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It’s funny to me how things can be toxic in your life, that it can build slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice how bad it’s gotten, and then one tiny grain of sand tips the scale in a direction that necessitates immediate change. I guess that’s why they call it a “wake-up call.” It wakes you up from the daydream you’ve been floating through and shows you the worst-case scenarios. It shows you what will happen if you don’t change and what you’ll become.
My wake-up call came in the form of my phone ringing.
It was what drove me to say no more.
But that call? Sometimes I wish I had let it go to voicemail.
My stomach churned because I knew the voice. It was a voice I remembered from almost exactly one year ago. A voice that has never boded well for anyone. Johnny.
While the shop doesn’t stay open past ten most nights, I’m not an early riser. I go to bed late, charcoal and oil paints and designs melding in my mind, keeping me up deep into the night. Visions that won’t let me rest if I don’t get them down onto paper leach from my exhausted veins until I can give into sleep. The Muse is a real bitch that way, if you ask me.
I’m about to head back upstairs and throw a pillow over my head, praying I can fall back asleep, when the singing starts. It starts, and it starts loud, cresting over the sound of the mixer running, pans clambering, and music blasting. This is where one might assume I’m going to say it was magical. That the singing was like that of an angel, drawing me to the door of the bakery like some kind of moth drawn by flame. No. The singing sounds like a dying cat.
I’ve always been an ass man. It’s a weakness, even. A pair of pretty eyes and a fat ass can get a woman anywhere with me. It’s as I’m staring at that ass, my mind trailing off to places it absolutely should not be, when the bat falls from my grip. It clangs on the linoleum tile, the hollow metal making a sound that finally cuts through her horrific singing and the music and the mixer and my own inappropriate thoughts. She jumps and turns. And then she screams.
How to scrape the top off and level it, measuring flour to make Lilah’s first birthday cake. “Such a good sister you are!” I remember her saying as we decorated the cake during nap time. “Making it perfect for your sister. Remember this, Lola. Friends will come and go, but you’ll always have your little sister. It’s your job to keep Lilah safe, okay?” Even before the world came crashing down, she was telling me her secrets without my knowing. It’s like she knew, even then. She knew she wouldn’t be around to keep her safe, that Dad might crumble if she wasn’t there, and it would become my job.
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The cookbook brought back memories of me at seven, dumping chocolate chips into dough and scooping the cookies onto a baking sheet while my mom watched with a serene smile. Memories of her jotting a new recipe she found in some magazine she bought as an impulse buy at the supermarket. “This one would be perfect for your father’s 50th birthday!” she’d said of some incredibly intricate cake with multiple layers and homemade fondant. I remember that one most of all because we never tested that recipe. She was gone before his 50th birthday.
But all I can see at this moment is a man—a built man, who is much larger than myself—standing in my business that I haven’t even opened yet, nearly naked. And I scream.
But as I’m standing there, panic flowing through me as I try to think of what to do next, something strange happens. He seems to snap out of his own daze. And the man smiles. He fucking smiles. Clearly, he’s a psychopathic murderer. He is standing in my bakery in his goddamn underwear, smiling at my complete and utter panic. And while I’m sure my brand of panic is entertaining to watch from an outside perspective, who stands in a woman’s presence in his underwear while she has a full-on panic and smiles? Psycho murderers, that’s who.
“Uh, sorry to say this, but you are a creep.” “I’m not a creep.” I open my mouth to further accuse him, but he beats me there. “Nor am I trying to rob you.” “Oh, so you’re just a creepy flasher? Get OUT!” As shock and panic wear off, it melts into frustration and anger. But again, despite my pissed tone, he smiles.
The smile is bright white teeth with full lips and a dark, well-trimmed beard surrounding it. It’s a good smile. Ted Bundy also had a good smile, though.
“You’re sure as shit not mine because if a woman of mine had her door unlocked in a new place like you did, I’d turn her ass red.”
