The Problem With Burnt Cookies

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Part 1: Maisy

Mairi passed her another tissue, as she loudly blew her nose for the thousandth time, signing a thank you before sobbing some more.

"Are you okay?" she signed at her friend, as Maisy watched Simon declare his love for Daphne all over again, as she motioned to the television, waving at the scene, and sobbing over again.

"She's going to run out of tears, give her some water!" Jamie conversated, asking her if she wanted some water, to which she shook her head.

"She just broke up with him, let her have her moment," her best friend and second business partner told her.

"It's been two weeks!" she told them both.

"He was with her for years. They were business partners before I moved here, she meets his friends... and suddenly he's embarrassed by her? Don't tell me a guy has never broken up with you because we're too different for them. She did the right thing if he's not gonna accept her as she is." She signed to her friend.

Jamie remembered the first time she was broken up with for being deaf, she had finally met this guy Logan's parents in high school and she remembered being startled by this GIANT dog, and falling back into the pool at a backyard party. Not knowing how to swim didn't help, the dog thought she was playing and swam towards her as she shrieked and cried. Logan gave the whole we're just too different speech a couple of hours later as if he hadn't been avoiding her out of embarrassment the whole night. unbeknownst to him, she had read his lips, as he told a joke to his friends about how her real voice sounded like a dying bird.

She understood how hard it was to accept that things were different when it came to navigating love in a non-HOH world.

"You will be okay. But closing down the shop isn't the answer! You worked too hard not to get it up and running, it has been two weeks... and honey, you kind of have cereal sticking to you." Mairi said to Maisy with a gentle, sympathetic smile pulling a cinnamon toast crunch piece from her cheek.

"Okay, so new plan, no more Bridgerton, you're going to shower, miss sticky pants, and we're going shopping for ingredients because this day isn't going to waste, we're working on new recipes, and... she held a hand to her chest dramatically- "I'll shoulder the burden of being your guinea pig." Jamie pulled her friend up and practically fought the remote out of her hands, turning the television off, with a smile, and pushing Maisy to the bathroom.

"I don't even have clothes to change out of" Maisy complained.

"I'll find you something, it'll be there when you get out!" Mairi told her, before shutting the door.

Sighing, she undressed, and took her hearing aids off, putting them in their case, and then showered, scrubbing twice before she gave Jamie an excuse to complain she smelled again.

All she could think about was how Oliver looked at her in embarrassment as she warned his oldest friend that he was about to step on her hearing aid, as she was in the middle of changing out a new battery and they knocked it over. He had made her more embarrassed by apologizing to the other lunch guests around them. She scrubbed her hair with lavender shampoo, as she took in his last words to her.

"You just need to figure out how to communicate better without the yelling."

She had finally let him have it, in both means of communication. Verbally and Non Verbally.

After her wavy hair was washed of soap and put up in a bun, she dried off and noticed the sundress Mairi complimented on her once looked wonderful on her caramel-colored skin. Bless them, They tried their hardest when one of them was down, and knew the one place she forgot her problems was baking in the tiny bakery shop she had put her heart and soul into over the past three years.

Putting her hearing aids on, and applying some makeup, she flung open the door, and to Mairi and Jamie's surprise looked a bit better now that she was clean and in something other than sweats and her sweatshirt.

"Let's go downstairs." She signed to them, "I want to check what we have in stock and then we can head to the store."

Suddenly they got nervous, looking at each other before turning to her.

"Maisy..." Mairi started.

"What? Let's go." She signed again.

Jamie had a pissed-off, I want to punch you look on her face as she tapped her foot, arms crosses as she didn't answer her question, but Maisy went past her, and into her room where found her little blue book of dreams. Things she remembered at night, or recipes that popped into her head when she couldn't sleep.

After grabbing her crossbody purse, and shoving her wallet inside, she walked downstairs and crossed the street to the bakery.

A white truck was parked just behind the delivery bay as two men loaded up one of the giant commercial mixers that were in the kitchen. Maisy ran to the truck, with Jamie and Mairi close behind her.

"What are you doing?!" She asked them.

"Lady, I don't understand sign language." one of the men said, as Maisy pulled out her phone, meaning to type out what she said.

"Sir, what's going on?" Mairi said to them, using her hands to translate for her friends.

"Some guy called said he had some supplies that needed to be sent back, said he didn't need them anymore." the burly man told her verbal friend.

"No, no. I'm the owner, this is my bakery, where are you going with these?" Maisy asked him angrily.

After a brief silence, Mairi told her to stay put in that she'd sort this out with them, stress crossing her face, as Jamie looked all but ready to steal the white truck with half of the baking equipment her friend worked her ass off to get, even if two were a gift from her Ex.

They both were far away enough where they couldn't hear most of the conversation and watched Mairi go from flustered to pleading, with the workers angry to furious and flustered red in minutes, looking over paperwork and calling Oliver, grateful they weren't on the receiving end of that phone call.

After about 20 minutes, Mairi walked back to her friends, the truck loaded the machines and closed the back of its trunk, roaring to life, as the burly man motioned a sorry to Maisy, telling Mairi that was all the ASL he knew.

"Come on in, I'll explain what happened." She signed to them, as they headed to the kitchen area, now vaguely empty with the heavy machines gone.

"Got any cupcakes?" Jamie signed, annoyed, as they all sat down, hearing the truck pull away, Maisy pulled the Caramel Crunch cupcakes she had worked on from the fridge, and they dug in, bad news momentarily eclipsed by the little pieces of heavenly bliss covered in icing and wrapped in a paper wrapper. Mairi set hers down to sign what just perspired.

"So, Oliver called the company that sold him the mixers but didn't tell them there were only two to be taken, and then he called the blast freezing company and demanded a refund for those too. Since we made him business partner, he's allowed to take what's his," she said with an eye-roll, as Jamie crushed her cupcake accidentally in anger.

"That's-" She started.

"Honey you have frosting on your fingers," Mairi told her before she continued, handing her a napkin.

"What can we do??" Maisy signed back.

"Oliver said tomorrow he can have the mixers delivered back, plus he's throwing in a blast freezer for the inconvenience of shutting you down a day." She told her with another eye roll.

"Bullshit!" Jamie continued, tossing the napkin into a garbage bin a bit late, but as always on time with the conversation. "As it'll add to the fact that she's going through enough pain, he has to mess with her livelihood too UGH!"

"Jamie, calm down, we'll figure this out, we always do." Mairi signed as Maisy got up, looking at her best friends in the world, thick or thin they were still here planning to help her through another jam.

"Maisy, I'll be here bright and early to start on the mixes for the cupcakes by hand, Jamie can do the cakes, and pie fillings, you can do the cupcakes. We can do this, we can-"

But Maisy didn't wait for her to finish, as she was already turning to the front door, ready to go back home and sulk today off.