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I rolled my eyes at her. “I just figured I’d already lost weeks’ worth of work,” I admitted. “I’m just trying to pay my mixer bill.”
“How much was your mixer?” Hollis asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Pepper intervened. “Because if she starts, she’ll never stop.”
“I really want to know,” Shayne said from her perch on the counter next to me. “I mean, it has to be a lot. I can look at that mixer and see it looks expensive. But…”
“It was ten thousand dollars.” I gasped. “Can you believe that? And it only has six speeds. The better one that has ten speeds was almost twice that.”
“Jeez.” Shayne shook her head. “I mean, how hard could it be to make something like that?”
“Hard enough that they’re charging a pretty penny for it,” Ellodie said from her perch next to the display cases. “How long are we going to wait here? I mean, it’s not like you have anything else to sell.”
That was true.
I’d been sold out by ten-thirty.
I’d had a few customers trickle in, but the sign on the door that said ‘sold out’ had turned most of them away.
The ones who did come in wanted to make my acquaintance.
Or they wanted to place a special order.
I’d taken seven such orders. One for a catering gig that had over ninety sweet bun rolls in it for a Sunday School class next Sunday.
“I mean, y’all don’t have to stay,” I pointed out. “Pepper and I are going to get ready for tomorrow, get everything prepped so that all she has to do is pop things in the oven when she gets here. Then we’re going to head home.”
It was only twelve-thirty.
However, prep for the next day couldn’t start until around four because they needed time to rise, but they didn’t need that kind of time to rise.
“Do you think you sold out so fast because of the news that hit yesterday?” Ellodie asked, ignoring my earlier suggestion.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, yes and no. If I was still in the original location, I would’ve agreed with you. However, I’m here. I’ve moved.”
“You posted on your Facebook page,” Pepper reminded me. “If they really wanted to find you, all they would have to do is go look at that.”
“True.” I sighed. “Then I have no clue. I hope I’m busy because this is a great location, and I had that stupid man out front who danced.”
“That was definitely it,” Shayne licked her fingers clean.
There’d been eight pastries left when I’d hung up the sign.
All of which I’d handed out to the women helping me today.
I hadn’t expected them to be there, though.
Truthfully, when I’d gotten here—Garnett had been the only one with me because she’d been my ‘bodyguard’ for the day—I had expected to be alone with Pepper opening up. Not only had Garnett stayed, but she’d also called in reinforcements: Ande, Shayne, Ellodie, and Hollis.
Their support meant the world to me, and I was happy to be hanging out with them.
Though, I had a feeling their reasons for being there were multifaceted.
One, I knew they didn’t want me to be alone after everything that had gone down yesterday.
Two, Scott’s text message—though we couldn’t confirm it was him—had scared everyone, and they hadn’t wanted me to be here with no support.
Nothing against Pepper and all, but I would much rather someone who had experience to deal with a conflict like Scott.
