Page 27 of Make Mine Sweet
Her expression shifts to something more sympathetic. “Is this your first time in the store?”
Yeah. Shouldn’t have said that. There’s more than one grocery store in town, but her question isn’t entirely a casual one. Like she knows just how much of an effort it took for me to come down here in the first place.
So much gentleness layers her voice, I’m tempted to admit everything. Share with her how I’ve been avoiding town, avoiding people because without my career, I don’t know who I am anymore. Beg her to tell me where on earth the fresh fruit is located in this place. But this softness is too close to pity. That’s the last thing I want from her. I shake off this…whatever she’s doing to me. No point in looking at it too closely. Just need it gone.
“I should get back to it.” I brace my hands on my cart, reminding myself this urge to stand right here with her until the store closestalkingis foolish and one-sided.
“Oh. Sure.” Her smile slips away, and she maneuvers her cart to the side.
A cold sensation creeps over me. It’s not the first time I’ve felt that way when I’ve shut down on people these last two years…but it’s the first time I want to fix it.
Pretty sure anything I tried would only make it worse. Mostly for me. Doesn’t stop the urge, though.
Just before she passes me, she pauses. “It’s good to see you, Ian.”
This angel must really be a devil in disguise. Does she have any idea how my name on her lips tangles my stomach into a hitch knot? She can’t possibly know how that one soft word unravels my impulse to sneak out of this grocery store and make sure we never cross paths again.
Just as she starts to move away, I manage to find my voice. “Thank you again for the cupcakes.”
It comes out a mere step up from a growl and it’s nothing I haven’t already said, but I still say the words.
She stops again, directly in front of me. Looking at me with those big, blue eyes. A trace of a smile touches her mouth, and suddenly, I need to experience the whole, vibrant thing.
“They were the best I’ve ever had.”
More like mouthwatering, but I’m not fool enough to use that descriptor in front of her. I’ve already gotjerkcovered, I don’t need to addcreepto the list. Still, I’d savored those cupcakes and mourned when I finished the last crumbs from the box.
She relaxes into a wide grin that hits me square in the gut. Maybe higher. All I know is, she’s knocked my feet out from under me with her open smile. Even as I’m falling, bracing myself for impact, I want more.
NINE
TESS
Never leta five-year-old give you exercise advice. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re only five.
“You can do it, Mama.” August’s about fifteen feet ahead of me on the trail, cheering me on like I’m ready to cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon instead of less than a mile into a short walking path.
In my defense, it’s impossible to keep up with him on flat surfaces, let alone on the side of a hill. His energy is always cranked to an eleven. I like to top out at about a seven—enough to keep from being a couch potato, but not so much I’m signing up for five-day hikes like my friend Lila did.
Actually, she doesn’t especially like to be active, either. I wonder how that hike’s going.
“You’re so good, Mama! Almost there!”
I laugh, but the more he encourages me on, the more I want to sit down in the dirt. Just for a minute or five.
I made a specialty cake today, which always gives me an extra thrill, even if it means extra work. A group of nurses at the medical center requested a cake for their head nurse’s birthday celebration. A two-layer chocolate cake with mint ganache filling and mint buttercream frosting. It’d been a joy to make, despite Mom side-eying me every time she walked into the kitchen.
She thinks our pie bakery should stick to baking pies, even if cakes are the love of my life. I convinced her to let me add our cupcake offerings to the case last year, but we don’t have cakes on our website or even on our menu board in the store. They’re an insider thing only, by special request.
Is it so wrong I want everyone to know about my cakes?
August runs over, loops around behind me, then runs back to where he was a second ago.
“How do you have so much energy?”
He lifts his arms in the air like he’s flexing them. “It’s my super shields!”
It’s probably just good, old-fashioned, childhood exuberance. I trudge along, sweat running down my spine and a stitch forming in my side, feeling every bit a thirty-something.
