“Which book is that?”
“It’s about a twelve-year-old who’s also a millionaire, and a criminal mastermind.”
“Okay, I can see why… How old were you?”
“I don’t know. Eleven?”
“Yeah, I can see that being very appealing to a boy that age. Did you read a lot?”
“A fair amount. But I did a lot of running around, too.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
He looked away from her for a moment. “I grew up in Texas.”
When he said it, she heard the drawl, though it wasn’t very heavy. But then, it kind of clicked.
“Oh. Wow. In the country?”
“Yeah. Old ranch house.”
“So you read a lot when you weren’t running around with…”
“My brother.”
“Oh. Younger or older?”
“Younger,” he said. “Anyway. Glad you got your fire started. Looks competent.”
“Thank you. Wow. Competent. That’s a big compliment coming from you. Except, I actually think it is.”
“There is no better compliment coming from me. Though you’re more than competent at baking, I’ll give you that.”
If he were a normal person, or if this were actually what she wanted it to be, a moment where they were getting to know each other, capitalizing on the literal sparks that had just flown between them, he might ask how she got started baking, but he wasn’t, and this wasn’t, and he didn’t.
Feeling fine about that, she decided to offer up the information on her own.
“When I was little, my mom used to make the very best cinnamon rolls. She made them for every special occasion. For holidays, for birthdays, and baking was one of the skills that she lost first. I don’t know if it was actually the dementia or losing my dad that made her quit initially, but whatever it was, she just stopped. For a couple of years, I let that be. But then I got into her recipes, and I started doing it. I started trying to reclaim that feeling, not just for myself, but for everybody. For Marlowe and Aiden, for my mom. I wanted somebody to do it for her, and so I did it. Then realized that I’m actually really good at it.”
“And modest.”
“Why be modest about the thing that I’ve devoted my whole life to? It’s only my livelihood. Why be modest about it when I charge people to eat my baked goods?”
“A very fair question.”
“Yeah. So… I… I got good at it. Then I decided to do some experimenting.”
“When did you come up with the strawberry rolls?”
“I did those for Easter one year when it was just Mom and me. She really loved them. So I started trying to perfect the recipe, get it so that it was perfect. That was when I started having fantasies about opening up my own place.”
“The strawberry rolls are my favorite. But then, fruit candy was always my favorite.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
“My brother and I used to walk down to the minute market and buy the cheapest candy they had. He always got chocolate, but I always got fruit. Skittles and Starburst, things like that.”
The image of him as a little boy walking into a store, getting a big smile on his face when he found his favoritecandy, warmed her in a whole different way than how she had been warm a few minutes ago. “Where’s your brother now?”
