Page 281 of A Taste of Vanilla

My chest squeezes.

It would be easy to hate her if she only looked like the woman from Grant’s desk. It’s harder when she looks like a woman who believed the wrong man because it made her feel like she belonged.

I know something about that.

“Thank you,” I say again.

Marley lifts her phone. “Okay. Final check. Statement goes up in thirty seconds. Comments will be monitored. No one engages with trolls except for me because I’m trained in controlled menace.”

“You are absolutely not trained. More rabid.”

“I was born trained, Oliver.”

Lisa adjusts the pastry case sign as Warren slides the tray ofReceipt bars onto the cooling rack. The bakery smells like banana, coconut, butter, and vanilla.

It smells like home. Mine.

Ours, maybe. In the future.

I look at the room again.

My people. My beautiful, exhausted people.

Then the window. The line, in this city.

The truth waiting online.

I step to the front door. My hands shake when I unlock it, but not enough to stop me.

And I turn the sign to OPEN.

The first customers come in smiling. Not pity-smiling. Not like a few did after Whitaker’s second review.

Mrs. Alvarez is first, because she always is. If she didn’t get here first, she definitely pushed her way to the front of the line. She’s wearing red lipstick and a coat with a fur collar that may or may not be real and points at me immediately.

“I want whatever pastry tastes the most like revenge and won’t give me heartburn.”

Dev pops up behind the case. “That would be The Receipt.”

She smiles. “Excellent. I’ll take two.”

And just like that, it begins.

For twenty minutes, there is no public reckoning.

The case moves fast. The pastries go first. The lattes fly across the counter in pink and blue sleeves. Map cookie boxes disappear as fast as the pre-orders came in. Customers open them and take photos before they even leave the shop.

One man explains what they are to his son, who looks at me and goes, “She plays Dungeons & Dragons? She’s too hot for that.”

I say, “Hot people play Dungeons & Dragons!” and the crowd cheers.

The room roars to life.

Because it’s not a silly game. It’s an escape from a world thatcan be overwhelming. It’s a creative outlet and happiness all in one.

The Vipers player responsible for naming Sweet Heat leans over the counter. “Is Olin’s Road Ration Cookie Box the one with the tavern guy?”

When I stare at him, he adds, “Oliver was bitching about it the night after game night.”