Page 59 of Bittersweet

“You must be Harper.” Wendy’s voice brought Harper out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Its nice to finally meet you.”

“You too,” Harper replied. “Did, uh, did Logan say what he’s going to do now?” She was hoping maybe he’d discussed it with Wendy—she was his business manager after all.

Wendy shook her head. “I think he’s praying for some kind of miracle.”

Oh, he’ll need more than a miracle once I get ahold of him.

Harper did her best to keep her emotions in check for the rest of the day, but once the doors were locked, it all came crashing down on her. So much bad news had come her way that week, and the best place for her when she felt overwhelmed was behind the counter, mixing up batter for this treat or that, icing cookies in fun designs, thinking about what she wanted to bake next. When she was working, all else fell away. She could lose hours creating food that would bring happiness to people. Who didn’t smile when someone gave them a cake or a cookie or a cupcake?

But Harper couldn’t find her smile. Not tonight. Savannah’s news earlier that week had saddened her. As did the fact that Logan hadn’t told her right away that Naya was getting out of jail early. And now he’d kept something so big as the true condition of his truck from her.

The nagging thought that Logan might be keeping more from her made the old familiar pain bubble up to the surface and gnaw at her.

Harper glanced at the clock—almost seven. Logan would be at her apartment in thirty minutes to pick her up. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

For a second, she considered trying her hand at the coffee cupcakes she’d been thinking about, but that only made her think of Logan, so she made triple chocolate cookies instead.

When her phone rang thirty-five minutes later with a call from Logan, she didn’t answer. She was in the middle of melting chocolate for drizzling. She didn’t answer the second time he called either because she was in the process of drizzling said chocolate over the cookies. She switched her phone to silent and continued on with her work, ignoring multiple texts.

She knew she should answer them, but she needed time to think about how she should react, what she should say. After thirty minutes of giving him the silent treatment, there was a loud pounding on the door that made Harper nearly jump out of her skin.

Logan stood on the other side of the wooden door’s large glass window, a look of sheer panic in his eyes.

Harper unlocked the door, and he stomped in, clearly upset.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Just working late.”

“After everything that happened with Brett, you didn’t think texting a quick reply would’ve been a good idea?”

That hadn’t occurred to her. She’d been so wrapped up in all that happened that day. “I’m sorry. There was a lot going on here. I got distracted.”

He looked around at the empty shop and let out a breath then reached for her.

She flinched, and his brow furrowed. “What was that?”

“What?”

“Is there something you aren’t saying?”

Harper fixed her eyes on his. “I don’t know, is there?” She didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in her reply.

“What are you getting at?”

“Wendy stopped by the shop today to give Savannah the money from the food truck festival.”

“Okay.”

“She told us about the fire.”

Logan hung his head. “I was going to tell you.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Why didn’t you tell me everything to begin with? Why can’t you just be honest with me?”

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