I nod.
Her smile lights up the entire bakery. Colby stands slowly. “Goodnight, Sadie.”
“Goodnight.”
The bell jingles softly as he disappears into the snow. I stare at the closed door longer than I should.
Then Mrs. Bellamy appears from nowhere holding a broom.
“You are in enormous trouble,” she says.
I sigh heavily. “I know.”
Because the dangerous part isn’t fake dating Colby Reid.
The dangerous part is how real he feels when nobody’s watching.
***
The next morning at exactly five a.m., somebody knocks on the bakery door.
I crack it open sleepily in yoga pants and a hoodie.
Colby stands outside holding coffee and a tray of very burned cinnamon rolls.
Snow dusts his shoulders. “I attempted baking,” he says gravely.
I stare at the blackened pastries. “That’s actually a crime in this building.”
“I panicked halfway through.”
Despite myself, laughter escapes me. Real laughter this time. Warm, easy, definitely unsafe.
Colby’s expression softens immediately and standing there in the snowy dark with coffee steaming between us, I suddenly realize this fake relationship is already becoming something infinitely more complicated than either of us planned.
Chapter four
Colby
Bakery Mornings
By six-fifteen, I learn three important things about Sweet Seasons Bakery.
One, Sadie Bennett becomes terrifyingly focused when she has a rolling pin in her hand.
Two, flour is not a passive ingredient. It attacks.
And three, Jillie considers herself upper management.
Since school doesn't start for another hour, Jillie has apparently appointed herself assistant manager for the morning shift. Sadie assures me she'll be on the bus before eight, but for now she seems determined to supervise every tray that leaves the oven.
“You’re doing it wrong,” she tells me from her perch on the stainless-steel counter.
I look down at the tray of croissants in front of me. “I’m standing here.”
“Wrongly.”
Sadie snorts from the other side of the prep table, where she’s shaping dough with quick, practiced hands. Her hair is twisted up in a messy bun, her cheeks are pink from the heat of the ovens, and there’s a streak of flour across one cheek that she either doesn’t know about or is too busy to care.
