Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Paisley

Emberlynn caught me stealing a cupcake to go, and she raised an eyebrow at me.

“Where are you even running off to?”

“I’m not running off.”

“You’ve got that running-off look in your eyes. Don’t think I can’t recognize the look of crime in your expression.”

I pouted, shoving half the cupcake into my mouth. “Harps ran away. I’m tracking her down.”

“She went home for the night. That’s a reasonable thing to do at the end of a party.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t say goodbye to me, and how can anybody leave without saying something to the star of the show? So. I’m off to right her wrongs.” I waved the cupcake half generally in her direction, talking with my mouth full. “Thanks for the party, EM. You’re wearing yourself too thin. I’m cooking you dinner tomorrow.”

“God, I need that. I’m dead on my feet. Thanks, Pais.” She paused, looking like she was debating whether to say something. I scowled, swallowing the cake before I spoke.

“Say it, bastard.”

“Nope.”

“Do it or I’ll punch you in the nuts.”

“I don’t have… forget it. You don’t want me to say it.”

“Are you challenging me?” I put my hand on my hips. “Now you’re legally required to say it.”

She sighed, folding her arms. “Okay, fine. You asked for it. Are you fucking Harper again?”

“I—” I almost dropped the cupcake. “Oh my god, EM, I thought we agreed never to speak about that again.”

“Someone wouldn’t let me not say it.”

I huffed, turning away. “It was just a random thing we did, like, almost a year ago. It’s in the past.”

“Almost a—” She did a double take. “Hold on.”

I blanched. “Almost… four years ago, is what I meant to say. I forgot how time works.”

“You did it again?”

“No!” I hugged my arms under my chest. “Ugh, stop being such a voyeur, EM.”

“I knew something had happened after I’d first moved over to New York. You slept with—”

“Shh. There’s still people. Oh my god. I’ll kill you.”

She leaned in closer, dropping her voice to a fiery whisper. “What, did you take another trip to the lighthouse? Have someone stand you up again?”

“No! Oh my god. We were just hanging out on the boat—”

“On the boat? This time you fucked her on a boat?”

“Oh my god, I didn’t mean to say that. God, you’re nosy.”

“First off, I never thought I’d see a world where you call someone else nosy. Secondly—you expect me to believe that you fuck her twice, years apart, and that there’s still nothing there?”

“Ugh, Emberlynn.” I set the cupcake down, putting both hands on my hips, scowling at her. “Let a girl fuck every now and then! It doesn’t mean anything! Sometimes these things just happen!”

“Just happen and you just happen to record it, too?”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one recording it this time!”

She paled. I paled, too.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

“Please forget I said anything.”

“So now you both have recordings of you two having sex.”

“Shh. I haven’t watched mine in ages anyway.”

“So you do still have the password.”

“Oh! Um. I, uh, found it… on a sticky note… in the basement…”

“Uh-huh.” She folded her arms. “And didn’t use it to delete the file. Jesus Christ, woman. Just admit you have a thing with her.”

“No! We just… accidentally had sex a couple times, that’s it!”

“Nobody accidentally fingers someone over a lighthouse railing, Paisley, let alone accidentally records it.”

“Ugh. It’s not about that, anyway!” I turned away, hunching my shoulders, snatching the cupcake back up. “I just want to hang out with her. Just because we happened to find ourselves maybe having a little sex here and there doesn’t mean we can’t hang out, you sicko.”

“I’m going to pierce my own eardrums so I don’t have to hear you keep talking about this…”

“You keep asking!”

“You keep fucking her!”

“She’s really good!” I pursed my lips. “Um… let’s pretend I didn’t say that.”

“I will genuinely be doing everything in my power to do just that.” She rubbed her forehead, waving me off. “Please. Just go. Go find Harper and do not, I beg you, let me know what happens next.”

Ugh. What a jerk. I was wasted on her. And just because I liked to have sex every now and then! As if it was a crime to top Harper!

