Page 6

I run past the two women and out the front door. Wolf tells someone to shut off the faucet and Rooks to get towels. Then I hear him behind me as I sprint toward the stairs. I don’t have time to wait for the elevator.

Our footsteps echo down the staircase. On the fourth floor, I race to my door, hold my key fob against the lock, and push it open.

A gasp breaks past my lips the moment I see it.

How could this have happened so fast? The water must have been running for longer than anyone upstairs noticed.

The pendant light hangs crooked over the island, water still running down it from the ceiling. Part of the ceiling has come down on my mixer and the trays beside it. Wet chunks of drywall cover the counter, the cupcakes, and the cake pops I dipped earlier tonight.

I’m frozen just inside the doorway.

All nine dozen cupcakes for tomorrow are under there. The cake pops too. A few cupcake liners stick out from beneath the wet drywall, but I can’t make myself walk over and check them.

I take one careful step. Water soaks through my slippers. The mixer is on its side with a piece of ceiling across its base. I’m not touching it while it’s plugged in, with water dripping from the light above it. There’s no dry place on the counter to set anything I might rescue.

Wolf stops just inside the doorway behind me. For a moment, neither of us says anything.

I take another step, and my wet slipper slides across the floor.

"Whoa. Be careful." Wolf’s hand closes around my hip, steadying me.

I catch my footing. "Don’t touch me."

He pulls his hand away.

Rooks hurries in behind him with a handful of towels, slips on the wet floor, and catches himself against my front door. "Oh, shit."

I look at the empty truck boxes stacked beside the door. I'm supposed to fill those before morning.

"What am I going to sell tomorrow?"

Rooks walks past me and spots the covered tray on the far counter, out of reach of the fallen ceiling. He lifts the lid and takes a cake pop.

"Damn, Baylor. These are really good."

I turn to glare at him. Tomorrow’s deliveries are under wet drywall, my mixer is on its side, and Rooks is standing in the middle of it eating.

Behind me, Wolf says, "I’m going to kill him."

Chapter Two

Wolf

I push Baylor Fairbanks’s apartment door open with my phone still in my hand.

Ronny told me to come straight in. That was eighteen minutes ago, before our trainer decided my shoulder needed another ten minutes of ice after morning skate. The stop at the bank didn’t help, and neither did the red lights between there and The Commons.

I’m still wearing my team hoodie and sweats. My hair is wet from the shower, and I haven’t eaten since six this morning. Normally, I’d stop for something on the way home. Today, I have a group chat with my building manager, a contractor, and a woman who already hated me before my friend destroyed her kitchen by inviting random people to my apartment.

I’m not asking them to wait while I get a breakfast sandwich from Serendipity’s. The line is usually out the door at this time in the morning.

Ronny stands beside the island with a clipboard. The contractor next to him is looking at the ceiling, and Baylor is holding an empty coffee mug in both hands. She looks up when the door opens.

"Sorry. Morning skate ran over," I say.

"You’re here now," Ronny says. "Come in."

Baylor doesn’t say anything. Her pastel pink hair is pulled up into a messy bun on the top of her head, and she’s changed out of the San Diego sweatshirt into a pink hoodie with a cupcake on the front. The gold under-eye patches, replaced by dark circles from the stress of her kitchen flooding, no doubt.