Page 57 of How To Not Need You

"You cried at The Notebook," Adrian reminded him.

“That’s different, I cry at advertisements." Luca argues.

Harper hid a smile behind her coffee mug. Even Natalie laughed. I rested my forehead briefly against Liv's before pulling her gently against my side.

"Alright, alright," I said, unable to stop smiling. "Let's get back to plotting."

The room dissolved into conversation again almost instantly. Harper reclaimed control of the notebook. Freya vetoed surveillance involving disguises and potentially animal assistance. Ben continued defending his serviette masterpiece with surprising passion. Luca declared they all needed code names. Wren suggested perhaps they should solve one problem before inventing five more.

Popcorn chooses that exact moment to shout, “Crazy assholes!”

It’s probably the most true statement that has been said tonight. Liv settles against my side and I look around the table.

Luca and Ben are now arguing about code names. Freya has confiscated the serviette.

Adrian looks like he's reconsidering several life choices. Wren is feeding Popcorn something from her pocket while pretending she has nothing to do with his vocabulary.

It's chaos. Absolute fucking chaos. And somehow, I'm comfortable.

Liv's hand rests on my thigh. My arm is around her shoulders. These are her people, and somewhere along the way they've started making room for me too. I look down at Liv.

She catches me staring. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Her eyes narrow. “That was not convincing.”

“I'm sitting in a bookstore discussing surveillance pigeons. My standards for convincing have changed.”

She laughs and tucks herself closer. I press a kiss to the top of her head.

Yeah.

I could get used to this.

Chapter

Eleven

Liv

The roller catches on a rough patch of wall and I swear under my breath. My arm is officially going to fall off. This is what happens when you tell a group of women with too many opinions that your bakery needs painting. Suddenly we’re all elbow-deep in buttercream yellow and nobody knows how to quit.

Whisk & Wonder looks exactly like what it is, a bakery halfway through becoming a bakery.

One wall is buttercream yellow. The other is still depressing plaster grey. Shelves are stacked against the wall waiting to be installed, drop cloths cover most of the floor, and sawdust has somehow reached places sawdust has no business reaching.

Underneath it all is the smell of whatever Natalie has been baking since dawn.

Which is frankly rude when none of us have eaten yet.

I drag the roller up again. My hair is pulled back, and there's a paintbrush tucked behind one ear that I've already tried to find twice. There’s a streak of buttercream dried on my forearm that I should probably wipe off, except wiping things off feels like admitting defeat, and I don’t do that before ten in the morning.

Natalie moves through the space like she’s conducting something complicated and slightly deranged. Pastry spatula in one hand, coffee in the other, pointing at things that need moving with the spatula like it’s a conductor’s baton. She's brighter today. Bossy. Excited. Changing her mind about shelf placement every thirty seconds. She stops beside the open-plan counter, which is still just a frame waiting for it’s bench top.

“The shelves go there. No, there. Actually...” She pivots. “There.”

“They can’t go in three places, Nat,” I say, without looking away from the wall.