The Sweetest Fix

by Bailey, Tessa

  Obviously it didn’t, since she wasn’t returning his texts.

  Meanwhile he couldn’t go two minutes without remembering the shape of her in his arms while she slept, the memory of her smiling beside him on the couch. The way she’d murmured into his neck and cuddled closer, her knee bumping into his thigh. He thought how the sunlight in his apartment set off gold in her hair, highlighted her unique combination of determination and fatigue. And God, he thought of the unbelievable sex. Without her hiccupping calls of his name, the bedroom had been deadly silent for the last three days. God, just knowing sex that incredible even existed had him beating off twice as often as usual, visions of a climaxing Reese playing in his head.

  Thanks to his screw up, whatever they’d had was over before it started.

  Leo realized his fists were buried unmoving in the dough, his gaze staring at nothing in the distance. With a swallow, he resumed his task. Of course the first time he really liked a girl, wanted to see a lot more of her, she ghosts him.

  Although…there was something about her manner when they woke up from the nap that still didn’t sit right with Leo. Maybe it was presumptuous of him to hold the gut belief that he knew Reese well enough to judge her behavior as Reese-like or non-Reese-like. There was no help for it, though, dammit. Did he imagine the unique sense of…homecoming between them? Was it possible the connection he’d felt had only been one-sided?

  Of course it was. He’d always been a loner. The one time he’d made a friend growing up, he’d misread the guy’s intentions, too, completely missing the ulterior motive. Keeping to himself was easier than trying to be social, but that decision was now biting him in the ass, because he had little experience with interpersonal relationships. How to read someone.

  It hadn’t seemed like he needed those skills with Reese. With her, everything had been easy. But he must have been wrong. Must have misread a sign somewhere along the way.

  Leo threw the pastry dough into a pie tin, shaping it with his fingers. He poured in the apples and cinnamon filling, forming a lattice pattern over the top with ribbons of dough. With the final pie of the morning in the oven, he found himself unable to settle on the next task, his feet moving to the back exit, instead. Maybe some air would clear his head enough of thoughts of Reese to do his damn job.

  He propped the door open with a broom and stepped out onto the sidewalk, the cold February air dropping his body temperature by several degrees on contact. On a weekday, even this early in the morning, there would be a ton of foot traffic by now. But on a Saturday, there was only the odd person walking their dog or braving the early morning chill for coffee and a newspaper. It was silent enough that Leo could hear the tinkling of the bell over the door in the Cookie Jar. He’d only closed his eyes briefly, a drowsy, smiling Reese filtering into his thoughts, when a voice effectively broke that silence.

  “Leo, right? Are you Leo Bexley? Oh my God. This is perfection.”

  One eye popped open to find two young people, a girl and a guy dressed way too nice for a Saturday. They were standing in his personal space. “Why?”

  “You own the Cookie Jar,” the girl pointed out.

  Leo raised an eyebrow, impatient for her to continue. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep in the last three nights for this shit. The guy jumped in, instead, waving his phone in the air. “You might know us? I’m Daschul. This is Rylee. We’re the VIP Section on TikTok. We review restaurants in Manhattan. Just hit a million followers yesterday.”

  They seemed to be waiting for a reply, so Leo said, “Congratulations, I guess?”

  “Oh my God. Thanks,” cooed Rylee. “Daschul’s friend’s stepsister posted about the Sweetest Fix thing you’re doing, but like, no one follows her boring ass, so we’re going to do it better. Can we TikTok in the bakery?”

  “You should let us. Seriously. We have a million followers and that doesn’t include YouTube, so…” Daschul trailed off, swiping through his phone. Which he then promptly held up to start filming Leo.

  “Nope,” Leo said, turning to go back inside.