“I can hear it in my room.” “Your room . . .” “Live upstairs, babe.” “Stop calling me that!” I drop the rolling pin down on the metal bakery table, my heart rate still high, but either I’m becoming numb to it or understanding is hitting me. I’m out of imminent danger, I think, but now stepping into a different danger. “I live upstairs,” I say, because I do. I just moved in the last of my stuff yesterday. “Looks like I’m your new neighbor.” The world stops. The ringing starts in my ears. My gut falls to the ground. That would be my luck, wouldn’t it? Day one of New Lola is going just dandy.
“Well, shit,” I say before turning back to talk to the intruder. To my new neighbor. But he’s gone, the door closed behind him. The only proof that he was here is the metal bat still lying on the ground, abandoned by its owner. Coleman Ink. That’s the name of the tattoo shop next door, I remember as my brain kicks in. And Ben Coleman is the owner. And I just made the world’s worst first impression on my new neighbor.
“Proud of you,” Sam says, his voice soft. When I move my eyes back to him, he’s staring at me, and his eyes are as soft as his voice. “Your mom would be even prouder.” And fuck, here come the waterworks. In another universe, Sam would be my brother.
My mind is still stuck on what he’s revealed to me. My new self-image has spiderweb fractures along it, ready to shatter. He’s oblivious to this, to my own, new, incredibly fragile sense of self crumbling in front of him.
“Look, I gotta go. If you wanna talk, come over tomorrow. Happy to fill you in on how Brad fucked up.” And then he’s gone, the heavy metal door clicking behind him, and I’m standing in the stairwell, in my pajamas that show way too much ass, holding a bakery box of cookies. I go upstairs in a daze, eat half the cookies, and then cry myself to sleep, wondering how what seemed so promising is already falling apart.
When I was 10, my mom gave me a sketchbook. She’d always be up early in the morning before any of us, sipping her coffee and doodling on her own. She said it was her own time, time to feed her soul. I never understood until she gave me my own, numbered with the days of the year, a page for each day. That first day I drew a strawberry riding a skateboard, and life made sense.
I smile, feeling both rigid and fragile, and then I nod. “Yeah, I’m sure we all just need to adjust. Anyway, I just wanted to, uh, introduce myself. And say hi. I should . . . you know. Get back to my place.” “For sure!” she says, hoping down from the desk. “Thank you so much for the treats! Let me know if you need anything or if Ben’s a dick again. I’ll kick his ass.” And then the strange woman pulls me in for a tight hug before l leave and head back to my bakery, still confused.
I type out a quick text to my father, attaching the image to the note. Me: Fix this. And though I go on with my day, shaken to the core but burying it in sugar and smiles, I never stop looking at the door, terrified of who will come in. And I never stop looking at my phone, waiting for the reply that never comes.
Keeping a promise you made to a dying parent is one thing, but it’s different when it’s leading you to empty your trust. To drive down to Raceway Park at 11:00 on a Friday to settle a debt that was made behind closed doors. Things change when you’re getting calls from mobsters and they’re telling you that your own father told them you’d settle his debt.
Most parents sigh when their kids spend their money frivolously. Mine sighed because he spent mine frivolously and there wasn’t any left. I remember thinking that was kind of funny, in an ironic kind of way.
I still don’t know if it was his addiction speaking, that greed he couldn’t control, or if he truly never valued me more than as a money source. That’s the part that hurts the most.
I let my hope hang on his promises, hollow as I could now see they were. But anyone who has ever loved an addict can tell you that the promises are always there. It’s the follow-through that isn’t.
“I’m just saying, just because you think she was handed everything doesn’t mean she was. You know better than anyone that what you see isn’t always what you get.” And with those words reverberating in my mind, tinging my actions with guilt, Hattie stands up. “Just . . . don’t be a dick, okay? You don’t know her life.” And then she’s out the door and I’m stuck with my thoughts and a tray of dessert that looks way too fucking good.
My business is already thriving, and it doesn’t seem to be just because I’m Shane Turner’s daughter keeping her mother’s memory alive. The town has noticed I’m good at what I do, and people keep returning because my food is damn delicious. It’s been interesting to feel that success, a success that feels like mine and mine alone.
