CHAPTER 30
Zoe
I walked into the bakery the next morning with rage coursing through my veins. Like, how fucking dare he?
I was so overwhelmed that I wasn’t even sure what I was pissed about. The fact that Dylan was trying to do his job? I mean, much as I may have wanted to, I couldn’t actually fault him for that.
Maybe it was just that he’d had the nerve to text me about it. Text me! As though we were still on chummy terms. No, not okay. If he had to keep working the case, fine, so be it. But did he have to do it so cavalierly, as if nothing had passed between us?
It was six, and I was ready to hit some shit. I started kneading the dough for the day, until kneading turned into straight up pounding the dough, as if I were waiting for it to cry uncle.
“Stupid.”
Pound.
“Lying.”
Pound.
“No good.”
Pound.
“Son of a bitch!”
Pound, pound and pound again. The dough took everything I threw at it and took it silently. Maybe, I thought, I should resign myself to the life of a pastry chef. Married to my baked goods. Nobody talks back at me and everything is always sweet.
Never mind that the bigger part of me, like an idiot, still wanted love. As if that ever did anybody ever good. The greatest hurts I’d been dealt in life thus far were because I had the audacity to love another person. Some good it’d done me.
And Dylan… well, I wasn’t sure I was falling in love. Yet. But it had definitely been barreling away to ‘love,’ that was the clear trajectory of our intimate moments. I’d never met a man so protective but kind, strong but fatherly, and…
“No,” I said to myself. “Shut up.” I couldn’t let myself think about all his fine attributes, when he’d just admitted he hated me.
Ok, he didn’t say that, but he did say he thought I was guilty. Or like, possibly maybe guilty. Same difference. I wasn’t about to date a man who pegged me as a criminal, talk about not setting yourself up for success. What, like we were gonna get married in the prison courtyard and I’d honeymoon in an orange jumpsuit? Nu-uh.
“Just focus on the bread,” I instructed my turbulent mind. But I knew it would take more than words to calm me.
Wiping the flour off my hands, I went to my purse, and grabbed my cell phone. I hooked it up to a little Bluetooth speaker that I always kept close at hand in case of emergencies. Dance emergencies, not, y’know, real ones.
The small box powered up, and I connected my music library. In no time, Bowie was blaring from the speaker, which vibrated so powerfully it almost tipped off the counter.
“We could be heroes,” I sang into a baguette. “Just for one day.”
A pirouette around a dining table. Some air guitar.
And just as Bowie was about to close out the song, the front door opened. Kelly, along with Donovan and Samuel — the two other men I contracted — were staring at me, mortified by my unabashed performance.
“Uh, hey boss,” said Donovan, unsure if that term even applied to me anymore.
I wiped my hair out of my eyes and dropped the baguette on a nearby table.
“Hi,” I returned, trying to sound nonchalant and not completely humiliated by what they’d just seen. “Thanks for coming in.”
I didn’t have the money to hire Samuel and Donovan full time these days, but when Dylan had said to bring in my employees, I figured I ought to lump them in that category. There was no realistic chance that they’d be even minutely helpful, but the more people between me and Dylan, the better.
“No problem,” Samuel replied with a professional smile. The two of them were good kids, about Kelly’s age, but far more mature than I imagined she’d ever be.
I added guiltily, “Sorry for bringing you in on such short notice.”
Donovan waved away the comment. “This is for the good of the store. Plus, it’s official police business. So, don’t think anything of it, we’re happy to help.”
“Am I getting paid?” Kelly interjected. “Since I’m like, technically working?”
I sighed and managed to keep my eyes from rolling upwards. “Yes, Kelly, you get paid because the store will be open for business.”
“‘Kay. Fine. I guess I’ll stick around and answer the questions or whatever.”
I wasn’t about to push my luck with her, so I just left my response at, “Thanks.”
Samuel and Donovan looked at one another, and Samuel asked, “Um, Zoe? When do you think the cop will be here?”
“He said nine, so about a quarter hour.”
They nodded. “Okay,” Donovan replied. “Should we just, uh, sit here?” He pointed at a nearby table.
“Sure, sure, that’s fine.” I turned to Kelly, and with a little smirk, said, “Please make them cups of coffee while they wait.”
