Page 24 of Looks Real Good Now
“Never lost it,” I answered. A Westchester Bakes doughnut would always be the one I associated with after-school sugar rushes and discovering new flavour combinations. It would always be the thing that sparked a fire within me that I would eventually turn into my job, which I still found new ways to fall in love with every day. Or at least most days. It was the doughnut I associated with good days and bad days and just because days.
“Come on, let’s keep walking,” Liam said as he stood upand held his hand out to me. I placed my hand in his and he immediately tucked our joined hands into his coat pocket to keep at least one of our hands out of the winter chill. Our hands being in there gave me no option but to press myself as close to Liam as possible.
“Anyone would think you haven’t been home for ages,” I teased, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Well, I haven’t. Not properly anyway. Nor have you. And don’t try to lie to me—just because you’ve been back to your parents’ house does not mean that you’ve been home. When was the last time you queued in that line for the sole purpose of getting a doughnut?”
“I dunno, it’s been years. But I will also say that I stopped queuing long before I left becauseyoudid it for me.”
“Fine. When was the last time someone waited in line to get you a doughnut?”
“About fifteen minutes ago,” I said.
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
“Being smart has almost always been a character trait of—” I stopped abruptly as we walked past a block of units that we used to walk by all the time. It was the block of units that held my dream bakery space. Liam once found me pressed against the glass, visualising what it would look like. Where the counter would go, where the display cases would be and how I would set up the kitchen.
“It’s still empty,” I said, extracting myself from his side.
“Oh, it wasn’t the last time I was here,” Liam said from right behind me. I pressed myself up against the glass again. The space had changed a little, but the bones were the same. I could stillput the kitchen in the same place. In fact, it looked like I would be able to recreate the Detroit bakery almost identically. I couldexpand.
I had been thinking about expanding for a while, but the issue was always the same. I didn’t have the capacity, time, or money to do it. I still didn’t. I stepped away from the window and turned around to Liam.
“You okay?” he asked. I nodded as I laced my fingers with his again and nestled into his side. He accommodated me easily.
“Can we go home now?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We walked home, pressed together in silence.
18
Alana
Aaron was in my room, sitting on my bed and throwing a marbled black stress ball that he bought me when I was fourteen up in the air. He startled when I caught the stress ball straight out of the air, and I felt proud of my stealth mode.
“Jacob’s back,” he said composing himself and pointing at the newly reinstated poster.
“Yeah, courtesy of Liam.” I threw the stress ball at him. He caught it.
“Ah, yes, Liam. I heard you two were together now. Not from you, though, which hurt my feelings. I thought we were closer than that.” He threw it back.
“It’s all very new. If it makes you feel better, we didn’t tell anyone until yesterday.” When we came up with the idea.
“Is that really a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I threw the ball back.
“Oh, are we pretending that I didn’t know you were hopelessly in love with your best friend and literallyleft the statewith no warning to avoid confronting those feelings?” he chuckled as he threw the ball back.
“I didn’t run to…” I trailed off, realising that it was pointless to lie to Aaron. He was the only person I ever told about my feelings for Liam, and I only did it because he was like a dog with a bone and he could tell something was up in the weeks before I left.
“Okay, fine, so I ran to avoid that. But that has nothing to do with what is happening now. We’re not actually dating,” I said instead. Except the words felt odd in my mouth. It was technically true, but in the aftermath of our morning, it felt less fake than it had yesterday.
I watched confusion fall over Aaron’s face.
“What do you mean?” he eventually asked.
