Page 33 of Soft Serve

"You're right," I say.

"I know I'm right," she says, and there's heat in it, real and present, not performed. "That's not the part I need you to understand. The part I need you to understand is that I gave you something last night that I don't give easily. And the morning after, before I've even opened my shop, I'm finding out about it through a press statement."

Something in her voice shifts then, the sharp edge of it giving way to something quieter underneath, and this is the part that costs her more to say because it's less protected.

"I have been careful," she says, quieter now. "I have been so careful with this, with you, because I knew what it could cost me if I got it wrong. And I need you to be careful with it, too. Not because I'm fragile, but because it matters."

The kitchen holds the silence between us.

Behind the door to the front, I can hear Millie moving around with the noise of someone making clear they are not listening.

"I was trying to protect you," I say.

"I know," she says immediately. "That's what makes it complicated."

"It doesn't excuse it."

"No," she agrees. "It doesn't."

I step closer, not to close the distance but to make sure she can see that I'm not managing this, not calculating my way through it, just standing here with the full weight of what I got wrong.

"I wrote it because it was true," I say. "That's not an excuse. It's just what happened. I felt it, and I said it, and I said it in the wrong place in the wrong order, and I took something that should have been yours first."

She looks at me for a long moment.

The sharp heat in her eyes has warped into something more complex, not forgiveness exactly, not yet, but something that is listening rather than shutting down.

"I need to open my shop," she says finally.

"I know," I say.

"And you need to figure out what you're going to do about your board," she adds. "Because that statement is going to cost you."

"I know that too," I say.

She picks up her spoon.

Then she stops, not turning around, just stopping, and she says to the prep counter, quietly, "Was it true what you said? About this place?"

I don't move.

"Yes, it was," I say.

"That doesn't fix what you did," she says.

"No," I agree. "It doesn't."

She nods once, to herself or to me or to both of us, and goes back to work.

I go to the sink, wash my hands, and take my position at the topping station, and the morning begins around us with its familiar rhythm, and we work side by side without speaking about it again.

But something has shifted. It’s not repaired and not broken either. It’s just shifted.

The press van arrives at half past nine.

Millie sees it first, her expression tightening as she looks out the window, and she glances at me with the look of someone who has decided I'm going to be useful after all.

Two reporters push through the door with the practiced ease of people who consider access a professional right, and the shop goes still because it recognizes a threat has arrived.