Page 21 of The Soulmate Bakery

This would be the best time to strike. I forced myself to breathe deep, looked down at the pie in my basket and strengthened my resolve. I needed to do this – needed to talk to Silas. To make him think of me as someone other than the klutz who always spilled something on him.

So, even though every part of me wanted to turn around and flee, I made my way across the shop floor. Before I stepped into the line for his till, I grabbed a couple of items so it would look like I’d come here for more than just a chance to talk to Silas.

The closer I got to him, though, the more nervous I felt myself getting. It would’ve been easier if Silas hadn’t been so lovely standing at his till – weren’t cashiers supposed to be miserable?

The sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows made the gold of his hair gleam even brighter than usual and the blue of his eyes stand out. And that dimple. It was carved deep into his cheek as he tried to make the baby elf, sat in a customer’s trolley, laugh. How could one werewolf be this perfect?

When I was exactly one customer away from the front, another till opened up right behind us – manned by a perky vampire named Leon, who was giving me a sunny smile and waving me over to his empty line.

‘I can help you, ma’am!’ Leon called, and I very much wanted to tell him to be quiet.

But that would be rude, and so I pretended to be looking for something to add to my basket from the counter of Silas’s till while he finished up with the customer ahead. I took a stick of mint gum that had been charmed to last all day and threw it into the basket.

I hoped I’d be moving forward quickly but it appeared that Silas’s customer was determined to pay for all his groceries using coins alone. And Leon was still trying to grab my attention. Panic swelled inside me, and I browsed again – adding more sticks of gum to my basket until the whole display ran out.

‘Ma’am! If you’re done shopping, my counter is open for help.’ Leon leaned forward, still smiling but with a slight furrow between his brows now. Any other time, I would have appreciated this stellar customer service.

‘I’m – I’m OK,’ I tried to say quietly, but Leon couldn’t hear me.

I couldn’t just leave Silas’s line – I’d committed now. But I also didn’t want to make it obvious that I was staying in this line for him.

Sweat pooled at the base of my spine as I frantically looked around for something else to busy myself with. Something to browse so Leon would stop calling me over. And it was when my hand curled around another item that Silas’s last customer finally left.

I threw whatever I’d been clutching into my basket and dumped it in front of the werewolf with more vigour than was necessary. Silas’s gaze met mine over the basket, and a smile curled over his mouth – the kind that made the hammering of my heart turn up a notch.

I readied myself to say my practised interaction: a simple ‘hello’, followed by a ‘how are you’, a self-depreciating joke about hitting him with the jam from the doughnut and then he’d see the pie. But before I could say anything, Silas glanced down at my basket, and his expression turned troubled. His brows pinched together, and he opened his mouth to speak before snapping it shut.

Oh no, was my pie smushed? Had it made a mess? Did I destroy the basket?

Panic clutched at my stomach as I leaned forward to look at my basket. Sitting at the base was my pie bar, looking absolutely golden and perfect, surrounded by a range of produce – a bag of peaches, some celery. Very normal items. Yes, there were far too many different types of gum for one person, but that could be explained away.

But what couldn’t be ignored was the box sitting right atop my pie.

Foot cream. Anti-fungal foot cream to be precise.

The box was bright yellow, with an orange scrawl under the logo that read: Kill the itch!

Look, there was nothing wrong with buying or needing anti-fungal foot cream. But I really didn’t need the guy I’d been crushing on for years – and who I was pretty sure was my soulmate – to think of me having a fungal infection of any kind. I wanted him to think of me as pretty and cool, not weird and contagious. Was that too much to ask for?

The sheer mortification was overwhelming, and, so, I did the only thing I could do.

I ran.

I reached into my basket, grabbed my bar, and rushed out of the sliding doors of the Maple Mart. I couldn’t hear if Silas called for me, and I didn’t stop to check.

Once I was outside, I pressed myself against the wall – away from the window. I couldn’t breathe properly, not with my heart racing the way it was. It was why I didn’t notice Raven approaching. Not until her arm wrapped around my shoulders.

‘Tried to talk to him?’ Raven asked, once it seemed like I could breathe without hyperventilating.

I nodded.

‘Failed?’ she asked, eyebrow raised.

I nodded again, and then dropped my head on to her shoulder, speaking in a muffled voice. ‘Anti-fungal foot cream. I put anti-fungal foot cream in my basket.’

Her snort was quiet, but it still forced me to raise my head in outrage.

‘You cannot be laughing at me,’ I exclaimed, outraged. ‘You’re a bad friend who convinced me of a plan that epically failed.’