I suppose I could try to find her parents. I had their phone number, given to me by Mrs. Larson in case I ever needed anything. Contacting them felt wrong, though. She was an adult, and from what I could gather tonight, they weren’t great at accepting her issues since the tornado had ripped through their lives. I didn’t want to make that worse for her.
I tapped my chin with my finger while I stared at the Google search bar on the screen. It waited for me to tell it what to do next while I waited for some grand vision to tell me what that was. A thought struck me, and I hit a bookmark at the top of the page, waiting for it to load.
The frequently asked questions page came up, and I searched for the information I was seeking. A plan was forming in my head as I read the information, clicking through other pages to find the exact information I would need to convince Amber even to consider the crazy plan I’d just hatched.
SLEEP HADN’T COME EASILY. Between thinking about Haylee and the bakery, and lusting after my kind, sexy neighbor, I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling. I had come to a few conclusions about the bakery, but conclusions about Bishop were more elusive. The pros and cons were easy to delineate when it came to the man. He was sweet, gentle, a good listener, understanding, supportive, sexy as hell, and after that kiss we shared last night, obviously interested in me.
The cons were more complicated because they had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me. My life was a dumpster fire, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Not to mention, he was a gym teacher. He’s not going to date someone like me for very long. Not when the only physical activity I can manage is sitting at a campfire. The cons of Bishop Halla don’t outweigh the pros. The cons of how Amber Larson would destroy Bishop Halla’s life do.
My previous dating experience was a nightmare. I wasn’t in the mood for round two. Did I think Bishop was going to hurt me? No. Not even a little bit. That didn’t change the fact that I was experiencing too much upheaval to trust myself right now. It wasn’t fair to draw someone else into my nightmare, either.
My fingers left the steering wheel and traveled to my lips. Why were you kissing him last night, then? I asked myself for the nine hundredth time since the kiss. It wasn’t like anyone was forcing you to stand there and let him stick his tongue down your throat.
I growled and banged my head on the headrest. This morning was starting the same way last night ended—too many questions, too few answers, and not enough patience. I pulled the key from the ignition and unbuckled my seatbelt, deciding the only thing I could do was start trying to solve my problems instead of making more for myself. The only way to do that was not to be run roughshod over. I know my best friend and her beau had nothing but good intentions, but that didn’t mean I had to agree with them completely.
The one thing I did agree with them on was we needed to change how we were doing business at The Fluffy Cupcake. We were all run down, short with each other, and running on fumes. If we didn’t make some changes immediately, we weren’t going to survive another year at this pace. That was the reason I was at my business this morning. I had worked out a plan last night that would mostly satisfy everyone. We’d all have to give a little on our demands to be successful, though. Having spent the last twenty-six years with my bestie, I already knew she’d agree to the changes I’d come up with during the night. Her forte is baking. Mine is business.
I pulled the door open to the bakery and stepped in, immediately enveloped by the loving scents of fresh bread and sweet pastries. The sun was shining, the coffee was brewing, and Taylor was loading the bakery case with the last of the fresh Danish.
“Hey, Taylor,” I said, crutching behind the case to greet her. “How are things this morning?”
“Hi, Amber,” she said, standing upright from the case. “Busy as always, but that’s good, right?”
“Busy is good, but overworked isn’t,” I said, deciding that honesty was the only thing that would start to sort out where we were going with our business. “I think we’re all feeling the overworked part.”
Taylor shifted nervously, uncomfortable with the situation, her answer, or both. “It’s always this way in the summer.”
“Tactful,” I said on a chuckle. “I know you’ve only worked here for three summers, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it hasn’t always been like this.”
I shifted the crutches under my arms better to take some weight off my leg. “We’re in a bit of a crisis here, Taylor.”
She motioned at the crutches with a slight grimace to her brows. “I’m scared to death about your leg. It’s not getting any better, is it?”
“It needs some work,” I said, deciding that going into how bad things were would only muddy her decision. “Nothing I’m not used to. I’ll be seeing a doctor about it this week. I do have a question for you.”
She leaned her hip on the edge of the cashier’s counter and nodded. “Sure, hopefully, I can answer it.”
“If you had the opportunity to work in the back of the bakery full-time, is that something you’d be interested in doing?”
Her eyes widened double in size, and she swallowed nervously. The answer was evident on her face while she searched for a way to say it without losing her job or making me angry.
I held up my hand to calm her fears. “You don’t have to worry about upsetting me.
