Tweet Cute(94)

My sharpness only seems to soften her. “I never imagined it would play out like this. I really am sorry about that.”

Despite everything, I almost smile into the hot chocolate mug. “Yeah, well. It wasn’t all bad.”

“And if you really do want to open a place of your own, like you were saying—I hope nobody ever stands in your way.”

I think of Jack, and that unabashed way he’s always bragging about my desserts. Of that cupcake app he built. Of all the little ways he is a person at our age that his father clearly wasn’t. There will be plenty of things to worry about further down the road, but that, at least, isn’t one of them.

“I know things have been stressful, and you’ve been handling all of it like a champ.”

I press my lips together, already feeling the wobble in my voice before it comes out of me. “Not always.”

She wraps an arm around me and pulls me in, and we sit like that, curled into each other. She runs a hand through my hair, and I close my eyes, tempted to pretend we’re home home, in Nashville home, but for the first time, I am rooted here in a way I don’t remember being. As if I’m already where I’m supposed to be.

“Are you going to go run off to college and not answer my calls too?”

“No.” I burrow a little further into her warmth. “But, Mom?”

“Hmmm?”

“I think we need to take a bus and go to Philly.”

Mom looks at me quietly for a moment. I hold my breath, waiting for her answer like the whole world hinges on it.

“You don’t think an Uber will go that far?”

The relief is so immediate, it feels like it might liquefy my bones. She smiles at me, her eyes still wet, and nods. There is some kind of unspoken promise in it—we can fix this. We are bent, the four of us, but we’re not quite broken yet.

We spend the rest of the night baking, using the ingredients I have left over to make another batch of So Sorry Blondies—this one modified with extra peanut butter, Paige’s favorite. We turn on an old Taylor Swift album and eat the dough raw and catch up on each other’s lives. We talk about how she and my dad came up with Big League Burger in the first place, and weird dessert hybrids we want to try in the city, and fall asleep watching Waitress with fingers still sticky from chocolate and toffee.

And then, in the morning, we get on the bus to Philadelphia, a tin of So Sorry Blondies perched in my mom’s lap.





Epilogue


ONE YEAR LATER

Paige swats at Pooja’s hand before she can grab a waffle off of the massive tower she’s made. Pooja moans.

“Instagram first, eat later,” says Paige—words I’m hearing more and more often now that Paige actually comes home for breaks, and even some weekends too. Sure enough, she angles her lens at the stack, documenting the Where Are They Now? Waffles for our now-public baking blog.

“Sheesh,” says Pooja, “you’re even bossier than your sister.”

“I resent that,” I call from the couch, where a good portion of my limbs are tangled with Jack’s. He’s in full Thanksgiving break form today, in a pair of worn jeans and a faded flannel so soft that even if I weren’t so partial to his face and everything that comes with it, it’d be scientifically impossible not to glom onto him.

“Surprised you can hear anything at all, sucking face over there!” Pooja singsongs.

I raise my eyebrows at her. “What’s that saying about the pot and the kettle…”

“This pot only makes out with her boyfriend at parties and Instagrammable locations,” says Pooja—which is an out-and-out lie. I may not be anywhere near Stanford or the swim team captain who swept her off her mermaid fin, but if her Snapchats are any indication, her face is attached to his more often than not. At least they’re both putting their impressive lung capacities to good use. “You two, on the other hand, are in exhibitionist territory.”

Jack pulls maybe an inch away from me, just enough I can see the hint of a sheepish smile. “Lay off me, I haven’t seen her in like seven hours.”

I can’t see Paige’s eyes rolling so much as I can feel them. “You two are the grossest thing to ever happen to the internet.”

“Speaking of, can we hurry this up?” says Ethan from the other couch, where he’s perched next to Stephen. They’ve been off-again, on-again ever since Ethan headed to Stanford with Pooja, and Stephen stayed in the city with Landon to get their startup off the ground—but now, it seems, they are decidedly on, if their aggressive proximity is any indication. “The Hub Seed article’s been live for like half an hour.”

Pooja heads to the waffle maker and eats the little cooked pieces that dribbled off on the counter. “We’re waiting on Paul.”

Right on cue, there’s a frantic series of knocks on the front door to the apartment, which can only belong to him.

“Sorry I’m late,” says Paul, out of breath as usual. “Forgot to pick up our Thanksgiving pies for tomorrow.”

“Dude,” says Ethan. “Pepper could have just brought them to you. She was on shift at the deli, like, all day.”

Paul stops dead in the doorway. “I’m an idiot.”

“An idiot with a spot saved over here,” says Paige, gesturing to the couch. “Peanut butter or lemon curd on your waffle?”