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He orders a cinnamon roll. Eats it standing by the booth, watching the crowd, watching Aiden move behind the counter. His eyes still track Aiden’s movements—the too-still moments, the too-precise gestures, the things that are almost right but not quite. Ben hasn’t stopped noticing. I don’t think he ever will.

But he’s here. Eating a cinnamon roll. Standing next to a booth that has my name on it. And when Aiden hands him a coffee—unprompted, black, the way Ben drinks it because Aiden has memorized how everyone in my family takes their coffee—Ben takes it and nods.

Not the approval nod. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But the I’m here nod. The my sister is happy and I’m choosing to be present nod.

For now, that’s enough.

The afternoon settles into a rhythm. Customers come and go. The cinnamon rolls sell out by two—Aiden called it—and we shift to scones and cookies and the sourdough rounds that I almost didn’t bring because I wasn’t sure they’d sell, and they’re gone by three-thirty.

Biscuit is asleep under the register.

She goes everywhere with us now—the bakery, the apartment, the hardware store, here. She’s wearing a little bandana that Liv bought her, and she’s curled on the blanket Aiden put down for her this morning, and every few minutes a kid spots her and crouches down to pet her, and Biscuit wags her tail without lifting her head because she’s learned that people come to her and she doesn’t have to chase them.

The festival starts winding down at four. The crowd thins. Liv comes back with the cheese guy’s phone number and a wedge of aged gouda. Gemma has filled seven pages of notes. Avery is sitting on a bench nearby, sunglasses on, watching nothing and everything.

Aiden is wiping down the counter. His sleeves are rolled up, his apron is covered in flour, and his hair has fallen across his forehead. He’s cleaning with that methodical, unhurried precision that used to unsettle me and now feels like the steadiest thing in my life.

He looks up, catches me watching. “What?” he says.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m allowed to stare. You stare at me constantly.”

“That’s different. You’re beautiful. I’m allowed to stare.”

I grin. He grins back—the real one, the one that crinkles on one side, the one that isn’t in any blueprint.

And I think about it. The night this started.

A sound from the utility room. A man on the floor. Naked, soaking wet, covered in mud. The rolling pin in my hand. The way my heart hammered and my feet wouldn’t move and every rational thought said run and something deeper said stay.

I handed him a towel.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. I handed a towel to a stranger who wasn’t even human, and he looked at me with those dark, steady eyes, and something in my life shifted so quietly I didn’t hear it until it was done.

I don’t regret it. Not any of it. Not for one second.

The bakery is doing well. Not just surviving—doing well. Caroline’s festival is the first step. There will be more: the booth at the farmer’s market, the custom cake orders that keep coming in, the second oven Aiden is already researching because he looked at our growth projections and decided we’ll need one by fall.

The apartment is messy again. Biscuit saw to that. There are chew toys under the couch and dog hair on everything and a water bowl by the kitchen door that Aiden refills three times a day with the same focus he gives my spreadsheets. The sticky notes on the fridge have multiplied—mine and his now, side by side, his handwriting precise and mine illegible, a shared language of grocery lists and reminders and one note in the center that just says BREATHE that neither of us put there but both of us needed.

And Aiden. Aiden is standing behind my counter, in my apron, in my life, looking at me across a booth full of my grandmother’s recipes with eyes that glow faint amber in the late afternoon light.

He’s not perfect. He’s weird and too honest, and he tracks my sleep and argues about dog breeds and once told a customer her posture suggested chronic lumbar stress. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t have a belly button. He has a control panel in his ribs and a hum where his heartbeat should be and a love for me that I can’t explain and can’t argue with and wouldn’t trade for anything normal or safe or small.

The festival is ending. The sun is low. My friends are scattered around me—Liv laughing, Gemma, ever the engineer cataloging everything, Avery watching. My mom is somewhere nearby, probably butting into a stranger’s personal business.

And Aiden is right here. Beside me. Right where he belongs.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Aiden

Love Is Blind (But Has Excellent Night Vision)