Page 35 of Only for the Season

I dig my phone out of my pocket. “Sorry!” I shout. “I need to take this.”

I keep my phone to my ear and pretend I’m in the middle of a conversation for the rest of my walk home. I don’t want tochance anyone else asking questions and me blurting out how I just kissed the billionaire and it was the best kiss of my life.

The best kiss of my life? I scowl. I refuse to believe it. Too bad I suck at lying to myself.

I arrive at my apartment building. The paint is peeling, there are parts of bicycles and cars in the front lawn, and the sidewalk is cracked. Home sweet home.

This is not the life I imagined for myself while I was in culinary school, working my ass off. I had big dreams. Dreams of an apprenticeship in a patisserie in Paris. Dreams of opening my own patisserie in New York City that specializes in French bonbons. Dreams of being far, far away from my parents.

I trudge up the broken sidewalk littered with trash to the front door. It’s hanging open. Granted, there isn’t much crime in Smuggler’s Rest – the town is the biggest on the island but it’s still a small town – but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

I don’t bother with the elevator. It’s been out of order since I moved here. I make my way up the stairs to the third floor. Despite walking these stairs every day and working on my feet all day, I’m winded when I reach the top floor. What I wouldn’t do for a working elevator.

“Annie!” I shout as I enter the apartment.

“Why are you shouting? I’m right here.”

I sigh when I notice my roommate laying on the sofa in her pajamas while eating a sugar cookie. My brow wrinkles.

“Where did you get the cookie?”

Annie doesn’t buy food. She steals mine instead. I tried labeling my food. She didn’t care. I tried hiding my food in my room. She rummaged through my things to find it. Now I keepmy food in the kitchen at the bakery. I’m there more than I’m at home anyway.

“From the cookie tree.”

“The cookie tree?” What in the name of pirates is a cookie tree?

She motions to the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree I spent an afternoon last week painstakingly decorating with sugar cookies I spent the morning baking and decorating. The Christmas tree that is now devoid of cookies.

“Did you eat all the cookies on the Christmas tree?”

“They were just hanging there.”

“Hanging there? The cookies are the decoration on the tree.” Because I can’t afford to buy garland and tinsel, and ornaments. Not yet.

“You didn’t say they were decorations.”

As if it would have mattered if I had. I should have put rat poison in those cookies.

“It’s a Christmas tree. It should have been obvious.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Is this one of your weird things?”

“Weird things?”

“You know. Don’t eat my food in the fridge. Don’t go through my things in my room. Don’t wear my clothes.”

At the mention of clothes, I realize Annie is wearing my pajamas.

“Why are you wearing my pajamas?”

She shrugs. “Mine were dirty.”

“You could have washed them.”

“Why would I wash them when I can wear yours?”

“Because they’re mine and don’t belong to you.”