  “Hey VIPs,” Rylee exclaimed, stopping Leo with a hand on his elbow. “We’re here with Leo Bexley, owner of the Cookie Jar on Ninth. If you’re looking for a gift for that special someone, or if you’re just trying to like, hook up, the Cookie Jar came up with a low-key gift idea that we are officially recommending.” She stopped to execute a baffling series of dance steps. “It’s called the Sweetest Fix, kiddies. Link in our IG bio for this cozy widdle West Side bakery. Just tell Leo about your significant other or booty call or whatever and he’ll whip up a personalized cake pop.”

  An undiscovered vein between Leo’s eyebrows started to throb. “No.” He shook his head, trying to step of the frame, but the synchronized pair moved with him. “We’re closed to orders. Not taking any more. Can I go now?”

  “You mean, like, there’s a waiting list?” Rylee asked, eyes growing rounder. “Or a VIP list? There has to be a way to get on it—”

  “There isn’t.” He wedged himself into the door opening, holding the broom between him and the overdressed pair. “Don’t bother.”

  “Can we post this?” Daschul called before he could close the door.

  “I don’t care,” Leo shouted back. Maybe it would be a good thing if the weirdo twins did put the impromptu interview up on TalkTalk or whatever the hell it was called. If people knew the bakery was closed to submissions, maybe Jackie would stop passing him new orders. They’d agreed to keep the online form open until five days before Valentine’s Day and he was almost in the clear. If the video was effective, he could avoid reading any more notes from people gushing about their partners. They were just reminders to Leo that he’d blown it with Reese.

  Through the rear door of the bakery, he heard Rylee say to Daschul, “Let’s grab some shots from inside the bakery, ’kay?”

  “Obvs.”

  Leo sighed and went back to work, forgetting about the encounter within minutes of getting back into his routine. But he would be remembering it soon enough…

  * * *

  Reese sat on the floor of the dance studio, wincing as she removed the tape wrapping from her bloody toes. The last three days were one long, continuous blur of dancing. Everywhere hurt. Her lower back protested the slightest movement, but she bent forward and re-wrapped her toes, anyway, giving the task single-minded focus, just like she’d given every task since Wednesday afternoon.

  This is why I’m in New York City. Dancing.

  Not to fall for a big, gruff, endearing baker.

  With mad oral skills and dirty talk game.

  It was stupid to miss Leo, right? To miss having that protective arm slung over her middle, holding her close while she napped? It only happened once. Why did she feel like she’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship?

  Not answering his texts kept her up at night.

  They were so perfectly Leo. To the point. She could hear his voice in every one of them.

  Reese. Hi.

  I hope you’re having a better day.

  Can we talk?

  Swallowing the knot in her throat, Reese shoved her sore feet back into her shoes, eyes straying to the clock. Five minutes until the break was over, then back to the free class. Despite the fact that she’d exhausted herself with two auditions yesterday, making it to the second round of both before being cut halfway through the routine, she’d set her alarm for five a.m. to make a free workshop.

  Sitting still for even a few minutes already had her muscles coiling up and stiffening, so she leaned forward and gripped the arches of her feet, groaning at the pulls and twinges. She didn’t look up when Cori fell into a cross-legged heap beside her. Her new closet-dwelling friend had been at the same auditions yesterday, suffering the same fate, and they’d walked to the workshop together this morning. Reese liked Cori, even if the dynamic between them was competitive at times. Hard to avoid it when they spent every waking moment strained, the prospect of failure hanging over their heads like s
torm clouds.

  “So, okay, I have to show you something,” Cori said, tapping away on her phone. “Right now, right now.”

  Reese turned her head, asking absently, “Did a new open call get posted?”

  “No.” Cori held the phone up so Reese could see the screen. “This TikTok of Leo Bexley is going viral. Didn’t you date him?”

  Seeing Leo on the screen shot her heart up into her mouth. “Oh…no. We didn’t…” His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear his voice—and after three days without it, she didn’t have the willpower to pass on the temptation. “Can you turn it up?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Cori tapped the volume button on the side of her phone. “Hold up. Let me start it over.”

