Grumpy Best Friend

So much had changed, and in some ways, so little.

“And this is where we’ll actually bake the cookies?” she asked, gesturing around at the warehouse space.

“Ah, no,” Neal said, glancing back toward me.

I stepped forward. This was my specialty—factory design and layout. I started out not knowing a damn thing about it, but had gotten fairly good over the years. “There’s a bakery section further on,” I said, gesturing ahead. “That big tower you see from the outside, that’s a part of it, actually. It’s one massive oven.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she said, and although her tone was perfectly polite, it was like she put something biting in there, a little edge to mess with me. I decided not to take the bait.

“Believe me, it’s there. Would you like to see?”

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “If you want, but I think I get the idea. One big empty building.”

“We’ll fill it, don’t you worry,” Neal said, chuckling, and he shot me a look—I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn’t interested in that.

I felt a hint of anger start to swell. I couldn’t help myself. I had a temper, and she was doing her best to push all my buttons like she used to when we were kids. She hadn’t changed one bit, damn it, and she was going to keep on picking and prodding at me until I finally broke down.

I wouldn’t give her the chance.

“Come on,” I said to Jude. “Neal’s got some calls to make to vendors, and we’re finishing this tour.”

She frowned and looked at Neal, who studiously stared down at his feet and murmured something about needing to make some calls, yes, totally, lots of calls. I gave him a pointed look and he walked off, tossing back one look over his shoulder, a warning glare that practically screamed, don’t fuck this up.

I didn’t plan on fucking anything, not yet at least. I turned from Jude and started off toward the tall double doors at the far end of the empty space. After a second, I heard her footsteps hurry after me, echoing off the walls.

“This is where we’ll store our stock,” I said, gesturing around, not really caring if she was listening or not. “The cargo bay doors down there are where the trucks will pull up. We’ll have guys working around the clock loading and unloading materials. Then through these big things—” I reached the double doors and pushed them open, the old, rusty hinges groaning a bit as they gave in to the pressure.

We stepped into another large, empty room, except there were fewer pillars. The floor was dusty, and the whole place smelled like baked cookies—the scent almost overpowering. I stepped forward and found a light switch, and the whole place brightened under fluorescents.

“There used to be machines in here,” Jude said, and there was a hint of awe in her voice. I couldn’t blame her—the space was beautiful and more than a little impressive.

“Bolted down here,” I said, stamping my foot next to a hole in the floor. “Whole lines with machines that had very particular tooling and specs. And over here, this was the oven.” I led her to the center of the room, directly at the bottom of the massive tower. The ceiling disappeared up above, and I tried to picture what the oven would’ve looked like, and how hot it must’ve been in here, especially wearing all the protective equipment.

Jude stood next to me, craning her head to look up. The tower was about five stories tall, and the windows cast odd, square bright lights along the far wall at even intervals, up to top. It was strangely beautiful, though it had been filled with machines once, and now was oddly quiet.

“How did it work?” she asked. “I mean, what kind of machine would’ve been in here?”

“It was a giant tower oven,” I said. “Like an elevator. Cookies baked on their way up, then cooled on their way down.”

She laughed a little, and I looked away from the ceiling, and stared at her face. I could still see the outlines of the girl I used to know. Her features had softened a bit, her eyes weren’t as hard and haunted, her skin wasn’t stretched over her bones. She was so skinny back then—mostly because she barely spent any time at home and didn’t eat all that much. She looked much healthier now, almost glowed a little bit in a way she never had before, like she’d found something to truly sustain her. I wondered what it was that kept her going, and thought maybe it was the same thing that worked for me.

Distance from home.

She looked down and met my gaze, and for a few heavy beats of my heart, we stared at each other. She knew I’d been looking at her, but she didn’t say anything. Our past hovered between us, massive and gaping, and I wished we could fill in the spaces we’d created through space and time, but it felt insurmountable.