The Trouble With Falling

“Aw, thanks! I’m glad that you could make it,” I tell them.

Iris introduces me to her fiancé, Arlo, and the rest of her friends before they start to look around the bakery.

“This place is awesome!” Sutton tells me as she gives me a quick smile.

“Aw, thank you,” I say with a smile as I grab a bakery box and get it ready. “What can I get for you?”

Sutton and her boyfriend, Teller, order a few donuts and cookies. Madelyn and Flynn argue over the cupcakes before they decide to get one of each. Lyla mulls over the bread choices before she lands on an asiago cheese one and some of the ciabatta rolls. I ring her up and thank them as they turn to leave.

“See you later!” They calls out to me as they push back outside and heads over to their cars.

I watch them go and admire how much I’ve already sold this morning.

Patrick and Brennan are the next to arrive. Brennan runs all over the store, checking out everything and trying to do his best to pick just one thing like Patrick says.

“We had to come in before school. He was worried that there wouldn’t be anything left if we waited until this afternoon, and I can see that he was right. Congratulations, Hartley,” he says, giving me a quick hug as Brennan comes up to his side with a donut.

“That one?” I tease him. “Hmm, I guess I can set aside the special one that I made just for you this morning.”

“Special donut?” Brennan asks, his whole face lighting up.

“Yeah, just a second. Let me go grab it.”

Patrick gives me a grateful look as I turn to leave. Eli told me that he was worried about Brennan since his parents passed away, but I think that Patrick is doing a great job raising him. Brennan is such a sweet kid and he really seems to have opened up to me since we started cooking together.

I hurry into the back, taking out the small bag with the maple bacon donut that I made this morning just for Brennan.

“Here you go. You can have both of them,” I say with a wink and he shoves the strawberry cheesecake donut that he had grabbed from the case into Patrick’s hands as he rips open the bag I gave him.

“It’s got bacon on it!” he says gleefully, his eyes full of wonder.

“Yeah, this one is a maple bacon flavored donut. Do you want to try it? I won’t be offended if you’d rather have the strawberry cheesecake one,” I promise him.

“I want to try it,” he says with a smile and I grab a few napkins as Patrick and him head over to one of the tables and sit down.

I join them, passing the napkins across the counter and watching as Brennan takes a big bite. He chews, studying the donut before he looks over to me.

“It’s so good,” he says with a grin.

He lets Patrick have a bite too, and I move to pack up a few kinds of breads and rolls for them to take home too.

Patrick digs out his wallet but I wave him off.

“It’s the least I can do after Brennan helped out so much here.”

Brennan grabs the bread and makes his way to the door, but Patrick hesitates.

“Thank you. You have no idea what seeing him so happy like that does to me. He’s been really withdrawn since his parents died and I had no clue how to snap him out of it or if I even should, but then you came to town and brought him back to the sweet, curious kid that I know.”

My eyes water and I lean over, hugging him.

“It’s you too. You’re so good to him and I know that he loves you.”

Patrick nods, swallowing hard before he turns and hurries to catch up with Brennan who is pushing out the front door. I’m sure that they’ll have to rush to make it to school on time.

Things pick up after that with a steady amount of people stopping by to check out the shop and grab something sweet, and by ten o’clock, I’m running low on everything. I’m helping out a customer who wants to order a custom birthday cake when Eli, Susan, and Frank come in. I grin at them, finishing up with Trina and letting her know that I’ll have the cake ready on Saturday by ten a.m.

I turn back to Eli and his parents and smile when I see that Susan is beaming and Frank is practically licking his lips when he sees all of the desserts laid out before him. Eli’s eyes are locked on me and he gives me a questioning look. I grin at him, letting him know that everything is going well.