  Over the next sixty seconds, Reese watched clips of Leo talking in between sweeping shots of the bakery display cases at the Cookie Jar, the video set to a hip-hop classic. It was clear that he didn’t want to be interviewed and knowing him, there was no way he’d agreed to it. How did they manage to get him on camera?

  Cori snorted when Reese played the TikTok a second time, her chest growing heavy when she noticed the circles under Leo’s eyes, the dusting of flour on his apron. The crook of his neck would smell like chocolate. His arms would be so warm. Knowing he was only a short walk away made her pulse pound. But she’d made it three days. Going back now would be the equivalent of playing games with him. Walking away had been the right thing to do after her deception. It had all gone too far in the first place.

  Besides, she only had enough money to make it eight more days. According to the constant math she’d been performing in her head, her funds—and her closet sublet—would run out on Valentine’s Day. If she wanted to catch a break by then, she’d have to be at every audition, every class, every open call. No time for anything else.

  “Brilliant marketing move,” Cori laughed. “Right?”

  Reluctantly, Reese handed her back the phone. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, telling people they can’t have something, especially this Gen Z audience, is like ringing a dinner bell. The Cookie Jar website crashed an hour after the VIP Section posted this video. The Sweetest Fix might as well be the newest iPhone.”

  Reese’s mouth hung open, her head swimming with the implications of what her friend was telling her. “Oh no,” she breathed, closing her eyes.

  In the TikTok, Leo said submissions were closed, but Leo had told Reese they wouldn’t officially stop accepting orders for a few more days. Meaning, the Cookie Jar got so many submissions, their website crashed. Now Leo would have to fulfill them all.

  And this whole thing had originated with her.

  Two sharp claps signaled class resuming. With guilt germinating in her stomach, Reese stood up and fell into position, memorizing the quick burst of choreo being demonstrated at the front of the room. She executed the moves, improving her timing slightly with each pass, but her head wasn’t in it. No, her brain might as well be on the counter of the Cookie Jar—and that’s where it stayed on the way home, with Cori and a few other dancers chattering beside her on the sidewalk. The animated group invited her to brunch, but she declined, walking the rest of the distance to her building alone.

  Her plan was to shower, change and search online for more open call listings, but when she walked into the apartment and smelled chocolate, a wave of sadness rolled through Reese, halting her halfway between the front door and the hallway.

  Marie, her landlady, turned from the kitchen counter where she appeared to be whipping frosting in a standing mixer. She cast an assessing glance in Reese’s direction, drawing a chocolate-dipped finger in and out of her mouth slowly. “Broadway has chewed you up and spit you out already?”

  Reese firmed her chin. “Not just yet.” She’d already learned to have thick skin where the blunt Miss LaRue was concerned. “What are you making?”

  “Dark chocolate truffles.” For a moment, the landlady seemed hesitant to share more, but she finally patted a white sack on the counter. “This is cocoa powder used at my favorite bakery in Paris. My childhood friend Jean-Marc sends me some every month. There is nothing in this country that compares.”

  “Wow.” Her throat hurt. “I know someone who would love that.”

  “The boy you are moping about, I assume.”

  “I’m not—”

  The French woman’s snort cut her off. “You chose the dance over the boy. I did this, too, once upon a time.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Reese said quietly.

  Marie hummed.

  “Do you regret it? Choosing dance over everything?” Reese asked.

  “Depends what time of day, what time of year, what time of month you are asking, oui?” A brief smile danced across her lips and she regarded Reese out of the corner of her eye for a beat, then flipped the standing mixer on a higher setting. “Jean-Marc sent me two bags of cocoa this month,” she said loudly to be heard over the whirring appliance. “If you have use for the rest of his bag, I suppose I can spare some.”

  “Oh.” The unexpected kindness from the usually standoffish woman had her sputtering. “Thank you.”

