Page 56 of Hades

I paused with my hand on Doughmeter’s door as the sound of motorcycles filled the air. The deep rumble of engines, the roar of pipes, the vibration that traveled through the sidewalk and up through my legs.

Normally I made bread myself, but Sue Ann had a few flavors I just didn’t have the patience to master. In this moment, I cursed my obsession with pumpernickel. If I’d gone home after the diner, I wouldn’t have been standing on the sidewalk staring into the eyes of the man who made me come on my kitchen counter only to ghost me minutes later.

My heart stopped.

Then it slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack bone.

Brock.

He rode past on his motorcycle, his eyes locking on mine for a fraction of a second. Long enough for me to see recognition flash across his face. Long enough for heat to flood my body, my pussy clenching at the memory of his hands on me, his mouth on my neck, the bulge in his jeans pressing against me. Long enough for rage to follow, hot and bitter, burning through my chest like acid.

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t slow down.

Just kept riding like I was nothing. Like I was nobody. Like he hadn’t made me fall apart in my own goddamn kitchen before disappearing without a word.

My shoulder radiated pain as I yanked the door open and stormed inside. I held my breath, listening to the motorcycle pipes fade into the distance. My emotions warred with each other. I couldn’t decide if I was furious at catching him watching me as he rode past or aroused by how fucking sexy he looked perched on that bike. Leather cut stretched across broad shoulders. Dark hair catching the sunlight. That predatory focus that made my skin prickle with awareness even from half a block away.

Fuck him.

Fuck him for making me want him. For making me ache. For making me feel discarded and used and stupid for believing what happened between us actually meant something.

The scent of freshly baked bread did nothing to settle my racing heart. My body had no business reacting this way to a man who clearly didn’t want me. The complete radio silence had made that obvious. A week. A whole fucking week of nothing. No call. No visit. No explanation.

Unfortunately, my heart and my brain couldn’t agree on that fact. And my pussy? That bitch didn’t care what the other two thought. She remembered how he touched me. How he made me come so hard I saw stars. How he called me his queen like it meant something.

Like I meant something.

“Lettie!”

I stretched my lips into a smile at Sue Ann’s greeting. Forced. Brittle. “Tell me I’m not too late!” I peered into the display case, taking in the smudged glass and shelves lined with golden loaves and pastries that made my mouth water despite the nausea churning in my stomach.

Sue Ann’s pumpernickel was the hottest commodity in town. Show up late on baking day and you’d go home empty-handed.

“I put a loaf aside when I saw you heading into the diner,” she whispered, disappearing through the swinging doors. She returned moments later with a loaf so gorgeous it was almost a shame to cut into it. Dark brown, nearly black, with a crust that crackled when she set it on the counter.

Almost.

“How’s your mom?” Sue Ann asked as she wrapped the bread in the special branded bags she used. They cost a little more, but instead of plastic, she’d chosen 100% cotton. She even offered a discount if you brought them back to be laundered and reused.

“She’s the same, grumpy as ever.” The lie came easily. My mother was worse than grumpy. She was a black hole of need and resentment, sucking the life out of everything around her.

“Will she be helping you out during Harvest Week?”

“She says she will.” I smiled. Another lie. Or maybe not. With my mother, it was impossible to tell what was real and what was manipulation.

Harvest Week was the one week out of the year my mother left the house. I couldn’t figure out what drew her to the festival, but every year I took part, she was right beside me. Selling products and talking to everyone who passed by.

It was as though she became someone else completely. Gone was the cranky woman who complained about everything from sunrise to sunset. In her place was the mother I’d wished for growing up. The mother I’d needed. The mother who’d never existed except for seven days a year.

She was friendly, polite, knowledgeable about what I offered. Every year I asked her why Harvest Week was different, and every year she brushed me off, gaslighting me into thinking her behavior was normal. That I was the problem. That I was imagining things.

She avoided other festivals like the plague. She was Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmas. Nothing but a storm cloud during the blueberry and strawberry festivals in the summer.

And spring? Well, she may as well have been a fox hunting the Easter Bunny. Never in my life had I received an Easter basket. There were no pictures posed with someone dressed in a bunny costume, no eggs to color and hunt the next day.

Spring seemed to bring out the worst in her, and despite my best efforts at sleuthing, she gave nothing away. She just sat in her chair and stared at the television like it held the answers to questions I didn’t know how to ask.