by Kristy Love
My opinion on marriage had changed in the last two years. I used to think it was pointless for me. I had already found my one true love; what were the chances of finding someone else? Now, though, I knew I could find someone to grow old with. I wanted that. I wanted someone to be there when I got off a shitty shift, someone to celebrate with.
Ideally, that person would be Mia, but I hadn’t seen or heard from her in so long. She’d probably forgotten all about me.
David and I used to text each other occasionally, but that stopped happening. I hadn’t heard from him in close to a year. I understood. He had a family and work. I didn’t fault him—I would do the same thing if I had his life.
“Get it while you can, man,” Brian called out, punching Scottie in the shoulder. “You’ll be locked down in no time!” Everyone laughed. That’s how Brian was. He said shit that wasn’t appropriate, but it was usually funny.
“I’m not worried about it,” Scottie said, unable to wipe the smile off his face. It was crazy to think the guy got on my nerves just over a year ago.
Things changed in the blink of an eye.
We were walking down to the Rusted Head when a small shop caught my eye. I stopped in my tracks, staring at the sign. It had a brown background and was shaped like a cupcake. In pink script it said Gia’s Miracle. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I had the urge to see if my gut instinct was right. Was Mia behind that sign?
“Hey, guys, I’ll meet you there in a minute,” I said, already crossing the street. They called out questions, but I couldn’t stop walking toward it. I opened the door—a bell rang at my entrance. The inside was bustling with customers. A woman behind the counter had her back to me as she brewed more coffee. The cases were filled with cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and other pastries. The walls were chocolate brown with thick pink stripes and narrower white ones running vertically floor to ceiling. In the same pretty script, Gia’s Miracle was written above a menu board that listed all the different items the shop offered.
The woman who had been making the coffee turned around, a travel cup in her hand and a big smile on her face. I recognized her as Tammy, the woman who lost her son before Gia passed away. She rang the customer out and said, “Number seventy-four!” Someone stepped forward and ordered their baked goods. I stepped forward and grabbed a number—eighty-two—and moved closer to get a view of the cases.
Everything looked delicious. It wasn’t until my eyes caught on some chocolate cookies that I knew for sure. Roman’s Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Mia had to be here somewhere. She also had David’s Red Devil Cupcakes and Roxie’s Sinfully Sweet Carrot Cupcakes. There were other specialized names for different desserts, though some bore the usual names. My eyes caught on a pink cupcake with pink icing with a strawberry pressed into the icing. It was called Gia’s Miracle. There were cookies with bright icing on top called Donovan’s Dream. My heart sank a little, wondering who Donovan was.
I wanted Mia to be happy, but ultimately, I wanted her to find her way back to me. If Donovan made her happy, then I’d step back. I’d let her move on.
But I needed to see her first. The customers ahead of me dwindled, but more people filled their place. For a small bakery, it seemed to be popular.
“Number eighty-two!” Tammy called out. I waved my hand in the air to get her attention. She smiled, then she froze. “Roman,” she said, her tone hesitant.
“Hey, Tammy. How’s it going?” I moved closer to the cases so we could talk without yelling.
“Good. How are you doing?”
“Hanging in there.” I motioned to the cases. “The bakery is lovely.”
“Thanks. It’s been a lot of work.” She smiled, cautious. “Can I get you anything?”
“Sure. I’d like a dozen of the Roman’s cookies.” I smiled. Her eyes darted to the case before she grabbed a box and got my cookies together. I also ordered Gia’s Miracle, Roxie’s, and David’s cupcakes.
“The Roman cookies are our best seller.”
I grinned. “Sounds about right. Anything else you can recommend?”
Her eyes scanned the display carefully.
“Tammy, do we need anything else stocked?” Mia asked as she pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen. When Tammy didn’t answer, her eyes shot to mine. Her whole body flinched, she even took a step back, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. “Roman,” she breathed. She didn’t move or say anything else, instead continued to stare at me.
“Hi, Mia.”
“I’m going to leave you to finish his order, okay?” Tammy said, handing the box she’d been filling for me to Mia. “We have a lot more people here who need helped. It was good to see you Roman. I hope to see you again.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off Mia. I drank in the sight of her. Her hair was darker and hung down to the middle of her back. She had filled out more, though she was gorgeous no matter how she looked. She had a healthy glow to her skin and the sorrow that had clung to her was gone. My heart pulsed in my chest. I itched to reach out to her, to touch her, hold her, kiss her. Instead, I smiled at her. “You opened a bakery.”
“I did.” She was still stuck to the spot, her eyes taking in every inch of my face.
“It’s beautiful.” I nodded toward the line behind me. “It seems busy.”
“Yeah. Business has really picked up recently.” She took a few tentative steps toward me. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Have coffee with me.” I couldn’t let her get away without talking to her more.
“I can’t. We’re open for a few more hours. I can’t leave Tammy.”
“After work.” She was going to make me beg, wasn’t she? I didn’t want to beg, but I would. I needed to make sure she was okay. I needed to talk to her, be near her.
“Today isn’t a good day. I have plans.”