I fumed the whole way out of the park, in between sips of my shandy until I finished it off not far from Harper’s house, and I spotted the light on in her bedroom. I went around to the back and hiked up my sleeves and tucked my shirt into my shorts before I climbed up the tree behind the house, the bark rough against my fingers as I hoisted myself up to the rooftop terrace. With a grunt, I swung myself over the railing and stumbled a little on the tiles, my shoes clicking, and I kicked my shoes off before I opened the door and headed down the stairs and into the living room.

I paused at the door to her bedroom before I thought better of it. I turned first to the kitchen and helped myself through her fridge—it was always safest to go in with a food-based bribe—but I paused halfway through assembling a cheese tray when I noticed a cake she didn’t make.

It was a small thing, square, black with elegant white piping, one quarter taken out to show a marble cake with a dense crumb. The shimmery silver tray it was on had a distinctive design around the edges, and one corner read FONTAINE SQUARE in curling letters.

That was weird.

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and looked it up, and I only had more questions the longer I looked. For one, they were based in New York, which was, in fact, not here. For two—it was apparently some kind of ultra-luxe company doing cakes and pastry catering for super-high-profile events. I got pictures of the two directors, David Fontaine and Susanna Holcomb, alongside celebrities and everything.

I knew Harps had taken a trip to New York over the winter, but I didn’t know she’d gone to any super-fancy events. And it was too long ago to have brought back a cake. And who brought an entire cake home from an event, anyway? I mean, aside from me.

Something was shady. She had said she was talking with some interesting people lately. If she was working with a high-class catering firm to create the ultimate party in Bayview, I needed to be in on things. So—it was probably only fair that I read her mail.

I snuck carefully downstairs, into the bakery, where all the lights were shut off, and I slipped into the back office, where her desktop computer was on a flimsy wooden desk. I woke it up, and when it asked for a PIN, I tried the one Harper gave me for the door lock one time, 5571.

Hi, Harper.

Girl sucked at cybersecurity. She had this coming to her.

I pulled up her web browser and checked her email—it was open to her business email, which was all I was really concerned with. Mostly updates from her suppliers, orders, a newsletter subscription she’d clearly signed up for accidentally with her work email instead of her regular email, updates from the property manager, the like.

It took a bit of scrolling before I found the one from Susanna Holcomb, and I almost scrolled past it before I remembered the name. I clicked on it, an email exchange coming up on the screen, and I scrolled to the top.

Hey Harper,

It’s Susanna, from Fontaine. I wanted to reach out and say thanks again for visiting us! It was such a pleasure to meet you, and we’re really excited to discuss what happens next.

I’ve attached the PDF with all the information for our partners. Look through it and try to let me know soon what you think, all right?

Message me if you have any questions!

Partners. I frowned, a heavy weight settling in my stomach, as I scrolled through.

Partners.Harper’s replies, and her conversation going through the intricacies of the work, made an ugly picture take crystal clarity.

Harper wasn’t visiting fancy events and getting luxury catering for a bomb-ass event or something. Harper was ditching Crystal Lights Bakery to go work for Fontaine Square instead.

And she was leaving Bayview at the end of April to do it.

And she hadn’t told me.

Behind me, the sound of someone clearing her throat made me jump, and I whirled back on where Harper leaned in the door to the office, her arms folded, glaring at me.

“Paisley,” she said.

“Shh. Not now. I’m reading.” I turned back to the computer.

“Hm. Indeed you are.”

It only hit me when I got to the end of the email exchange that it was Harper behind me, watching me read her emails. I whirled back on her again, my heart jumping, and I shot her a withering look.

“Harper. What are you doing here?”

“Investigating the strange poltergeist that halfway-assembled a cheese board on my kitchen table and then went to poke through my computer.”

“Oh, shoot. I forgot the cheese.”

Her frown deepened, and her eyes darkened in a way I wasn’t used to seeing from her. “May I ask why you’re reading my emails, Paisley?”

I frowned, clasping my hands at my waist. “May I ask when you were planning on telling everybody that you’re moving out of town?”

