.
The shop feels warmer. Friendlier. Less like a space I'm borrowing and more like something that actually belongs to me.
Mine.
By the time we look up again, the sun has shifted on the floor, creating new pools of golden light that catch flour particles and make them sparkle. The cookies have dwindled to just a few survivors. Reverie's already plotting her return visit with the enthusiasm of someone planning a heist or possibly just really excited about baked goods.
"I'll bring actual social media strategy stuff tomorrow," she announces, gathering her things with the organized chaos of someone perpetually juggling seventeen projects and mostly succeeding. "And maybe a new book recommendation. Do you like haunted houses? Books about haunted houses, I mean. Not actual haunted houses, though if you're into that I definitelyknow a place. There's this abandoned asylum about twenty minutes from here that's supposedly extremely haunted. I haven't gone yet because I value my life but I'm open to it if you want company."
"Are you kidding?" I wipe crumbs off my sweater, discovering yet another streak of flour on my forearm. How does it migrate to new places? Does flour have sentience and the ability to teleport? These are questions science needs to answer. "Spooky is my love language. Haunted houses, creepy dolls, possessed kitchen appliances—I'm here for all of it. Bring on the horror."
She scribbles that in her journal with the solemnity of someone recording important historical information for future generations.
"Perfect. Excellent. I'm so glad you're not one of those people who's like 'oh I don't like being scared.' Those people are boring. Fear is fun!" She's already at the door, hand on the handle, practically vibrating with residual enthusiasm. "Okay, I'm leaving before I eat all your inventory and you have to ban me for legitimate business reasons. See you tomorrow, Hazel Holloway. Thanks for not judging my notebook or my life choices or the fact that I definitely have more cookie crumbs on me than any adult should reasonably have."
She's gone in a whirl of pumpkin-orange hair and enthusiasm, leaving behind only the faint scent of vanilla perfume and several dropped bobby pins that I'll find later in weird places.
I stare after her for a long moment, then look around the bakery. It's a little messy now, lived-in rather than staged, with crumbs on the counter and cooling racks that need washing and flour everywhere because flour is apparently a permanent condition of my existence. But there's no trace of "defective" anywhere in this space.
Just the lingering warmth of someone seeing me—really seeing me—and believing I could be more than my worst day, more than the word that follows me, more than the bond that failed.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. It comes out light, easier than it has any right to be after everything that just happened.
Just take it a day at a time, Hazel. One cookie, one customer, one small victory at a time.
Dusk has teeth in Oakridge Hollow, and it bites the bakery in half with the precision of something that's done this every evening since the beginning of time—one side still cozy with lingering warmth and the ghosts of the day's baking, the other gone shadowy and strange as the sun abandons us for whatever it does at night that doesn't involve keeping us warm.
Reverie's long gone, vanished hours ago in her characteristic whirlwind of energy and good intentions, but her scribbled journal page is still tucked under the napkin holder like a promise or a talisman, peeking out with its enthusiastic handwriting and questionable spelling.
The cookies are down to crumbs and lonely survivors that I'll probably eat for dinner because cooking for one person is depressing and cookies are technically food. I gave up on the playlist about an hour ago—even "Monster Mash" starts to feel tired and vaguely mocking when you've heard it seventeen times while closing up alone—and let the quiet settle deep into the floorboards and the corners and my bones.
The timer dings with its cheerful insistence, announcing that the last batch of scones has finished cooling and can now be boxed. I wrap them up with the methodical precision of someone who's done this exact motion thousands of times in dozens of different bakeries, muscle memory taking over where my brain has completely checked out for the day.
I sweep behind the counter, every stroke of the broom soothing in its predictability, in the simple cause and effect of dirt disappearing when you apply bristles to it. Quick, precise, no room for second-guessing or spiraling into philosophical questions about my life choices.
The money drawer opens with its usual hopeful squeak—the mechanical equivalent of "please tell me today was worth it" or possibly "I'm barely holding together but I'm trying my best." I sort the day's cash, counting the bills twice because I don't trust my tired brain, then again because apparently I still don't trust myself even after double-checking.
It's not record-breaking. Actually, it's kind of pathetically small if I'm being honest with myself, which I'm trying to be more often even though honesty is frequently depressing. Unless you count "fewest customers who didn't immediately judge your entire existence" as a category, in which case I'm absolutely dominating the competition.
Still. It's money I earned. Money that came from something I made with my own hands, from cookies I baked at 4 AM, from a business I opened despite everyone—and I mean everyone—telling me it was too risky, too ambitious, too much for an Omega without a pack to support her.
Nobody can take that from me. Not the gossips, not my ex-Alpha, not the voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother saying "I told you so."
I stash the till in the safe that's older than me and probably held together by spite, prayer, and the accumulated hopes of every small business owner who's ever used it. Sign the daily log with a flourish that's maybe a little dramatic but feels earned. Wipe down every surface until they gleam—warm maple wood that's seen decades of use, slightly sticky copper counter where someone definitely touched it with sugary fingers despite the "please don't touch" sign I should probably make, display glassstill fogged with the ghost of where the Cinnamon Soul Cookies spent their brief, glorious existence.
Chairs get stacked on tables with the efficiency of someone who's closed way too many restaurants in her life, who knows exactly how to break down a space for the night. Crumbs swept into my palm with care because even the smallest waste feels wrong when you're operating on razor-thin margins, then tossed out the back door for whatever brave birds want to risk diabetes for a taste of my experimental pumpkin spice blend.
I roll down the big front window just enough to let in the evening air—that particular October mixture of wood smoke and dying leaves and the promise of cold that's coming whether we're ready or not, whether we've prepared or not, whether we're financially solvent or not.
Then I check on my resident tyrant and quality control supervisor who definitely hasn't earned her salary today.
