Page 67 of Sparrow

She pauses and looks at me with her wide, hazel eyes, lower lip caught in her teeth. “Problem?”

Lots of them. Starting with the always-present memory that the Saints had her on their property and still haven’t said anything to me about having taken her back and installed her in my house instead. I haven’t stopped waiting, though, and the longer they take to bring it up, the more nervous I get.

I still don’t know why they had her or what they were going to do with her, because she refuses to talk about it. But I do know she holds value for them–she must, or they wouldn’t have had her–and they’d be crazy if they didn’t want to recover their merchandise.

“Be careful,” I murmur. “Please.”

She grins. “I always am.”

That’s not true. I’ve seen her sitting on the edge of a bridge with her feet dangling in the wind and hundreds of feet of empty space below her.

But I let her go anyhow, because it wouldn’t be fair of me to keep her here 24/7, so I can keep her safe.

Though the idea has crossed my mind more than once.

The day is both eternally long and too short, full of the complications of owning a garage, because the shop might be running more efficiently now, courtesy of Arden’s new system, but it’s still not making as much money as it should. I know this is a hangover from months of being late on deadlines, and I know it will end, but Current Mars is having to deal with it, and he’s exhausted.

I walk into the house tired, frustrated, and in need of a quiet night without any pressure.

And then I smell the cinnamon.

I stop dead in the hallway, my mind racing back to my childhood, when I used to come home from school to find my mom elbows-deep in bread dough, flour on her face and laughter echoing through the kitchen, and for just a moment, I’m a boy again. No shop. No responsibilities. Just schoolwork and younger siblings and, on occasion, fresh-baked bread from my mom.

Though my father inevitably ruined things.

And my mom never backed with cinnamon.

This is someone else. Someone baking something in my kitchen, and waiting there for me to get home. I feel a smile stretch across my face, and my feet turn toward the kitchen.

Because I know exactly who I’ll find there, and there’s a satisfaction uncoiling in my heart that I’ve never felt before.

A sense of safety that I haven’t felt in years.

The kitchen looks like a tornado has blown through carrying nothing but flour and sugar. The place is covered with the stuff. It’s on the counters, on the floor, and floating in the air.

Arden herself looks like she’s cosplaying as a ghost.

She’s covered in flour from head to toe and her hair is falling down out of its bun. She’s got a streak of icing on her cheek and cinnamon dusts the bridge of her nose.

I would say she looks adorable, but given the look on her face, I think it would be the wrong choice. The girl looks absolutely furious, like she walked into the kitchen to find it in this shape, and the person who did it is long gone.

She looks up, sees me, and narrows her eyes. “I think your cinnamon rolls are trying to kill me.”

“Death by cinnamon roll is a real thing,” I say, as deadpan as I can manage. “I lost a friend to it, once. Terrible way to go.”

I don’t see the ball of dough when she throws it, but I feel it when it hits me square in the chest, and I sit down firmly in the chair behind me, laughing. “That’s exactly how it starts,” I note. “The dough attacks you and before you know what’s happening, it’s reaching its fingers up your nose and closing it up.”

Arden’s face gets even more furious and she threatens me with another handful of dough. I put my hands up and shake them, rapidly indicated peace, and she relents.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you need help?”

She huffs. “No. It’s just stickier than I expected. And I had a... mishap with the flour.”

I fight to keep from laughing at this. “I mishap? Is that what you’re calling it?’

She looks like she might throw something worse than dough this time and I snap my mouth shut, vowing that I’ll keep quiet until she actually needs something from me.

Though despite her words, she looks like she’s doing just fine. Her movements are quick and sure, and I can see that Penny’s been training her. Arden has the same quick gestures, the easy measurements, that I’ve seen when I watch Penny baking.