Page 88 of Sweet Ruin

I brush my teeth and wash my face in the little bathroom attached to the back office. I’m out in the kitchen by twenty after, which is early even for me. In the bakery business, New Year’s Eve is a day that eats you alive if you let it. We’ve got special orders out the wazoo, plus the regular case, and all the other endless chores that come with running a place like this. It’s going to be a very long shift.

But when I get out, the kitchen lights are already on.

Huh?

I brace myself to find a certain 6’4”, green-eyed mob boss looming over my pastries.

But to my surprise, I get a 5’3” Indian woman with waist-length black hair tied back in a flawless fishtail braid instead.

Priya doesn’t hear me at first. That’s probably because she’s humming along to the Christmas music that’s coming from the radio on the high shelf. She’s a sucker for holiday music, that one. I’ve always joked that if Mariah Carey ever came into the bakery, Priya would leap over the counter trying to kiss her.

She’s easing a tray of croissants onto the rack. When she finishes and turns around, she sees me and smiles.

“Look who’s vertical!” she says. “And conscious! At the same time!”

“I’m only vertical by the good grace of the wall here,” I mumble, “and I’m only conscious by the good grace of anxiety and cortisol.”

“Well, vertical is vertical, and conscious is conscious,” she replies with a wise wink. “We’ve all gotta start the day somewhere.” She turns and starts bustling over to her next task. “Although you, my glazed little honey bun, do not need to be starting the day quite yet. Why are you awake?”

“Why are you awake?” I counter. “You’re not on ‘til six.”

“Because it’s New Year’s Eve and I have fourteen cake orders, nine dozen cupcake trays, and a boss who thinks she’s a rotisserie chicken who never needs turning.” She hands me a coffee, then wags a stern finger in my face. “Don’t speak again until you’ve had half of this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter. I lean against the corner of the steel table in yesterday’s leggings and follow Priya’s orders, while Bing Crosby promises somebody a white Christmas six days too late.

Priya goes back to the rack.

I watch her work, her braid swishing back and forth beneath her jade-green silk headband. As the coffee hits my bloodstream, I realize with a jolt that it’s a blessing in disguise that she’s here.

The inside of my head is a wreck right now. Between Connor, Vivian, my mother, and Kane, I’ve got all kinds of ghosts and phantoms screaming at me from between my own ears.

What I need is an outlet. Someone non-judgmental, who will hear me out and help me through this swamp of bad thoughts.

I don’t really have many options. It’s not like I would ever have gone to any of my family members with this kind of stuff. Even before I learned that my husband and sister were running around behind my back, I wasn’t exactly confiding my deepest and darkest fears to either of them. They just didn’t know how to listen, how to help.

I’ve been on my own for a very long time.

But now that I’ve ruthlessly eviscerated them, I’m even more alone.

No calls are pinging my phone. My aunts have gone quiet in a way that tells me the group chat I’m not in is probably extremely active. There’s Skye, who charges by the tenth of an hour and strikes me more as a cold-blooded automaton than a friendly shoulder to lean on.

Which leaves Priya.

Except…

Tonight will be our little secret, Lilah.

Do I dare defy Kane? He warned me not to tell anyone about him, and I don’t even want to begin imagining what he’d do if I broke that command.

But he didn’t say I couldn’t talk about the situation. If I keep things vague, that should be fine, right?

One thing’s obvious: If I keep things inside my head, I’m liable to explode. I have to vent something or Priya will end up scrubbing little bits of me off the walls and ceilings when I inevitably erupt like Mount St. Helens.

“Hey, Pri.”

“Mm?”

“Can I ask you something dumb?”