Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I’m making tea,” she announces.
I smile at her answer, my heart hammering in my chest. “So you are okay with meeting Saige as more than my friend?” I ask, and she snorts. “I’m going to pick her up on Friday and tell her we are having dinner with you. Then I’ll tell her I’m in love with you.”
She gasps. “That we were in love a long time ago, and I did things that stopped us from being together.”
“Don’t do that.” She shakes her head.
“Tell her what, that I’m in love with you?” She shakes her head again.
“No, about what happened in the past. She’s going to be confused enough with sharing you, and then you throw in that you loved me before and everything that happened. I don’t want her to ever know, to be honest.”
“She’s going to know eventually,” I say. “The town is small, and the gossip is larger than life.”
“Yes, but we don’t have to feed into it,” she argues.
“Okay, fine.” I hold up my hand.
“You love me?” she asks softly, the sound of the kettle whistling behind her.
“I do,” I confirm.
“You ever stop loving me?” She doesn’t move to the stove.
“Thought I did,” I admit, “but I lied to myself.”
“Me too,” she replies with a soft smile on her face.
“So are you saying you love me?” I ask, and she smirks.
“Maybe.”
“You going to get your ass over here right now?” I ask, and she shakes her head. She turns toward the stove, turning it off before she walks over to me. When she is close to me, I yank her to me, picking her up and placing her on the island.
She puts her hands on my face. “You ever stop loving me?” I ask the same question she asked me.
“Sadly, no.” She leans down to kiss my lips. “Thought I did.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
She rubs my cheek. “Make it up to me,” she urges softly. “Every single day, make it up to me.”
I grab her around her waist, picking her up off the counter. “Every single day, I plan on doing just that.” I walk toward my bedroom. “Starting right now.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
EVERLEIGH
“How do I look?” I ask my mother when I step out of the bathroom wearing my ruffled baby-pink skirt and a smocked white gauze top with puffy short sleeves that tie in the back. “Mom,” I groan. “We’re supposed to be dressed the same.”
“We are,” she counters. “It’s literally the same shirt and skirt. I just had to add an extra layer, or else I would forget and bend over and give away the farm.” I look around the kitchen, seeing the six people we hired to help us today. “What time is the photographer going to be here?” she asks, looking around, shaking the nerves out of her hands.
“Any minute,” I reply, turning and capturing the people working in the back.
“You and that phone,” my mother hisses.
“Hey, this phone”—I hold up—“went viral last night.” I shake it. “The video of you coming into the bakery was seen over twelve million times in twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” she admits, smoothing down her skirt. “What if no one comes?”
“To the grand opening?” I roll my eyes. “I made five hundred donuts. They better fucking show up,” I say, and she laughs.
She doesn’t have a chance to say anything else because the door opens and the photographer for the local paper comes in. We sit at the table by the window, side by side, with the top of it overflowing with cookies, cupcakes, donuts, and cups of coffee. I look over at my mother, who smiles at me. “Proud of you,” I say, and she throws her head back and laughs.
“I’m the one who is supposed to say that,” she chides as the photographer tells me to look at him. Two days ago, the reporter called to tell me she wanted to do a story about how the town rallied around us to help rebuild the bakery after it burned down. She asked me a slew of questions, and today, the photographer came out to snap a couple of pictures before our big opening at noon.
He takes what feels like a million pictures before he finally leaves thirty minutes later. I get up and take one look around, seeing the display cases filled to the rim with donuts and cupcakes. The bottom shelf has platters of cookies we are testing out. Five platters of cake sit on top of the display cases, thanks to Harmony. Two platters are cut into slices and then three are full cakes ready to be sold.
I made them add gold hanging lights over the cases just for show, and I have fake white and pink flowers dangling so it looks like a garden. I snap a couple more pictures of the bouquet of balloons beside the front door. “Mom,” I call to her, holding up the camera, “what do you want to say about the opening?”