A look of panic flickered briefly over her expression, and she put a hand over her forehead. “Dammit. I don’t know why I thought I could keep anything to myself in a town where Paisley lives.”

“Were you planning on telling me at all?” A heavy weight coalesced in my stomach, a sick feeling now. I’d just been screwing around, playing games, and suddenly I stood in the middle of something much too serious. Much too heavy. It felt like I’d been gorging myself on chocolates and suddenly lurched into feeling sick.

Harper looked away. “Why would I need to? Clearly you just help yourself to my things and find out.”

“This is that person you’ve been talking to lately? Ever since December, you’ve been planning on leaving all of us without telling us?”

She sighed, hard, stepping back out of the office and gesturing me to the back door of the building. “Why don’t you go ahead and head home now, Pais?”

“No, I’m pretty comfortable here.” My voice came out colder and smaller than I’d expected. Harper narrowed her eyes.

“I am telling you to get the fuck out of my office and stop looking through my private computer.”

“Oh, yeah? And what’s stopping me from going and telling everyone in Bayview about how you’re apparently just up and running away without… without even saying a word about it?”

“Great question. What’s stopping me from telling everyone how you break into my house and raid my computer to read my private email exchanges?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Name one person who would be surprised.”

She faltered. “Dammit. Fair point.”

All of a sudden, all the nerves and anxiety, the frustration and the betrayal, melted into something so sad I just wanted to cry. I softened, and I took a step closer. She backed away, but I came closer again, and she didn’t retreat this time, letting me get close enough I put a hand on her arm.

“Are you actually leaving?” I said, and I think I saw her heart break, the whole thing playing out over her features.

Quietly, she turned away, and she didn’t say anything—moved to speak, stopped, and fell back into silence.

“Harper?”

She gestured me, haltingly, to the stairs. “There’s… I’ve got a cake from them. Let’s… we might as well at least share it.”

I’d never heard an invitation for cake sound so sad. I walked, quietly, with her up the stairs, and I felt an antsy sensation through every part of my body, like I would just burst, rip apart on the spot. I wanted to scream and demand answers from her. I think I was shaking. I wasn’t sure where this had come from—I knew full well I didn’t want her to leave, but this? This?

She pulled the Fontaine Square cake out of the fridge once we got into her kitchen, and she brewed two cups of coffee. Her regular bedtime was in an hour, but… I didn’t question it. I sat with her as she sliced the cake in two pieces and slid me one with a coffee.

“It’s a marble cake. From—”

“I know. I saw it when I was looking for cheese. That’s why I went looking for what Fontaine Square was.”

She rubbed her forehead. “God, in the middle of all this, I forgot about the cheese. Why were you raiding the fridge for cheese?”

“I came in to say hi, but you normally get upset when I come in through the roof, so I thought I’d bribe you with cheese.”

“Bribe me. With my own food. Also, will you stop climbing onto the roof?”

“I guess I will, if you aren’t even going to live here anymore.”

She fell silent again. Fuming, I jabbed at the cake, feeling like I was stabbing Susanna Holcomb for stealing my friend away from Bayview. Harper was supposed to stay here. She was supposed to stay with me.

The cake was really good, though.

Finally, Harper spoke in a quiet whisper, looking down at her plate. “I… just think it’s the next step forward. They were impressed with my performance in the competition. It’s a really good position. And progress… I need to be making progress.”

I pursed my lips, and I didn’t want my voice to come out sounding pitiful, but I didn’t get everything I wanted. “Are you going to come back…?”

She winced, and that was all the answer I needed. “I don’t… know.”

“Ugh. Dammit. If you’d told me normally, I would have been happy for you. And celebrated you. And, and… and…”

“I… meant to.” She hung her head. “I was just afraid you’d… hate me for it, I guess.”

Harper was the kind of girl who always composed herself with so much strength, an unbreakable pillar. But there were the little cracks like this, where you could see through the concrete walls and saw a scared little girl who was always so afraid to let herself have anything good, posing as someone different, someone stronger, and it always gave me feelings I wasn’t prepared for when I saw it.

