Danielle "Dani" Joyce has been working long hours and living paycheck to paycheck to keep her bakery, The Dough Divas, open. Spending all her time at the store, her only romantic outlet is to crush on regulars like Justin Waverly. She keeps her flir...
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"He's never coming back..."
"Get your elbows off the counter," Mindy said, whipping my arm with a flour-dusted cloth. "If you're going to sulk, do it where customers won't see you."
"What customers?" I asked, my face falling deeper into the pit formed by my crossed arms. "Morning rush finished an hour ago, and he didn't show up." I sighed and felt my warm breath collect along the top of the glass display case. "I made him a bear claw with cinnamon almonds on top..."
"Yeah, I sold that to the barista from down the street. She wasn't a huge fan of the cinnamon, but I told her it was the only bear claw we had left."
"Who doesn't like cinnamon?" I snapped up and turned to find my business partner and friend placing tubs of deli meat, fresh lettuce, and sliced tomatoes onto her workstation to prepare for the lunch crowd.
"She didn't, apparently," Mindy replied with a shrug. "Perhaps she's inhaled too much of it when topping off people's lattes."
"That's ridiculous," I mumbled, resting my chin on my forearms and staring out our bakery's front doors where only a few pedestrians sauntered by so late in the morning.
"What's ridiculous is you still moaning about Justin." She slammed the refrigerator door, and I turned in time to catch the roll in her eyes. She then dropped a jar of mayonnaise and a bottle of mustard on to her counter.
"Why shouldn't I be upset? This man could be my soul mate and I ruined my chance by acting like a complete ass."
"Didn't have much chance with him at the rate you were going, anyway. It took you four months to learn his name."
"And then it took one night to throw it all away."
Mindy groaned as she planted her palms on the edge of the counter. After taking a deep breath, she turned to me with a pitying smile. "Look, any decent human being would forgive you for what was said at a bar. Especially when you hadn't expected any drinking company that night." She took a step forward and gave my shoulder a squeeze as she made her way to the bread cabinet. "It's not like you guys were on an actual date."
"No, but it was a big, wide open opportunity for it to become one. Fate practically dropped this gift right in my lap and yet I fumbled it." I watched her scan over the loaves I had baked between rushes that morning. As she debated which to slice, my sense of duty eventually cleared away the cobwebs of self-pity and I stepped forward to grab a honey wheat loaf and a sourdough. Then I headed to the back workstation to do some cutting. "I was just so nervous," I continued with a sigh. "I was supposed to be there drinking away the pain of your abandonment..."
"I'm allowed to date," snapped Mindy from the other side of the dividing wall that separated the front and back of house.
"Yes, well, when that means your lovesick roommate, and best friend for life, is left alone and hungry, you have to realize there will be consequences."
