Page 138 of A Taste of Vanilla

She adjusts her language based on who she’s speaking to. With players, she’s bold and teasing. Even a little flirty. With the women at the front of the bar, she’s conspiratorial. With the older man at the end of the bar who doesn’t like spicy food, she breaksoff the least seasoned edge of a twist and tells him he is “safe from personality.”

He endsup buying two. She’s not even selling them.

I’ve always been told to be stoic. Not to show emotion. To treat baking as an art and take it seriously. But I don’t think I ever considered that serious could be fun.

The people around Halston love her because of her energy. Because she’s what some people apparently consider “too much.”

Too much.

I’ve heard her use that phrase about herself a few times now. Once indirectly, and once when she was tired and thought no one was listening.

But watching her tonight makes me realize that someone made her believe that her abundance was a flaw. Someone looked at this—her filling a bar with warmth, sugar, noise, care, and love—and called it inconvenient.

The man is an idiot.

My hand tightens around my coffee cup.

Marley appears next to me. “She’s good, right?”

I look at my sister. Her phone is lowered, and her eyes are soft as she watches her friend hop from table to table.

“Yes,” I say simply.

Marley watches Halston hand a plate of cookies to a Vipers player and threaten him with permanent banishment if his feedback is only “awesome.”

“She thinks too much.”

I keep silent.

Marley’s mouth twists. “Grant’s to blame for that. Over time...” She pauses and sighs. “He let it out little by little. Just little cuts—comments about her branding. Her clothes. Her laugh. Everything. By the end, she was apologizing before she was even wrong.”

I feel the anger move through me.

“What did you know about her?” Marley asks. Her lips thinbefore she adds, “You know, before.”

“Before?”

“Before you slept with her.” Her voice is calm, but I can tell she’s still unhappy with me.

“Nothing.”

Her jaw tightens, and I sigh.

“I knew she was upset and that she had been hurt badly. I knew that the bartender had been worried about her, and I knew that she wanted what happened to happen.”

I look back at Halston as Marley takes it in.

“Was she okay?” she asks softly after a while.

I don’t answer.

I wanted to give her what she wanted. There was something about her that just made me want to hand my whole life over. If she asked me for my life force, I’d have given it to her. My heart in her basket of fries. I didn’t even know her name.

But I also knew that her laugh was loud because it was trying to carry the grief out of her body. I knew she joked when something hurt too much to name. I knew she wanted to feel wanted but not to be handled like some broken thing. I knew she watched my mouth when she thought I wouldn’t notice and lifted her chin when she felt vulnerable.

I knew enough about her that I would have given her everything she wanted for as long as she wanted it.

“No,” I say quietly.