My eyes flicked to the name Donovan on the cookie sign before looking back at her. “Tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “It’s Friday. Our hours are longer on Friday, plus I have more baking to do.”
“When?” My heart pounded at the possibility of her saying no, saying she couldn’t.
“Monday. Weekends are the busiest and we have the longest hours. Monday would be best.”
“You wanted to make me squirm, didn’t you?”
She shrugged and a grin spread across her face.
“Want to meet at the coffee shop down the street?”
“At nine?”
I nodded. “I’ll see you then.” She rang me out and I paid. When I handed her the money, our fingertips brushed and I’d be damned if I didn’t feel that touch the whole way down to my stomach.
I went to meet up with the guys weighed down with baked goods. I’d share everything with them—just not my cookies.
* * *
I walked into the coffee shop at fifteen to nine. I had barely been able to sleep the night before, anticipation at seeing Mia again making me anxious. I ordered coffee for me and a sweet coffee for Mia. It used to be her favorite. I wondered if it still was. There was so much about her I didn’t know anymore. Maybe she didn’t like sweet coffee, instead preferring the bitter taste of black coffee now. I ordered two chocolate-filled croissants and sat to wait for her to arrive. When it rolled to five after nine, my leg bounced, afraid she wouldn’t show.
About ten minutes later, Mia breezed inside, apologies falling from her lips. “I’m so sorry. Roxie and David ran late picking up Donovan this morning.”
My eyebrow quirked up, wondering even more who Donovan was. “It’s no problem. I’m glad you showed.”
She smiled. “You thought I wouldn’t?” She took her sweater off and slid into the seat across from me.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Roman? Unsure? Time really does change everything,” she quipped.
“When it comes to you, can you blame me?” Her smile fell off her face as she looked down at the table. I wanted to kick myself for causing her that uncertainty. “Here,” I s
aid, pushing the coffee closer to her. “I got you a vanilla caramel latte. I wasn’t sure if it was still your favorite.”
She took a long sip. “It is. Thank you.”
“And a croissant.” I nudged the plate closer to her.
“You thought of everything.”
I nodded, taking her in. I liked the easy way she smiled and hated the way I made her stop. “Tell me about you; how you’re doing.”
“Jumping right into it, huh?” One side of her mouth twitched up into a smile. “Obviously you know I work at the bakery, so I don’t work at David’s anymore. I live in a small apartment complex a few blocks over. I spend a lot of time with Roxie and David’s son, Donovan. That sums up my life.”
Donovan was Roxie and David’s son. The jealousy that flared up earlier died completely. It was stupid to feel jealous anyway. What claim did I have on her? We spent a few great months together and it had been so long since then. I wanted her to miss me the way I missed her. “That sounds like a full life.”
She shrugged. “It’s uncomplicated and simple. I needed that after . . .” Her voice trailed off. She ripped a piece of croissant off and popped it into her mouth. “What about you?”
“Everything’s the same. I still work a lot, though even more now. That’s it.”
“How’s Jessie?”
“Good. She and her partner got married and I was the best man.” I grinned, remembering Jessie’s wedding day. I’d given the most embarrassing speech I possibly could. It was great to see Jessie so happy.
“That’s exciting.”
“It was.” I grabbed my coffee and took a long pull of it. The bitterness of the brew filled my mouth as I tried to think of what else to say to her. What I really wanted to ask her was how she was doing, if she’d found someone else. Did she still care about me?
“About what happened before . . .” Mia said, her voice trailing off, swirling her cup, her eyes on the motion. My eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry if the way I left hurt you. I didn’t want to; I just couldn’t be in that house anymore. I couldn’t be there and know that the last time I was happy, Gia was there and she’d never be back. The memories were overwhelming and I couldn’t handle it. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. I’m sorry.”
“You were going through a lot.”
“It wasn’t right. I pushed you away. You’d been nothing but amazing to me after Gia passed away and I . . . was less than nice.” Her eyes met mine and they were filled with sorrow. Her lips were pressed into a fine line. “I needed to cut ties, to move on. I needed to find a way to be okay.”
“I would have helped you.” My throat felt as if it was closing. “I wanted to help you.”
“I appreciate that, I really do, but I couldn’t have found a way to be okay with you. I could barely find a way to live one second to the next there. I needed . . . space and time.”
“From me?” Why did I sound like I was whining? I just wanted to understand why I wasn’t enough for her, why I couldn’t have held her when things got rough.
“From everything. I barely got out of bed for months. I stopped going to work. I stopped living. I didn’t want to drag you down with me. You’d fought through your own grief. You didn’t need to shoulder mine.”
“I get it.” I really didn’t, though. I hadn’t started to work through my grief until Mia. I’d barely existed before her.
Mia reached across the table, resting her warm palm on my hand. Again, I felt her touch everywhere. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Roman.”
“You’re okay now?”
She nodded. “I’m as okay as I possibly can be. I still have bad days where I just want to crawl into bed and hide under the covers, but I’m learning that’s okay. I’ll always miss Gia. I’ll always feel her absence, but I have to continue to live. She’d want that for me.”
