Page 286 of A Taste of Vanilla

Warren moves beside me. His sleeves are still up.

He looks around the bakery. At his sister half-dead at the counter. At Oliver pretending not to listen to her. At Dev asleep against the wall with a roll of labels in his hand. At Lisa packing leftover supplies. And at me.

“I’m staying,” he says. “I need to tell you that now.”

My chest squeezes. “Warren.”

“Tonight isn’t about me.”

“I know.”

“I just—” He stops. Searches for the words. “I just wanted to be beside you as myself and tell you the truth.”

I look at his tattoos again. The choices he made when so much of his life hadn’t felt like his.

Then I look at him. “You were.”

Marley makes a strangled sound from the floor. “I’m too tired to pretend I’m not going to cry.”

I start crying too.

Warren holds his hand out to me, stopping halfway.

I place my fingers in his.

twenty-eight

. . .

Joy Gets a Chaos Budget

WARREN

At midnight,Bitter Bloom is quiet.

Not clean, not finished. Not restored. Just quiet.

The floor is dusted in sugar, edible glitter, and flour.

The pastry case is empty except for crumbs and two flakes of dough. The chalkboard is blurred from too many people leaning against it, their shoulders dragging through the chalk.

Everything sold. Bitter Bloom looks wrecked, but it’s alive.

Halston stands in the middle of it, her flats on because she made me take her boots off twenty minutes ago after saying, “My toes have resigned from capitalism.” Her hair is coming loose from the ribbon, and she has icing in too many places to count.

She looks exhausted. And beautiful. And exactly like herself.

I’m trying not to stare, but I’m failing horribly.

Across the room, Marley is asleep in her chair with her phone still in her hand, thumb resting near the screen like she may wake up and post again out of instinct. Oliver has gone back to his bar a million times. Dev and Lisa have left.

“Warren,” Halston says quietly.

I look up and find her watching me.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”