Page 3 of Ride or Die
“Holy shit, B. There are a lot of nice cars out here,” Shade says, now walking beside me.
“They look nice, but let’s see how they drive,” I tell him.
“You wanna take my spot in the next race,” Gator asks me.
I shrug. “Sure.”
“Twenty minutes and you’re up,” he says.
Twenty minutes flies by. I pull my car to the spray-painted start line not long before my opponent does. He revs his engine in an attempt to intimidate me and I smirk. He’s driving an Eclipse. Those cars aren’t usually as fast as they look or sound. I’d be stupid to be intimidated by that type of car. There’s a tire biter to count down the race.
She signals for us to go. I drop my car into gear and take off. The Eclipse is keeping up better than I anticipated, but I’m still ahead. I glance at the button to release NOS and hover my thumb over it. The Eclipse is inching closer and closer. I hit the NOS and go flying forward, crossing the finish line a whole car length in front of him.
I pull my car back around to where my crew is at and park. I hop out and they’re all surrounding me, congratulating me on my win.
“Brah!” Gator drawls out. “That was a nice win!”
“Thanks. That guy was better competition than I anticipated him to be.” I grin, floating on cloud nine from my adrenaline rush.
We stick around for Clutch and Diesel to race and to watch some locals before heading back to the hotel. Biggie wasn’t lying when he said there’s some good competition out here. We’ll have to come back to visit again soon.
“Hit us up if you’re ever in Austin,” I tell them before we leave for the hotel.
Tomorrow, we meet with Nikolay before we make our way back home. Shade and I are having a party at our new house in two short days.
2
Cali
Beep,beep, beep.
Four o’clock comes way too quick.I smack my alarm clock, silencing the excessive beeping. It has to be on an obnoxious setting. If my alarm plays music, I sleep through it, hearing whatever song it is in my dreams. I’m not one to hit snooze half a dozen times either.
I crawl out of bed and begin my morning routine. Today, I’ll be working in the kitchen at my bakery. Which means yoga pants, a t-shirt, and messy bun. I love working in the kitchen and getting to bake. Mybabushkaintroduced me to baking at a young age. I’d take any chance to bake for my family as a kid.
Now, I get to share my love with strangers every day. A Novel Bunch is more than a bakery. It’s also a coffee shop and bookstore. It’s everything I love all together in one little place. I received my Associate of Applied Science degree in pastry arts a couple of years after I graduated high school. My papa helped me with my shop financials until I got on my feet. Now, over three years after opening, A Novel Bunch is pretty successful. We have new customers often, and I try to change our menu a little as seasons change. We have a daily special which is always some kind of Russian dessert in honor of mybabushka.
Aside from baking, I love meeting my customers and getting to learn about them. I’ve acquired a handful of regulars over the years. Some stop in before work. Some bring their laptops and work from the shop a few days a week. It’s a fun job all around.
I have some great employees as well. Emma was the first person I ever hired. I interviewed about ten people before her. What was meant to be a twenty-minute interview turned into a two-hour conversation. We’ve been best friends ever since and we’ve been living together for the past couple of years.
Sebastian, or Bash as Emma and I like to call him, joined us a short six months after we opened. The three of us are the only ones who are qualified to be in the kitchen, and between us three, one of us is always at the shop. We have a handful of college students working with us. It’s a pretty great team and for the most part, everyone gets along.
My Papa insists on me having a bodyguard at the bakery whenever I’m there. Yury arrives at the same time I do and hangs out in my office while I work, keeping an eye on the security cameras. I forget he’s there most of the time.
I leave my apartment at 4:40 a.m. and arrive at A Novel Bunch at five. We open at 6:00 a.m. and today, I’m opening with Chloe. She doesn’t mind working an early shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays since those are days she has classes later in the day. Emma and I worked our butts off in the early days of A Novel Bunch to have the day’s pastries prepped the day before. It makes it super easy for whichever one of us opens because all we need to do is put trays of pastries in the ovens. Not having to prep in the mornings makes it easier to get the rest of the shop up and running for the day, and it helps lessen the stress.
As soon as I get my purse put away in my office, I head to the kitchen and turn on the ovens to let them heat up. I go on autopilot doing all of the opening duties, only pausing to let Chloe in and to put the trays of pastries in the ovens. Our special today issharlotka, which is a Russian apple cake.Sharlotkawas the first thing Babushka taught me how to make and it’s always been one of my favorites. Our specials are one of the only things we prep and bake on the same day. Since Chloe has the front of the shop taken care of, I start preparing oursharlotkafor the day.
I’m so busy prepping trays and baking different pastries, the morning flies by. I glance at the clock and it’s already ten. I walk out of the kitchen to Chloe and Emma doing some light cleaning behind the counter. This is about the time we have a cool-down period after our morning rush.
“She’s alive!” Emma shouts when she sees me and smiles.
“We thought we may have lost you to the Pillsbury dough man or something,” Chloe laughs out. Emma nudges Chloe’s side.
“It’s how she gets when she has to make those apple cakes,” Emma half whispers. Chloe’s mouth forms an O.
“Sorry, boss.”
