Page 46

46

Liam

“ T his isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Lenny said as she took in the aftermath of the party.

It looked like Maxxy had started the cleanup. Although balloons sagged from the ceiling and bottles were strewn everywhere, bunting and streamers were piled in two corners of the room. There were half-empty black bags filled with empty cups and any leftover food had already been removed.

“We’re going to have to get Max a thank-you gift for starting the cleanup. I imagine there are better things she could have been doing in the early hours of a new year,” she said, picking up a black bag and ramming a pile of streamers into it.

“You might need to get Teddy one as well. She mentioned that she might rope him into helping her.”

Lenny stopped halfway through throwing more streamers away and threw me a look.

“Well, find out if he helped and I will add him to the list. Just need to figure out what says, ‘Thanks for throwing food out at midnight so my bakery doesn’t get rats because I was riding my boyfriend into oblivion.’”

I snorted. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’ve always been good at giving people gifts,” I said as I picked up a bag of my own and collected bottles.

“Wolf keychains not included,” she joked.

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and waved the keychain about. I’d added it immediately. It was the only keychain I had on my keys.

“I happen to love wolf keychains.”

Lenny studied my keys.

“It looks good, I’ll give you that. Why do you have four sets of keys?”

I should have figured that she would notice that. Lenny noticed everything.

“I was going to wait a couple more days before talking about this, but I can’t tell you why I have four sets of keys without playing my hand, so…One set is for my house here, one set is for my parents’ house, and the other is for your parents’ house.”

She expected those three, though.

“And the fourth?” she prompted.

I took a deep breath.

“You told me I should get used to seeing that very logo,” I pointed to the back wall behind her where it was printed in a coffee brown, “around Westchester once upon a time. You also have had your heart set on a very particular shop front for at least half of your life. The fourth set are the keys to that.”

Her fingers started playing with her thumb ring. “Why the hell do you have them?”

I was only ninety per cent certain that she wouldn’t run. She might give me shit. Or shut down for a moment. She might leave me to clean up the rest of the carcass from this party and go for a walk, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t run if I told her the truth.

“I have them because I am the landlord,” I said quietly.

“And how long have you been the landlord?” she asked, her voice cracking, and I noticed her eyes were glossy.

“I went home for a week the summer I turned pro, and it was for sale. I had just received my signing bonus and, well, on the day my blades touched the ice for the first time professionally, I also became the owner of that particular space.”

“You would have been—”

“Twenty-two. I’ve owned it for nearly nine years. Ten months in, there was interest in renting it out, but Rob mentioned when I was home that you were staying in Detroit to make your bakery dreams come true there, so I rented it out. That business moved out just after I retired and someone else showed interest almost immediately, once it was vacated, but something told me to hold out just a little while longer. So I did. Then I bumped into you at the airport.”

She was quiet for a while. But she wasn’t running, which was a good sign.

“You bought me a fucking shop?” A tear ran down her cheek.

“If you want it. Then yes, it’s yours.”

“But what about here? What about you?”

“This brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk to you about. Your dad offered me a job. Assistant coach, starting next season. So, that’s an option for me. But I am in a very fortunate position where I am not under any huge pressure to figure out my next steps. Suspicious amount of money, remember? ”

She laughed, wetly. “Do you want to do that? Coach?”

This wasn’t about me.

“Can you run two bakeries in different cities?”

“Well, yeah it’s always been the dream, but it’s a lot of work and I’ve never been able to figure out the costs or the logistics.”

I dropped my bin bag and walked over to her, placing my hands on her shoulders.

“If you sat down and figured it out, you could make it work, right? You don’t need a location anymore. I know a guy who can give you a really good rate on a unit.”

She laughed again.

“Opening a bakery next to Westchester Bakes is career-ending. It will die before it even gets off the ground.”

“I remember someone telling me that their bakery would offer different things to Bakes, which is why it would work. Westchester would have all its baked goods needs met if you rocked up too.”

She smiled. I wiped the tears off her cheeks and cupped her face in my hands.

“You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to coach? I’m not hypothetically moving to Westchester if there’s nothing for you there.”

“You’d be there. I go where you go. If you wanna stay here, then we’ll stay here. If you wanna open a new site back home, we’ll go there. I go where you go, Alana. So where do you want to go?”