Page 3 of Sweet Rivals
With a deep breath and butterflies in my stomach, I woke my laptop and stood beside the desk to remain noncommittal. Multiple message notifications from Potatoake888 popped up in the corner of the screen. I couldn’t help the grin that spread on my face.
Potatobake888: If you ever want to sleep again, don’t watch Hereditary!!
Potatobake888: I guess I’ll watch Runaway Bride now. 90s Romcoms are the best, and I will not take any feedback on that.
Potatobake888: Where are you? I need someone to bore me back to sleep.
Potatobake888: Just kidding … but I have something to tell you.
As a millennial, he had an unhinged dependence on ellipses, but I forgave him because at least through text, he was still the most interesting and interested guy I had ever met.
“No real feelings,” I reminded myself before I leaned over and typed out a message.
TheBakingChick: I should probably never talk to you again thanks to that “bore to sleep” comment. I don’t watch romcoms, 90s or otherwise. But what did you want to tell me?
I stood over my computer for several minutes, waiting. With a sigh, I turned away, pulled by coffee smells and the impending workday.
My kitchen wasn’t more than a bank of counters, a stove with a microwave above it, and a fridge, but when the sun hit the 1950s-style yellow cabinets just right, I absolutely loved it. I had decorated it with all the vintage strawberry artwork I came across at flea markets and antique stores.
When I’d stirred enough cream and sugar into my coffee to disguise the signature burnt taste from my ancient percolator, I peeked at my computer one more time before heading for the door.
My heart fell despite my best effort not to care that he hadn’t responded. I would spend the rest of the day wondering what idea he wanted to share. I didn’t know nearly enough about him despite messaging for months. A sobering thought that came to mind every time my heart threatened to get too attached, although it was probably too late for that already. Potatobake888 occupied far too many of my thoughts, despite his ridiculous screen name.
Outside, the air threatened a muggy day. My apartment was as close to the beach as I could afford, which meant a several-block walk before I hit the wooden path that ran next to the sand. It wasn’t one of those highly populated boardwalks with rides and games. It aimed to be classier and more understated for the affluent families that tended visited Cape Shore, but it was still dotted by the kinds of shops you would expect.
I passed the line that snaked out of Uncle Joe’s Pancake House, the perpetual flashing lights of the arcade that didn’t open until the afternoon, the obligatory fudge shop, Beach Bums that sold overpriced sunscreen, rash guards, buckets and boogie boards that the vacationers inevitably forgot. After an empty stretch where I could see the crashing waves and get my daily dose of salty air and seagulls cries, I stopped in front of my bakery.
Chapter Three
Alright, it wasn’t my bakery yet, but it would be. It had to be. The place had been vacant for several months. When it first went up for sale, I alternated between panic and elation. This was it. My moment. The sign from the heavens that all my dreams were coming true. I had fantasized about owning my own bakery since the fourth grade. We had some sort of class party and one of the kids brought in a tray full of Dutch chocolate cupcakes with white icing. Probably nothing special, maybe even box-made, but to my young, impressionable mind, they were the greatest thing I had ever tasted. I went home determined to figure out how to make them on my own.
I rode the bus, bouncing on the edge of my seat, waiting impatiently for my stop. When I got home, I pulled out every cookbook my parents had accumulated over the years, which was a lot. I flipped through each of them until I came to a red, binder-style Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1980s that must have belonged to my grandparents. The pages were discolored and stuck together in places, but there in the back, amongst the other deserts was a Dutch chocolate cake recipe. I made a giant mess in the kitchen as I meticulously followed the directions, pondering over what the hell buttermilk could be before mixing all the ingredients, pouring the batter into a pan and putting it in the oven. I had spent enough time in my parents' kitchen to know basic safety and the bare bones of cooking to muddle my way through it all without burning the house down.
When the little timer dinged, I pulled my perfect chocolate cake out of the oven. I had never been so proud in my life. I waited for it to cool before slathering some homemade icing on it and heading out the door. I walked the several blocks to The Lobster Tail and slid in through the back entrance to show off my cake.
For all their faults, the guys at the restaurant were pretty cool about having the owner’s kid perpetually underfoot. They all oohed and ahhed at my cake as I cut them each a piece. And the rest was history. Baking became my singular passion. I baked when I was excited. I baked when I had a bad day. I baked when I was bored. I started out following recipes before experimenting with my own ideas. Not all of them were a hit, but I had enough success feeding the cooks that I started imagining that maybe I could actually rely on my baking for a living. It wasn’t that outlandish of an idea. My parents got by with their restaurant after all.
The older I got, the more baking for a living felt like a pipe dream. The idea that I would somehow save a hundred thousand dollars to open my own place felt laughable. Cat always suggested I take out a loan, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was seven during the ’08 economic crash, and while I was too young to understand the details, the stress around the financial health of The Lobster Tail was palpable, felt in almost every moment of my earliest memories. When Covid came twelve years later, the panic hit my family like a suffocating weight, and that time, I was old enough to understand exactly how devastating a shutdown would be.
Even if I didn’t have a fundamental wariness of borrowing money I couldn’t pay back, what bank would give a loan to a twenty-four-year-old who made pennies? My job at the restaurant wasn’t bad. It paid the bills. But the biggest issue with paying the bills was that it didn’t leave much room for dreams or passions or life. Too often, I got home from work too exhausted to do anything more than wash my face, brush my teeth, put on PJs, and fall into bed.
Weeks built up on top of each other without any progress toward my goals. It left me antsy, worried I would never get my act together enough to be anything more than a manager at my parents' place. A fate that felt worse than death, but also, at times, unavoidable.
Still, staring into the darkened space of my bakery with its abandoned tables and empty pastry cases collecting dust, I could picture it as mine as I sipped my coffee and stood on the sun-drenched boardwalk. It would be done in teal and pink with little French-style iron tables and chairs lining the boardwalk. Inside, there would be comfy chairs and colorfully painted tables with traditional tea service on Saturdays and book readings on Sundays. During the week, I would offer coffee and an assortment of pastries that had nothing to do with lobster, except for maybe those sugar cookies cut into sea creatures covered in icing. Yum.
I exhaled heavily, as usual when it was time to move on and put my dream on hold a little longer. It felt both desperately close and impossibly far away at the same time.
“That’s a big sigh.” The voice came so suddenly and from so close, I nearly jumped out of my skin, splashing coffee out of the little hole in the top of the cup.
“AhhI” I yelled at both the jump scare and the hot coffee on my hand before finally looking up at the man standing next to me. He wrapped strong fingers around my elbow, steadying me, which I needed more than I liked to admit as I looked up into pools of dark brown, a cut jaw line, and a smile that forced all reasonable thoughts out of my brain.
Chapter Four
The man before me who lit a fire along my skin where his fingers held my elbow, stood a good foot taller than me with broad shoulders and biceps that threatened to rip though his floral print shirt. His black hair was pulled back in a bun to show off the clean line of his jaw and searing brown eyes that still held my gaze. He could have stepped right out of the pages of one of those shapeshifter romances, all rugged, chiseled and handsome—not that I read those kinds of things. Of course not.
“Oh sorry,” I said, reflexively, blinking several times as I tried to jump start my brain. As soon as I said it, I questioned what I was sorry about. He was the one being kind of creepy by sneaking up on me, no matter how handsome he was. But apologizing was my go-to.
“My bad,” he said.