To save her family's business, a small-town baker returns to a television competition that made her a national laughingstock, where her partner is the professional baseball player who broke her heart.
After another disaster hits my poor bakery, I re...
A/N: This story will only be available on Wattpad through October 31, 2024. Starting in November, it will move to Radish and only a preview will stay here.
1-3 chapters will be uploaded daily to maximize binge reading! Please add to your reading lists so you get notifications.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Thick puffs of black smoke blanketed the kitchen ceiling like rolling storm clouds. The smoke detectors blared for two seconds before the sprinklers burst.
"Ahh!" Morgan and I shrieked under the hissing sprays. She grabbed a baking tray, held it over her head, and handed me another.
Tap-tap-tap pelted it under a whitewashed downpour.
"Hugo, the power!" I screamed, rushed to the utility wall, and shut off our indoor shower. The lights blinked off, and residual trickling sounds followed, including from where I lowered my tray against the side of my leg.
Morgan lowered hers and set it in the sink. "I'm not even surprised that happened."
What happened? Damage inspection put a pit in my stomach, but like the water soaking my clothes behind my apron, today's incident was just another shovel onto the shitpile my life had become.
"Me too," I said, my voice straining under the pressure of wanting to cry and collapse onto the floor. "We're cursed. There's no other explanation."
Two months ago, a plumbing pipe burst from a sidewalk tree's roots—the only tree in the parking lot, since we were at the end of the storefronts. Insurance covered the damage, but our permit renewal required more interior upgrades.
Then, our ten-year-old oven died. I sold it to Sal's Junkyard for scrap metal. The new one required an electrical upgrade, leading to...this mess.
Hugo's apologetic smile greeted me at the breaker box. Water matted his black curls, and his blue electrician shirt soaked into his dad-bod.
I braced my shoulder against the wall. "What happened?"
"I'm sorry, Paige." He shone a flashlight onto our now charred circuits. "Chain reaction. Total replacement."
My stomach plummeted at total. "How?"
I didn't understand. He'd replaced all the breakers for the new oven. The box expelling smoke signals wasn't what my frayed nerves needed.
Hugo's answer was lifting a burnt, hand-sized carcass by its tail. "Sorry, I scared it when I opened the panel and it bit the main line."
"Ohmygod." Morgan gagged and grabbed my arm. "That's gross."
"Shit." I knew the exterminator was too good of a deal. Friend of a friend was the norm around here, but it wasn't always the best endorsement. "How much?"
Avoiding my gaze, he wrapped the crispy critter in a waste bag. "Two thousand."
I closed my eyes. Two thousand. Not good, but not terrible.
