Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. My eyes fluttered open and I was greeted by a blank, white ceiling. My brow furrowed and I blinked a couple times, trying to think about how I got here. Lifting my hands, I could see the tubes coming out of my arm and hooked up to machines next to me. The memory flashes of blood covering my hands and my heart sped up with the beeping matching it. A nurse came in and smiled at me. “You’re awake! That’s wonderful!” “Where is she?” The nurse looked at me, confused. “Where is who? Your mother is here…” “No, no. A woman, she was with me. Where is she? Is she okay?” “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who…” My voice rose. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know who? She took a god damn bullet for me! Where is she? Just tell me where she is and I’ll find her myself.” “Sir, you didn’t come in with anyone. Your parents flew you in…” “Flew me in? Where am I?” The nurse looked at me nervously. “You’re in New York…” “What?” I roared. The door opened, my mother and f
Stacy called for the jet to be fueled and ready to go a couple days after the appointment. I didn’t really speak during that time, and Stacy didn’t ask me much either. She knew I had a lot on my mind, but she was always there if I asked her for something. It was also a quiet flight back to New York. With my tablet, I read through some work emails and messaged Derek saying I needed to speak with him tomorrow. Adrian also kept texting me non-stop asking me when I was coming home, but I ignored his messages. Jason was bugging me, but I told him our landing time. I asked him to bring the car to pick us up. We have were about halfway through the trip back to the states. “Zach…” Stacy put her hand on my arm. I flinched, but I quickly placed a smile on my face and looked up from my tablet. “What is your plan? I know you had a very broad sense of what you wanted to do before you went in, but now…” “Now that I know my parents forced my memory loss to stop me from destroying my dad’s busi
I had steeled myself for coming into the office, but as I walked out of the elevators I realized my heart was nowhere ready. I wanted to burn this whole place down and at the same time find a corner to just wallow in the pain I was feeling. It didn’t matter, though. I had work to do. I made sure that Derek was my first appointment in the morning. We had gone over a lot of the specifics of my next steps. To say he was shocked was an understatement. He was quick to recover and followed my explicit instructions, never once asking me if this was something I actually wanted to do. It took three hours to get the mounds of paperwork typed, corrected and sorted, but finally it was ready. Standing up, he left the final result of our non-stop work on the table. My desk looked like a disaster with the amount of paperwork on it from my absence. Derek kept narrowing his eyes as though he wanted to say something. Sighing, I rubbed my eyes. “You’ve been making a face for over a half hour. What is i
***Evelyn’s POV*** Slamming the dough on the counter, I kneaded the bread and slammed it down again. After the third time, I cut pieces and started to shape them into their final loaves. Reaching for a baking sheet, I started to line up the loaves and place them back on the rack. It would be another half hour of rising before going into the oven. “Hey, Ev! Do you think you can get your head out of the oven for a second?” Mike called back from the front, and I patted my apron. Walking out from the swinging kitchen doors, I looked at him. He smiled as he looked me over. “I think you’re wearing more flour than you put into the bread.” “What do you want, Mike? I swear if it was just to make fun of my floury self, then you don’t get to take anything home tonight.” “Mija.” My eyes widened and I turned to look at the voice. Ron was standing in the cafe, a huge smile on his face. Squealing, I ran over to him, throwing my arms around him. “Sure, get flour all over me.” “Better than th
“I can’t believe you guys!” My phone was in my one hand as I stomped around the cafe. Ron had come by and taken Elliot out today. He was ecstatic that his grandpa was in town. It drove the stake further into my heart that I really did need more of a male presence in his life. We had closed up for the day to get ready for the Open Mic Night we held every other week. I was cleaning off the counter when Jacob called and I was still pissed they had called Ron out. “We needed to pull out the big guns. You wouldn’t listen to us.” “Because there isn’t anything to listen to! I’ve told you, over and over. I’m o-kay!” There was silence over the phone for a moment. “Ev, you know that’s not true.” “It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s true or not! I have to be okay! You think that for a second Elliot wouldn’t be affected? You think I have the time or the luxury to not be okay? You guys don’t have kids. You don’t understand!” My voice was raised as I leaned against the counter, my back was to th
I chuckled at the venom in his voice. “Sandwich first.” Standing up, I reached out to him and helped pull him up. I used a little too much force and he wasn’t quite ready. Zach nearly fell forward but caught himself on the counter. “Jesus, how much strength do you have?” “I deal with a lot of bags of flour on a daily basis.” I pulled a stool out of the closet and set it up for him. Putting the sandwich on a plate, I cut it in half and slid it over. He smiled and took a half. Watching him take the first bite, he looked slightly surprised. After another bite, he narrowed his eyes. “This bread…” Chuckling, I leaned against the sink. “Took me two years to get the ratios right. It uses three different types of flours. I had tried different butters, different techniques for kneading, baking, and even resting but I managed to find the perfect recipe.” “Even France can’t compete with this.” “Have you been comparing everything you eat here to France?” He took another bite. “Maybe.”
I fell asleep around 12:00 a.m. after finishing cleaning up from the night’s festivities. Today was the Friday meet-up, so I got up before three in the morning to make extra bread and baked goods. Since coming back from New York, I was sleeping a max of 4 hours a night anyways, so it didn’t matter. By the time David showed up, I had three batches of four different baked goods already cooling. Not including tripling my bread batches. “Holy cow.” David placed a bag of flour on the shelf. “How long have you been up?” “Hours?” I laughed, brushing some hair out of my face. “Do you want a muffin to go with your coffee?” “You know I could never say no.” “Let me grab your coffee. Hold on a second.” I headed to the front and made his coffee. I already had warmed up the machines at around three-thirty, so it was immediately ready. Pouring the cup, I put the lid on it and placed a fresh muffin in a to-go container. Heading back, I saw David was placing two large bags on my counter. “What
We got to the cafe and Mike was already putting the chairs up on the tables. I opened the door for Zach, who was still carrying Elliot. “Uncle M! Look! My dad came to visit!” There was an imperceptible look that fell over Zach’s face, but Mike cracked a smirk before turning to Elliot. “That’s great, kiddo! Why don’t you head up and get dressed for tonight? Your mom and I need to get everything together.” “Okay!” Elliot dropped out of Zach’s arms and thundered upstairs. “The cakes are cooled and ready for frosting.” Mike ignored Zach. I sighed. “Do you know how much I love you?” “Too much.” Laughing, I hip checked him as I walked by to the kitchen, but he barely moved. “You know, if you didn’t lose those thirty pounds this month, I might have felt it.” “Cállate, pendejo.” [Shut up, asshole.] I yelled at him. He yelled back. “Estas enojada porque sigues casada.” [You’re mad because you’re still married.] I laughed. “El único que está enojado por eso eres tú.” [The only one who