  Reese made it two steps to her bedroom, before she turned back around and collected the bag of French cocoa powder from the kitchen, making Marie chuckle quietly. Reese would drop the sack off tonight at the bakery for Leo. Just by way of apology for causing him so much extra work. Maybe she would include a tiny, little—friendly—note. This was a safe move because he wouldn’t be there and it would go a little ways toward easing her guilt. This whole viral TikTok thing was squarely on her head and she owed him a gesture, at the very least.

  He wouldn’t be there.

  She’d be in and out. No risk involved whatsoever.

  Chapter 13

  Every business owner in Manhattan dreamed of wall-to-wall customers.

  Even Leo, on occasion.

  But not today.

  It was getting close to dinnertime and the place was jam-packed with young people offering them an obscene amount of money to be added to the non-existent VIP list and asking to take selfies with him, which he all too quickly declined. Apparently in the space of a few hours, he’d become known as #meanbaker on TalkTalk and he wanted no part of it.

  After their website received two hundred orders in the space of fifteen minutes, Leo was able to convince Jackie to close the submission form, but that didn’t stop the traffic from crashing the site completely. Leo knew he was supposed to be thrilled about this. But he only wanted reality put back the way it had been this morning.

  Or better yet, Wednesday, before he’d overstepped and sent Reese running out of his apartment like her hair was on fire.

  Was it that thought of Reese that had him imagining her in the crowd of fifty trust fund kids, pushing her way toward the register?

  No.

  She was actually there. Reese was in the Cookie Jar.

  When their eyes locked, her step faltered and he could see it. The way she thought about turning around and walking back out. His pulse flew into a race and he knew, didn’t have a doubt that he would go after her, if she did. Seeing her face was like breathing fresh air after being trapped in a fucking mine and he couldn’t let it end so soon.

  She didn’t leave, though.

  Leo could only stare at her mutely as she came forward slowly, stopping in front of the counter and setting something down between them. That ease she brought with her flowed into his bloodstream, the silence seeming to pack in around them, insulating them from the surrounding crowd. The bakery might as well have been empty except for her.

  “I saw the TikTok. Which is technically now on…every platform.” They traded a grimace. “I brought you cocoa powder from Paris to dull the sting of unwanted internet fame. Courtesy of my landlady, the mysterious Miss LaRue,” she said, finally, loud enough to be heard over the noise. “Leo, I’m sorry about all this.”

  He liked it too much that she knew him. Well enough to know he would hate this disor
der to his world, as opposed to loving the extra business and attention. “It’s not your fault, Reese.”

  A smile ghosted across her lips and instantly, he was in physical pain that he couldn’t kiss her. “It is a little my fault.”

  “Fine,” he said gruffly. “A little.”

  Without breaking eye contact, she nudged the bag toward him. “Mea culpa.”

  Leo picked up the sack, pretending to examine it, even though he could think of nothing but how pretty she looked. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I knew you’d appreciate it.”

  “I do,” he said, meaning it.

  Reese rolled her lips inward, glancing around the shop. “Do you want to maybe…talk in the back?”

  Maybe he should have double-checked to make sure Tad and Jackie had everything covered, but not a split second passed before he answered. “Yes.”

  Some kid bounded up to the glass. “Mean Baker, can I get a self—”

  “Nope.” He lifted the hatch for a giggling Reese and she ducked under. A minute later, they were in the back, the excessive noise muffled by the swinging door. For a moment, all he could do was look at her. “I can hang up your coat.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Watching her flick open the purple buttons one by one, her graceful fingers seemed to move in slow motion, causing his tongue to grow thick in his mouth. She parted the wool and shrugged it off, her breasts jiggling left to right inside her tight, white V-neck sweater. Jesus, he could actually hear himself swallow, his body recalling the erotic sensation of her hips whipping back and forth on his lap, her mouth open in a throaty moan.

  Was she staring at his mouth or was that wishful thinking?

  “Um…” Her cheeks were the color of cotton candy. “I’m not just sorry about the extra work. I’m sorry about not answering your texts. The way I ran out the other day…”