But the crazy part is, when I walk in through the backdoor of my bakery after coming back downstairs, a quick shower to rinse off and change my clothes, there’s a coffee sitting on the metal countertop where I’m going to be rolling out sugar cookies in just a few minutes. It’s been sitting there for a bit, the condensation dripping down the sides and pooling at the bottom. But it’s not the coffee that catches my eye. No, it’s the note on thick notepaper with a fancy logo on top. And on the note in thick black writing, it reads: Sorry. -B At the top is the logo for Coleman Ink. I grab the
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I think . . . I think I hate this man. I don’t know what on earth I did to deserve his hatred toward me, but I hate him right back.
Fine. Because I was raised by a woman who took no shit and by a man who taught me to play the game until you win. And I’ll be damned if I don’t win.
“Sweet dreams, babe.”
And when I finally start to drift off despite the pounding music, I’m comforted by the fact that before I lie down, I set an alarm for five a.m. I guess I will be doing some early morning baking after all.
Fucking Lola. My eyes open fully, and my head moves to look at the clock. Five thirty a.m. Five fucking thirty in the Goddamn morning. Is she out of her damn mind? I know she was up late, knocking on my door at midnight and telling me to turn my music down. She has to be tired—that was just five hours ago. Then it hits me. This is retaliation. Sweet Lola’s form of retaliation is giving me a taste of my own medicine, loud medicine, at five on a Saturday.
She’s my own kind of torture. Even when I’m in my zone, she’s on my mind. I’d be a liar if I even tried to deny that.
I was drawing Lola without even realizing it, and something about that, the fact that this woman who infuriates me infiltrated my creative space like that, made me angry at her.
Now, that temptation has me paying the price.
But you didn’t turn your music loud because you forgot she lived there, my mind reminds me. You turned it up because you knew if you did, she’d come barging over. No. That’s not true. Not at all. Why the fuck would I want Lola to come over here, to bug the shit out of me? No.
Fuck. Am I an asshole?
She’s kind of cute. A look of outrage covers her face, wide green eyes looking at me. Her blonde hair with that hint of red is in those two braids, flour on her cheek, the mixer going. Cute. No, Ben. Not cute. Annoying as fuck.
There’s a cookie sheet lying on the ground and fuck. I wasn’t wrong. She definitely dropped it on purpose. When her eyes drift to the sheet and meet mine, just a fraction of guilt there, I nearly smile at the confirmation. Because she might be annoying, but it’s admirable the level of payback she’s gone to.
At that moment, it hits me. I’m a dick. I’m a huge fucking dick. But, of course, not a single part of me is willing to admit this to her.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop there. “If you had a man, you wouldn’t be doing everything yourself, lugging in flour and sugar and butter from a fucking hatchback, getting yourself fancy coffees as a treat on a Friday morning. You’d have someone to take care of you.” This hits differently. It also makes me angry.
Here’s the thing. Women are taught if they have a man in their life, they help do the heavy lifting. That if you have a man in your life, life gets easier. But you know what? I call bullshit. Because that’s also supposed to be what your father does, putting his daughters first, taking care, protecting them. Not dragging them down. And you can’t show me a single woman who doesn’t know at least one other who had a man make her life living hell.
But these days, the only thing women really need protection from is men.
“When was the last time you had a man take care of you, sweet girl?” he asks, and now he’s so close, his bare chest brushing the thick canvas of my apron, but I can still feel it. I can feel every brush of him like there’s nothing between us. “What?” “A man, baby. When was the last time you had one?” It’s been a long, long time. And a part of me, maybe it’s a part of New Lola I haven’t discovered yet, can’t help but think I would give anything right now to have this man break that streak.
“I want to kiss you, Lola,” he says, and you’d think those words would shock me out of this daze. I hate this man. He’s an ass. He’s a jerk. He’s everything bad about the male species. But I really, really want him to kiss me. So . . . I nod. It’s a short nod, quick and concise, nearly imperceptible. But he sees it. I know he does because the next thing I know, his lips are on mine.
He groans as he does so, a sound that is nearly a resignation, like he’d come to realize a truth. I understand the feeling. Because I hate this man. I hate him and his personality and his shitty attitude, but this kiss? This kiss feels right.
The hand on my ass pulls me closer, and I feel his cock hardening against my belly. Now I groan a low, breathy moan into his mouth. And with that, my senses come back. This has gone too far. Way too far.