I looked down at my cake. “You really thought I’d hate you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that I’d hate myself. Either way, doesn’t really matter, now that you’ve invited yourself into my personal files.”

“I didn’t check your personal email, just your work one.”

She rubbed her forehead. “Lovely. What a relief.”

“It is a relief. Now all the newsletters for sex toy boutiques you’re signed up to, I don’t see them.”

She dragged a hand over her face. “And I’m supposed to believe that when you comment on them?”

I paused. “Um. I was just making a joke. I didn’t know you actually got any.”

“Oh.”

The room fell into silence. The wind rumbled in the window frame. A furious blush spilled over Harper’s face as she looked away.

“What are you subscribed to—”

“Shh—shut up.”

“What? You can’t drop something like that and not give me the deets.”

“I wasn’t trying to drop anything!” She was blushing all the way down to her neck now, tinting around the floral tattoos she had there. She looked cute when she was like this.

“I’m gonna start guessing.”

“I’ll jump from the window.”

“Is it, like, you bought something and you got a discount for signing up—”

“Paisley.”

“What’d you get?”

“A wand vibrator! Shut up!”

I dropped back in my chair. “That’s it? That’s so basic. From how you were reacting, I was expecting fetish gear or something.”

She buried her face in her hands. “Oh my god. Thank you for sealing the decision. I cannot leave Bayview quickly enough.”

I sighed, taking a bite of cake and savoring the creaminess of the frosting, impossibly rich buttercream and a complex vanilla. “So,” I said finally, “you actually mean it. You’re going to leave Bayview. At the end of next month.”

She was quiet, staring down at the floor, before—small, timid—she nodded.

“Next step in your journey, huh.” I kicked at the floor, feeling petulant. “Well… congratulations, I guess, you huge jerk. This seems like a really big deal and a special honor to get in there.”

She pursed her lips. “I… I don’t want anyone to think I’m just trying to get away or anything. I really like this place. I really like the people here. And it wasn’t easy to… decide on something like this.”

Suddenly I felt so far away, like I was looking in through the window, and I kind of just wanted to cry. I huddled into myself, and I took a long breath before I said, “If it doesn’t pan out, though, you’ll come back here, right?”

“I don’t know…” She rubbed at her arm. “Once I’ve closed down the bakery and left, I don’t think I’d have any place here coming back.”

“You shut your mouth. People would want you back. That’s final. Deal with it.”

She gave me a tired, barely-there smile. “It’s one thing to say it now…”

“I said shut it. Ugh. I can’t believe you would even think about implying I wouldn’t want you back. In Bayview.” I sighed hard, standing up, my head spinning a little with the hot sensation churning there. “Ugh, I’m going. I’ve had enough cake. I can’t believe I’d ever say those words.”

“Paisley—” Harper stood up with me, but I turned my back on her.

“Shush. I’m mad right now.”

“You’re mad, when you’re the one who was raiding my computer—”

“Yes, I am mad! I’m going to go… go… work the damn bookshop or something. Ugh! I hate you, Harper. More than anyone in the world has ever hated anyone ever, ever, ever, ever, ever!”

I shouted the words louder and louder as I stormed down the stairs and unlocked the back door, throwing one last angry ever up the stairs before I slammed the door shut behind me and sank back against it, folding my arms and letting my head sink back against the door.

The night was quiet right now. Too quiet. I didn’t like it. Everyone had probably partied themselves enough at the park earlier that they got tired and just wanted to go home, and now everything was empty. Like the world was holding its breath.

Timidly, I turned back and opened the door again, a nervous sensation in my stomach as I leaned inside.

“Harper?” I called. “Um… I don’t hate you. Just so you know. You know that, right?”

If she could even still hear me upstairs, she didn’t respond. I pursed my lips.

“I love you, like, to the moon and back. You do know that, right?”

Still no response. Ugh. Maybe I did hate her. I turned back, shutting the door behind me, and I walked feeling dizzy and vaguely sick the whole way back to my house.