“But they’re not customers—”
“These boys are doing me a favor, and you’ll treat them nicely. Understood?”
She scowled but did indeed fire up the coffee machine. I went behind the counter, grabbed a couple of bread rolls, and returned to the table with them.
“Chow down,” I said to them.
We all spent the next fifteen minutes on pins and needles, silently but anxiously awaiting Dylan’s arrival. I checked my phone compulsively for any word from him, but none came. That’s what you wanted, I reminded myself. You thought it was rude that he texted. Stupid inner voice, always having correct opinions.
At last, come nine, Dylan rolled through our front door.
And you know what the shitty thing about having an argument with a hot man is? Even when you’re fighting, he’s still hot. Like you can be as peeved as you pleased, but it’s not gonna make him any less blisteringly attractive.
This maxim applied painfully well to Dylan. He looked exhausted, but in a high-fashion way. His eyes were rimmed with red and his cheeks were slightly sunken in. If anything, our fight had made him hotter. Damn him.
“Hello,” I said stiffly. “I have all my employees here, as you requested.” The words sounded too professional, too buttoned-up to be my own.
His face flipped quickly from one extreme emotion to another, but within only a second or so, he tamped down the feelings, replying only, “Great. Thank you.”
I stiffened, expecting him to say more, to say anything of substance. He was silent. Was it because he thought I was guilty and didn’t want to cavort with criminals? My mind immediately flitted to the darkest possibilities.
Fine. Two could play at that fucking game. Without so much as a single word, I crossed my arms over my chest, which had the added advantage of propping my tits up, zipped my lips tight, and stomped to my post behind the counter, leaving Dylan to bewilderedly talk with Donovan and Samuel.
“Hey, you two the other employees?” he asked.
“Yup,” one replied, though I wasn’t sure which, since my back was still resolutely turned.
“Great, I’ll just need to speak with you both one on one.”
“Okay, sir.”
And — the nerve of him — Dylan swiveled to me and called out, “Zoe, could we please use your office for the interviews?”
I was taken aback. He thought we were on chatty speaking terms? Man oh man had he misread the situation. But that question did require a reply, so I did the littlest response possible, a curt nod of my head.
I knew, with a certainty, that I couldn’t be in the bakery for this. The sight of Dylan would either make me madder or make me forget why I was mad in the first place. Rather than flip out or lose my resolve, I elected to do the only sensible thing — go bitch about it to Mina.
To really hammer home my distaste, I glanced at Kelly and said, “I’ll be next door while Officer Robertson conducts the interviews. If you need anything, come fetch me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dylan’s face fall.
I gave a fancy flip of my hair and strutted out the front door, right on over next door to the store Mina worked at. I saw her through the window ringing up a customer, and I jogged inside.
“Hey, Mina!” I called out. “Can we talk?”
Mina, never one for customer service, turned to the man she was handing a receipt to, and said, “Thanks. The store is now closed.”
He made a noise of throaty distaste, but scuttled out with his purchases. As I walked to the counter, she looked at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked with concern. Fair question. I rarely, if ever, came to her store. It just wasn’t how things were between us.
“Dylan,” I replied by way of explanation.
Her eyes went wide. “Tell me everything.”
She pulled out two enormous beanie bags from a nearby display — kids’ shops, I guess, all have beanie bags — and we plopped down into them.
“Gird your loins,” I instructed, and launched into the whole story. How things were going great, up until the point where he accused me of being a criminal mastermind, how now we were at an impasse, and the bakery was in real danger of shuttering. Mina listened carefully, nodding and making noises in all the right places.
When I was done, there was a brief moment of silence, after which she said, “You can sleep on my couch if the bakery closes.”
I laughed. “I’ll still have my home, babe.”
“Okay, well, just in case you wanna, like, save on rent, or… I dunno. It just seemed like the right thing to offer.”
“It was. Thank you.” I paused, and continued, “But now I really need to think about something other than Dylan, so pretty pretty please help me take my mind off him.”
She obliged me for the next while, until I knew it was high time for me to return to Zoe’s Cakes and Bakes. I squirmed my way out of the beanie bag and gave Mina a hug goodbye.
“Okay,” she cooed. “It’s gonna be great.”
Right. Great.
Time to reclaim my turf.