Page 11 of Roommate
“Nah. Now, baguettes need a four a.m. start time. But bagels and pretzels don’t need that kind of double rise. I’d use a sourdough starter for flavor, but the rise would come from instant yeast. One rise time. Boil ’em up and bake for twenty minutes.”
“Pretzels?” Audrey asks with a dreamy sigh. “That sounds amazing.”
“You could try me out for a probationary couple of days, and I’ll show you,” I promise. “How’s your oven?”
“It’s all right,” Audrey says. “Nothing fancy like they have at King Arthur.”
“You don’t need a fancy oven to make small breads and rolls,” I say quickly. “The giant oven is necessary for crusty boules and baguettes. In a smaller oven you can bake rolls, bagels, freeform pizza, pretzels, popovers…”
“Pizza!” Audrey yelps. “Now I want pizza.”
“You were just telling me that you had to watch the carbs,” Zara says. “That’s why we agreed to have chicken salad salad for lunch.”
“Plus it’s fun to say chicken salad salad,” Audrey points out.
“So that’s chicken salad—”
“On salad!” both women say at once.
I have a feeling this would be a fun workplace. Besides, if the Shipleys run it, the place is bound to do well.
“Can I have those references?” Zara asks. “I’ll call them today, and then if you were serious about working a couple of days as a trial, I think we should do that.”
“Sure! Let me grab my résumé out of my car,” I say. “One sec.”
I run outside, where I grab a folder. By the time I get back inside, Zara and Audrey are having an intense, whispered discussion. “Hours, pay, benefits,” Zara is saying. “We don’t have any of that stuff nailed down.”
“We can do some research,” Audrey says. “It’s time, right? I’ll ask May about the legal stuff.”
“Okay, sure.” Zara turns to give me a smile. “I thought we’d procrastinate a little longer, but then you walked in. Maybe it was meant to be.”
I hope she’s right. Because if there’s someplace in this world that I’m meant to be, I haven’t found it yet.
Kieran
Sometimes fate just slaps you in the face.
I hear these words, and my face prickles with awareness. Because fate is definitely smacking me around today.
After seeing Roderick at the gym yesterday, I wasn’t even surprised when he walked into the Busy Bean this morning. If I came back to Colebury after a long absence, I’d check out the cute new coffee shop, too.
But now he wants to work here? Fuck my life.
I steal a glance around the doorframe just to confirm what I already know—he’s getting in good with Zara and Audrey. They’re all smiling at each other like a bunch of BFFs.
Is there any way this ends well? Maybe he’s a horrible baker. Maybe he’ll burn everything and give the customers food poisoning.
And I’m obviously a terrible person, or I wouldn’t be thinking like this.
The urge to walk out the door right now is powerful. But that’s not what a man does. I take Audrey’s cookies out of the oven and move them to a cooling rack, so they won’t burn.
I can’t believe Audrey actually abandoned a batch of cookies in the oven. She got distracted by all this talk of new employees. If I’m honest, she gets distracted a lot lately. She calls it “pregnancy brain.”
The truth is that Zara and Audrey really do need a full-time employee. I can’t give them any more hours, and when Audrey has that baby, she’s going to need to take some time off. This past summer, Audrey went on a ten-day honeymoon, and it nearly killed Zara.
But Jesus Christ, does it have to be him?
“Let’s give you the nickel tour,” Audrey says. “Our Italian espresso machine isn’t fully automatic. Have you used one of these before?”
