Chapter 23: Terms and Conditions

I looked at my feed anyway.

It was a short clip from the bakery, shot through the front window at dawn.

A tall man in a rumpled shirt was carrying a fifty-pound sack of flour up the outside stairs on his shoulder, and losing.

The caption said: BILLIONAIRE DELIVERS FLOUR. DOES NOT KNOW WHERE TO PUT IT.

Under it, two hundred thousand people had commented with laughing faces.

I scrolled to the end of the clip, looking for Poppy.

She wasn't in it.

The customers who had filmed it had cut her out, and written below the video: We blurred the kid. Be nice.

I put the phone down on the pillow and laughed until Preston woke up.

"What?"

"You're famous for flour."

"Is it bad?"

"It's wonderful," I said. "They like you."

He closed his eyes again, looking pained.

"I put it on the wrong shelf. I was trying to be useful."

That was how I knew.

I had been trying to find the perfect moment for four days.

It was never going to be a moment.

It was going to be a Sunday in a bakery with sugar on the floor.

The shop was full by noon.

The baker had pushed the tables into one long row under a paper cloth.

Everyone I had come to care about sat along it.

Jack wore a ball cap and an apron the baker had made him put on.

Bridget sat beside him with her red hair tied back and her hand in his under the cloth.

Max and Poppy had the end, with a plate of pastries between them and the cat on Poppy's lap.

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