Page 6 of Spicy or Sweet (Wintermore #2)

SHAY

Idon’t know Noelle Whitten well, but I know she’s not okay. The mayor was out of line, trying, and succeeding, to guilt Noelle into something she clearly doesn’t want to do.

A thick silence stretches between us as we walk down the street. I understand Noelle’s hesitance toward the project—it’s a lot of work, and ridiculously last-minute. But I’m still excited.

The money alone will be great, but the exposure will be invaluable. And I think it’ll be fun to see how a movie is made.

As for working so closely with Noelle… maybe this is what we need to find common ground. Maybe I’ll figure out why Noelle doesn’t like me when we’re shoved in a kitchen together, and maybe she’ll realize I’m not so bad.

Maybe we could actually become friends.

Unlike now, when I can sense the dislike emanating from her. I’m sure the last thing she wants is to talk to me, but I can’t see the tension weighing down her spine and not say something.

“Are you okay?”

Noelle doesn’t even look up. “I’m fine.”

“It just seems like you don’t want to do this, and I’m sure it’s not too late to—”

She stops and whirls around, her lilac hair flying. “I said I’m fine, and I said I’d do it.”

“Okay. But you seem stressed about it, and we are going to be working together, so you’re going to have to be okay with me checking in,” I answer gently.

Noelle narrows her eyes. “You don’t have to check in. We’re temporarily working together. We’re not friends.”

Ouch.

The sensible thing would be to ask her why she doesn’t like me, or we’re going to spend the next few weeks tiptoeing around it. But I can’t imagine she’d respond well to me asking right now.

“Right. Well, as temporary colleagues, we should probably talk about how we’re going to work together. Do you want to come over and we can figure things out?”

“Fine,” Noelle replies through gritted teeth.

She follows me across the street and into épices et Sucré. A couple I don’t recognize is sitting at the round table by the window, and we greet each other before Noelle and I take a seat on the other side of the café.

“Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine,” Noelle answers—her favorite response, apparently—but her stomach rumbles. She glares down at it.

“Did you eat lunch? You seemed busy earlier.”

“I’ll get something later.”

I sigh and turn to call to Gracie, “Can you put together a couple of plates of the afternoon tea stuff in the back fridge?”

We don’t generally serve savory food, but our afternoon teas are popular.

I always prep a few savories in the morning, and Gracie and I eat any leftovers.

I can’t remember the last time I had to make lunch.

Although I opened épices et Sucré with the intention of running a real French patisserie, Wintermore has more of a taste for gingerbread than millefeuille.

Now, we do a little of everything. It’s not a good business model, and I’ve been thinking about rebranding for years, but I’ve never gotten around to it.

The money from the movie might be the push I need.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in me saying no,” Noelle says, crossing her arms.

“Correct. Obviously, you don’t really want to do this.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s that I don’t know how I’m supposed to find the time,” Noelle corrects. “I’m already busier than I can handle.”

“You know, I’d be happy to help if—”

“I don’t need your help,” she snaps. “Why do you care so much about this?” Noelle asks. “The movie means a lot to my family, but you have no obligation here.”

I glance around the café. “I’m not struggling, but I want to change things up a little, and this would help. Besides, the movie means a lot to my family, too. It was my sister’s favorite.”

Noelle tilts her head. “You have a sister?”

I rub my locket with my thumb. This part never gets easier. It’s been two decades, and it still cleaves me in two to open my mouth and reply, “Had. Georgie. She died before she got the chance to come to Wintermore.”

Noelle’s sky-blue eyes widen. She’s a sister; she’s probably imagining what it would be like to wake up in a world without Felix or Rora. I used to do the same whenever I heard that people had lost siblings. But nothing prepared me for what it was actually like.

Georgie, Nico, and I were triplets—are triplets. Three whole people, but also three parts of something bigger. Now, I have to fight to even feel like one whole person. Nico stopped fighting a long time ago.

“I’m so sorry,” Noelle says. I’m used to the sentiment, but usually it’s awkward and hurried, like whoever has stumbled onto this darker point of my life can’t wait to get away from it. Not Noelle. “Is that why you moved here? To honor Georgie?”

Hearing my sister’s name on her lips is like an electric shock.

For some reason, people avoid calling her by her name, even my parents and Nico.

Sometimes, I find myself just saying it out loud when I’m alone because it’s been so long since anyone has, and I refuse to forget how it feels to form her name.

