The gentleman with the impossible cheekbones is late.
By exactly seven minutes.
I know because the clock above the espresso machine ticks like it’s personally offended, and because on Thursdays, he walks in at 5:42 p.m. on the dot. Every time. Orders an éclair and a black coffee. Says almost nothing. Tips too much. Looks like he got lost on his way to a board meeting and wound up in our cramped, sugar-dusted bakery by accident.
“Maybe Prince Charming finally found a better bakery,” Noah mutters beside me, wiping down the already-clean counter. His reflection raises an eyebrow in the smudged glass of the pastry case.
“He’s not—” I start.
“Don’t say ‘Prince Charming’? But look at you, Cinderella.” He gestures at my flour-dusted apron, my frizzing ponytail. “You’re one lost shoe away from a lawsuit.”
I roll my eyes and adjust the tray of éclairs for the third time. The chocolate glaze has set with a perfect shine, the pastry shells crisp and hollow and waiting for the vanilla bean cream inside. I love them. I hate that I love them so much when I can’t afford to eat one without mentally calculating how many hours I have to work to burn off the guilt.
The door stays stubbornly closed. Outside, dusk presses against the window, turning the glass into a mirror. My own face looks back—pale, tired, smudged with confectioners’ sugar. The reflection of the street overlays mine: headlights, a bus chugging past, two teenagers laughing, a man in a suit crossing against the light.
Not him.
“Maybe he’s stuck in traffic,” I say, too casually.
“Maybe he realized normal people don’t pay six bucks for a single éclair in a strip-mall bakery.” Noah purses his lips, then sighs. “Sorry. That was harsh. They’re worth at least eight.”
His faith in my baking is a warm patch in a day full of cold spots. The rent notice on my door this morning. The unanswered calls from an unknown number I know too well. The text from my sister that started with “I hate to ask, but—” and ended with a number I don’t have.
I smooth my hand over the edge of the display case. Glass cool, fingertips slightly sticky from stray sugar grains. “Anyway, it’s fine. He’s just… a customer.”
Not even that, technically. He never says my name, never lingers long enough for anything more than politeness. But there’s something in the way his gaze catches on me—sharp and assessing, like he’s taking in every detail—and then softens. Like I’m a problem he already solved in his head.
I shouldn’t like that. I do.
The bell over the door chimes and my stomach lifts in a stupid, traitorous way.
It’s not him.
It’s a woman with three squirming kids who empty the sprinkle jar with their eyes and finally settle on one chocolate chip cookie each. Then a guy in a paint-streaked hoodie buying a loaf of sourdough on his way home. Then nobody, for a stretch that feels like it’s being measured in overdue interest instead of minutes.
By closing, the tray of éclairs is still too full.
“I’ll take them home,” I tell the owner when she shrugs and starts toward the back. “Freeze them. We can sell them tomorrow.”
“You work too hard, Lily,” she says affectionately, using the nickname I wish didn’t make me feel ten years old. “Lock up, okay? And go straight home. It’s getting dark early.”