I turned my hand over, twining my fingers with hers. She looked down at our connected hands with a faraway gaze. “That’s all that matters. Finding a way to live, a way to be happy.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I’m glad you took care of you.”
“Thanks. Enough about me. Tell me how you’re doing. Not what you’re doing, but how are you?” She didn’t pull her hand away from mine. I was going to keep holding on to her for as long as she’d let me.
“I’m okay. I have good days and bad days, but the good days usually outnumber the bad.”
“Grief is a fickle bitch.”
“It really is.”
I finished my coffee and she talked about the bakery. She sipped her coffee and ate her croissant. Maybe it made me a loser, but I could watch her eat for the rest of my life. I held her hand, stroking her wrist with my fingertips. Her skin was so smooth, so perfect. I didn’t want to let her go.
“I should get to the shop. We open in a half hour and I still have stuff to set up.” Mia pulled her hand out of mine and I felt the loss immediately. She stood and I gathered up our trash, throwing it away. We walked together in silence to her shop. I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching out to her.
How had she turned me into this person? I took what I wanted and said what I thought, but with Mia? I wanted to play it safe. I didn’t want to scare her off.
When we got outside the bakery, she turned toward me, smiling, though her eyes were sad. “It was good to catch up with you.”
“Yeah.” I reached out and tucked a nonexistent lock of hair behind her ear. Really, I just wanted to touch her. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
“We should catch up again sometime.”
“Definitely.”
She unlocked the door of the shop and pulled it open before turning back to me. “Goodbye, Roman.”
“See you later,” I said, not wanting to say goodbye. Goodbye felt too final. I watched her slip into the bakery, something like regret and sorrow warring in my gut.
* * *
I pulled open the bakery door and stepped inside. The smell of divine baked goods assaulted my nose and my mouth watered. This was my first time back after we had coffee. I hadn’t heard from her and I missed her. Seeing her had ripped the wound wide open, reminding me of her and how much I wanted to see her again. I figured I needed to show her I was still around. That I still wanted her.
Tammy worked the front of the store, delivering orders and ringing up customers. Mia wasn’t out front. It was clear that Tammy was struggling to keep up with the crowd. Mia needed more employees. Pride swelled in my chest. She was following her dream and succeeding.
When my number was called, I lifted my hand, getting Tammy’s attention. A smile curved her lips. “Roman. It’s good to see you again.”
“Hey, Tammy. Looks like you’re busy.”
“You know it.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’d like some of the Roman’s cookies again.”
“How many?” she asked as she grabbed a box to put them in.
“All of them.”
She stopped, her eyes meeting mine. “All?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s over three dozen cookies.”
“Sounds perfect.”
She packaged up the cookies with the skill of someone who knew what she was doing and was well practiced. She tied the box shut with some string. “Anything else?”
“That’ll be it.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and handed her my debit card.
“How are things with you?” she asked as she rang me up.
“Good. You seem busy here.”
“Very. I’m trying to convince Mia that she needs to hire someone else. She used to be able to work up front with me, but she’s been getting more orders, so she’s had to bake in the back more.”
“She won’t hire someone?”
“She’s worried all this success is a fluke.”
“A fluke?”
“She thinks once the novelty of the bakery wears off that people will stop coming in. Our customer base keeps g
rowing. We’re selling out of stuff. It’s just not a two-person operation anymore.”
Mia was still playing it safe, though people would stop frequenting the shop if the lines continued to be long. “I have a buddy at work whose wife is looking for a job. Not anything fancy, just something to do while the kids are at school.”
“Yeah?”
“She’s a hard worker. I bet she’d be a good fit for front end stuff.”
“Give me her info. I’ll tell Mia.” She handed me a pen and a pad of paper. I scribbled down Sophie’s information and handed it back to Tammy. “Thanks, Roman.”
I held up the package of cookies. “Thanks, Tammy. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tammy nodded, studying me as I left.
I climbed in my truck and got a cookie out, taking a big bite. Goddamn these were amazing. They were even better than I remembered. I continued eating them as I drove back home.
* * *
The next day, I stopped at the coffee shop down the street and picked up the coffee I knew Mia liked and took a guess at what Tammy may like. Then I headed to Mia’s bakery. I pushed through the door. Today, both Mia and Tammy were working out front. I walked up to the counter and handed the drink holder over the display to them.
“Here you go, ladies. Figured a little caffeine boost could help get you through the day.”
“Thanks, Roman.” Tammy took a long gulp. “This is delicious. I’ve never had it before.”
“It’s a salted caramel latte. I thought it was something you’d enjoy.”
“I love it. Thanks.” She took another sip before helping the next customer in line.
“Thanks, Roman.” Mia looked down at her cup, toying with the lid.
“Of course.” I smiled at Mia.
“Tammy told me you bought all the cookies yesterday. And that you recommended we hire someone new.”
“You’re busy here.” I motioned behind me.
“I called Sophie yesterday. She’s coming in for an interview this afternoon, after we close up.”
“I hope it works out.”
“She seemed really nice on the phone yesterday.”
“She is nice. She’s one of the few work wives I get along with.”