“Kind of, yeah. My brother Nico moved here after she died—he lives on the mountain, and he doesn’t come down often.

I thought if I moved here after my divorce, that it might help him, I don’t know, be less of a recluse?

No luck on that front,” I say with a wry smile and a shrug.

“He’s frustrating as hell, but he’s my brother, so I’ll keep trying. ”

“I understand frustrating brothers,” Noelle offers, as Gracie comes over and sets two plates of food and a jug of peach lemonade on the table.

I use the distraction to steer us toward a lighter topic.

“How do you want to try and divide up work? I can close without much trouble—I have a few custom orders a week, but I can work on them anywhere. I’m guessing closing would be a lot more complicated for you.

” Gracie can handle the admin stuff she usually does from home, and I can give her paid time off for the rest of her hours.

Noelle has a full staff, not to mention lines out the door most days.

“It would.” Noelle sighs and picks at a cucumber stick.

At first, I think she’s taking the skin off because she doesn’t like it—exactly like I do—but she pops the skin in her mouth and leaves the rest. Weird.

“There’s plenty of space in my basement kitchen for you to work on your custom orders, and for us to work on stuff for the movie, but I can’t fit my team down there, and, even if we did close the café for a month—which, realistically, I can’t—we have mail pre-orders and a lot of local orders. ”

“I can’t imagine they’re going to have to spend a month straight in either of our places, so hopefully the network people will have a plan for that,” I offer, but she just chews her lip.

“I think it makes sense that we spend the mornings working on our own bakery stuff, and then I can come down to the basement after lunch and we can work on movie stuff. Assuming that works with whatever they want us to do.”

It makes sense, but my skin prickles at the thought of working in a basement. “Are there windows in your basement?” I ask, and Noelle’s gaze falls to my fingers, and the hummus sandwich I’m squeezing tightly between them. I put the sandwich down.

“There are a couple of small windows and a door. It’s meant for loading and unloading, I think. I don’t really use it, but you can open it if you need to.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Thanks.”

She says nothing, just searches my face until I explain. “I’m claustrophobic. I can manage most days, but some days are worse than others, so it helps me to be prepared.”

“You can come over and check it out whenever you want. If it doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out.” Noelle says it matter-of-factly, like it’s no big deal.

For a moment, it feels like I’m seeing the same Noelle the rest of Wintermore does—maybe not as soft and sunshiney, but certainly less prickly than I usually get.

“Is there anything I need to know about working with you?”

She considers for a moment before saying, “I’m allergic to peanuts and pistachios.”

“Airborne?”

“As far as I know. A lot of people grow out of airborne allergies, and I haven’t checked since I was a kid. It doesn’t seem worth the risk.”

Working in the culinary world with any kind of allergy is frustrating, but I don’t think I’d risk it, either.

“I don’t work with a lot of peanuts or pistachios, but I’ll make sure I have none around when we’re working together,” I promise. “Are almonds okay? I use a lot of them.”

“Almonds are fine. You know, I honestly don’t know how this is going to work. We work on completely different things.”

Does she think having a patisserie means I can’t bake? Granted, I don’t get the chance nearly as often as I’d like these days, but baking is where I started.

My siblings and I all grew up with a creative outlet. For Nico, it was wood—processing, carving, building. For me, it was baking. I spent every free moment in the kitchen, baking up a storm. I had more fails than wins in my younger days, but I loved it.

Georgie was always less creative than Nico and me, but she loved art. For as long as I can remember, she was obsessed with Paris—the galleries, the fashion, the patisseries.

As teenagers, we dreamed of opening a patisserie together. I’d run the kitchen; she’d run everything else. Now, I’m living our dream without her.

“I’ve worked in plenty of bakeries over the years,” I assure Noelle. “I’ll be fine with whatever they throw at us.”

Noelle doesn’t look convinced, but she nods, anyway. She eyes the cookies and cream brownie on her plate before grabbing it and gingerly nibbling a corner. Her eyes widen, and she takes a bigger bite.

“Shit. That’s good,” she murmurs, sounding surprisingly pissed off about it.

She pushes her plate away and stands. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what the network has in mind for us. I’ll see you when they want to meet with us, I guess.”

I don’t even get the chance to respond before she’s running out the door, like she reached her limit and can’t bear to spend another second in my presence.

Maybe not friends, then.