Chapter 135

RYAN

It had been more than six hours since Miranda walked out of my apartment, yet the room still felt poisoned by her presence.

I sat at the edge of the bed for a long time with my elbows resting on my knees while my phone lay facedown beside me. Every few minutes I looked toward the door like she might suddenly walk back in and tell me the whole thing was some twisted joke.

But the silence in the apartment only kept stretching.

The bedsheets were tangled around the mattress, clothes were scattered across the floor, and every time my eyes landed on any part of the room, my stomach tightened again.

I rubbed both hands over my face slowly before finally forcing myself to stand up.

I needed to stop sitting there replaying everything.

I needed to move.

The bathroom light hit my eyes harshly the second I stepped inside. I turned on the shower and stood there quietly while steam slowly filled the room.

Then I stepped under the water.

I stayed there for a long time.

Long enough for the water to grow cooler against my skin.

Long enough for my thoughts to become louder instead of quieter.

Because no matter how badly I wanted to convince myself otherwise, I still couldn’t remember what happened last night clearly.

I remembered drinking with Miranda.

I remembered feeling exhausted.

I remembered her sitting closer than usual.

After that, everything became blurry.

Fragments.

Broken pieces.

Nothing solid.

Nothing enough to explain why I woke up naked beside her this morning.

My jaw tightened immediately.

“No,” I muttered under my breath while pressing both hands against the tiled wall. “No.”

I wanted to believe it was all some terrible hallucination from stress and exhaustion.

I wanted to believe I hadn’t actually destroyed the last decent thing left in my life.

But Miranda’s words kept replaying in my head.

If not because I liked you… I would have considered it rape.

The accusation alone made my chest tighten violently.

I shut the shower off abruptly and stepped out before grabbing a towel quickly.

A few minutes later, I got dressed as fast as I could, shoved my wallet into my pocket, and left the apartment without thinking too deeply about where I was even going.

I just drove.

The city moved around me in a blur while my hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Then eventually, without consciously deciding it, I found myself parking across Emily’s bakery.

The sight of it hit harder in person.

I had seen pictures already, but standing there now was different.

The front windows were blackened from smoke damage, one side of the sign had melted halfway off, and the faint smell of burnt wood still lingered in the air despite how much time had passed.

For a moment, I just sat there inside the car staring at it.

Emily loved this place.

Not casually.

Not temporarily.

She loved this bakery like it was alive.

Every inch of it carried her fingerprints.

The colors.

The furniture.

The stupid little handwritten signs she refused to replace because she claimed customers liked the “personal touch.”

I remembered her standing behind the counter laughing while flour covered half her face.

And now the place looked dead.

I finally stepped out of the car and crossed the street slowly.

Broken glass crunched lightly beneath my shoes the second I walked closer to the entrance.

The front door was partially open already.

I frowned slightly before stepping inside carefully.

The damage looked worse indoors.

Some shelves had collapsed completely while others leaned sideways dangerously. Burnt trays and destroyed equipment covered parts of the floor, and the entire place smelled like smoke and wet ash.

I stood there silently for a second.

Then movement near the back caught my attention.

A woman turned quickly at the sound of my footsteps.

Eddie.

She froze the second she recognized me.

“Ryan?”

I nodded once. “Hey.”

She looked exhausted.

Her hair was tied messily above her head, and her eyes looked swollen like she had been crying earlier.

There was a box sitting beside her already half-filled with baking supplies and whatever equipment survived the fire.

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.

I glanced around the bakery slowly before answering.

“I needed to see it myself.”

Eddie looked away immediately.

For a few seconds neither of us spoke.

Then I finally asked the question that had been bothering me since I arrived.

“What happened?”

Eddie let out a shaky breath and leaned against the counter behind her.

“I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “I got a call that night from one of the neighbors saying there was smoke everywhere. By the time I got here…” She stopped and swallowed hard before gesturing helplessly around the bakery. “It was already like this.”

I frowned. “Did the police say anything?”

She laughed bitterly.

“They said they’re investigating.”

The way she said investigating made it obvious she had little faith in that answer.

I stepped farther inside while carefully avoiding the damaged parts of the floor.

“When did you get back?” Eddie asked suddenly.

“Yesterday.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Emily knows you’re here?”

I hesitated briefly before answering carefully.

“No.”

That made her frown immediately.

“Oh.”

Silence settled again for a moment.

Then Eddie suddenly rubbed at her eyes quickly before speaking again.

“I called Morgan first when I heard,” she admitted softly. “I didn’t even know what else to do.”

I nodded slowly.

“That makes sense.”

“She cried for like thirty minutes straight,” Eddie continued while giving a weak laugh. “Then she started threatening to fight the insurance company before they’d even inspected the place.”

Despite everything weighing on my chest, a small smile almost appeared.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “That sounds like Morgan.”

Eddie looked around the bakery again before her expression fell completely.

“So that’s it now, right?”

I frowned slightly. “What?”

“The bakery,” she clarified quietly. “I guess it’s over.”

The words sat heavily inside the destroyed space.

Over.

Just like that.

Years of Emily’s work reduced to ashes because one old woman decided to send a message.

And suddenly the thought of this place disappearing completely made something inside me snap sharply into place.

“No,” I said firmly.

Eddie blinked once. “What?”

I turned toward her fully now.

“It’s not over.”

She stared at me like she thought she heard wrong.

“Ryan…”

“We’ll fix it.”

Eddie actually laughed softly in disbelief. “Fix it?”

“Yes.”

She gestured helplessly around the bakery. “This place is destroyed.”

I shook my head immediately.

“No,” I said again. “It’s damaged. There’s a difference.”

Eddie kept staring at me uncertainly.

I walked farther into the bakery now while looking around carefully, already mentally calculating what needed replacing first.

“The ovens can be replaced,” I muttered mostly to myself. “The walls can be redone. Furniture too.”

“Ryan—”

“The bakery is something Emily loves,” I interrupted while finally looking back at Eddie again. “I can’t let it die.”

Eddie went completely quiet after that.

Then slowly, for the first time since I walked in, her expression softened slightly.

“You’re serious.”

I nodded once.

Completely serious.