Page 2 of Worth the Trip

Nyla slid the first pan into place. “You’re already museum security.”

“I need a raise.”

“You got one last month.”

“I need another.”

His request disappeared beneath laughter from the employees working behind the counter. Nyla shook her head as she arranged the second pan beside the brown sugar bourbon vanilla, adjusting the label until it sat perfectly straight.

Saturday mornings belonged to families. Parents came in after soccer games and dance classes. Grandparents claimed corner booths with newspapers, coffee, and grandchildren they had no intention of rushing. Teenagers wandered through Scoops & Stories, pretending they’d only come for ice cream, then emerged with novels tucked beneath their arms.

I loved watching the room fill. Every conversation, chair scraped across the floor, and burst of laughter became part of a rhythm I’d spent years imagining before Crème & Chill had a name, a lease, or enough money in the account to purchase its first commercial mixer.

The dream had started in the kitchen of our childhood home in Self Ridge, where Nyla and I made ice cream in plastic bags filled with rock salt because Mama refused to buy another appliance. Later, we borrowed Nana’s hand-crank machine and experimented with whatever we found in her pantry. Peach preserves. Candied pecans. Sweet potato pie. The first batch of banana pudding ice cream froze so hard Nana threatened to use it as a doorstop.

We’d come a long way from plastic bags and impossible bananas.

“Why is your eye twitching?” Nyla asked.

“My eye isn’t twitching.”

“It is.”

I lifted a hand toward my face. “Which one?”

“The left.”

“That’s my responsible eye.”

“That’s your exhausted eye, Noli.”

I looked at her. “You diagnosed that medically?”

“I diagnosed it as the twin who’s been watching you run on caffeine and poor judgment for two weeks.”

“You’re four minutes younger than me. Stay in your lane.”

Nyla gave me a flat look. “You got four minutes on me and have been abusing the authority ever since.”

Before I could answer, the bell above the front door chimed, and a man entered carrying a cardboard box with one side sagging beneath the weight of its contents. The logo across his shirt belonged to one of our dairy suppliers, although the delivery wasn’t scheduled until Monday.

“Ms. Thomas?”

“That’s me.”

He approached the counter with an apologetic expression and lowered the box carefully. “We had a refrigeration issue at the warehouse. Your order is fine, but the driver mixed up two invoices. I’ve got half of yours and half of a shipment that belongs across town.”

I opened the box and inspected the containers inside. “Where’s the rest?”

“They’re trying to locate it.”

“Trying?”

His shoulders rose with a breath. He looked young enough to be on his first delivery route, and the shadows beneath his eyes suggested the morning had already asked more of him than he knew how to fix.

“I called my supervisor,” he said. “He told me to leave this and head back, but I know y’all have an event tomorrow. I didn’t want you finding out after we closed.”

Nyla stepped beside me and scanned the invoice.