“When I feel a connection.”
“Which you never do, since you don’t go past date number two.”
She bobs her head several times. “Essentially. I thought this guy was going to be the one.”
“So, you were falling in love,” I insist. There’s no other explanation.
“No.” She takes one of the pillows and throws it my way. “Why are you obsessed with the falling-in-love part?”
“Because you keep calling every guy who doesn’t work, the one.”
“The one that could’ve stopped the sex drought.”
Before I can say something, my phone rings. “Please don’t be the hospital,” I mumble. And when I see who’s calling, I wish it was the hospital paging me.
Atzi looks at me in a way that is almost heartbreaking. “Do you have to go?”
“Nah, it’s Dawn.”
“Oh. How’s your mom doing these days?”
“Do you really want to know?” Atzi and my mother don’t get along.
More like Mom has something against my best friend and they can’t be in the same room or she begins to insult my best friend.
Atzi shrugs. “I’m the only person you can talk to about her. As far as I know, no one else in your family plans to speak to her until she returns to therapy.”
I stare at her for a minute. “How do you know that?”
“Last weekend, while you were in the ER, I went to TTB to help Cory and Hux. Your sister and I got to chatting about her mommy issues.”
I roll my eyes at the abbreviation of Two Thieves at a Bar, one of the twins’ businesses. “Did she really say she has mommy issues?”
“Yep. She hasn’t talked to her since Fern announced her pregnancy. The triplets stopped speaking to your mom after Fern’s wedding. Caspian has been avoiding her since he got married—more than a year ago.”
“You’re right,” I say when I realize the only two people who are on speaking terms with Mom are Huxley and me.
She points at my phone when it starts ringing again. “Are you going to answer?”
“No. I’m with you.”
“You guys are a great family, except, you’re falling apart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do they know you didn’t apply to any fellowships in San Francisco?”
“I—” How does she know?
“You left the list of fellowships you were applying for next to my computer, along with the dates when you might receive your acceptance,” she says, as if responding to my silent question. “It’s sad that you didn’t tell me though.”
So that’s where I left the list. Fuck. Working on my applications while she was in the shop’s kitchen seemed like a good idea at the time. It was the night when she created the sculpture for the Spearman Gala.
“They’re going to miss you,” she mumbles.
“Are you going to miss me?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Of course. We’ve been best friends for years, but I’m used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“People always leave,” she whispers.
I flinch, and maybe I’m the problem. In her twenty-nine years of experience, people leave. First, her parents died and so did her sister. Then, her paternal grandfather died too.
Cécile, her father’s sister, stayed to take care of her. Once Atzi turned eighteen, she moved back to France. They only talk during holidays and birthdays. Unless she goes to France to visit her. Cécile never comes to her.
Atzi’s maternal family lives in Mexico, and like Cécile, they expect Atzi to jump on a plane to visit them—not the other way around.
Why didn’t I think of what’ll happen when I go?
“We will stay in touch,” I assure her.
It’ll make everything more complicated, but I won’t leave her alone.
She gives me a sad smile. “Why don’t you answer your mother’s call?”
“I can talk to her another day.”
“I wish I could have the luxury of sending mine to voicemail.” She stands up, going to the counter where she left her purse. “See you around, Spearman.”
“Wait, why are you leaving?”
She looks at me as if I’m a stupid man who can’t understand anything. She calls the elevator.
“Atzi, stay.”
“Have a good night,” she mumbles, stepping into the elevator and leaving me alone with a hollow chest and a thousand questions.
Chapter Four
Atzi
It’s always a little chilly in the back part of the kitchen because chocolate needs a very particular environment to stay stable. I only know this through many years of experience and knowledge passed on to me from my chocolatier father, who taught me at the tender age of three the exact temperature to have the thermostat set to year-round.
I had no idea what it meant, but he always made me repeat the number. Once I was old enough to be in the kitchen making chocolates with him, I understood. Sometimes I wish I was at the old shop where Dad and Grandpa worked side by side.
The old shop of Lavigne Chocolatier closed when my parents died—I was eleven. Grandpa was too old and his arthritis too advanced to hand make chocolate, so only the factory continued. When he died, Aunt Cécile hired a CEO who did a great job until I was old enough to take over the company.
Some days I’m tempted to close the factory and just leave the small shop with hand-crafted chocolate open. But I’ll never do it. This is my father’s legacy—a Lavigne’s institution. I take a deep breath, pushing the tears back to where they belong—hidden deep within my soul.
I hate to miss my family. Not as much as I hate wanting to create one. I stare at the chocolate melting in the pot and remind myself I’m filming. Everyone who’s going to watch this video expects me to smile and radiate happiness.
I’m good at faking it. After taking another deep calming breath, I smile. It’s time to be the Atzi everyone likes.
“Now, the key to getting that super glossy look perfect, is timing,” I say, looking straight at the phone camera across from me. “Don’t expect to get this pour right on the first try. You have to practice doing it quickly enough so the chocolate doesn’t have time to cool down before it covers all the sides here. It helps, too, if you have someone turning the object you’re covering for you, but I’m alone today, so we’ll see how this goes.”
I wink at the phone, which is mounted under a large ring light at the end of the kitchen bench. Then, without wasting any more time, I take the perfectly tempered chocolate and start to carefully pour it into the orb mold I’d made earlier.
There’s no room for error as I pour, so I never speak for these parts of my videos. I’m pretty new to livestreaming on social media, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.
As soon as the orb is filled, I pull the hot pot away and carefully pick up the mold to rotate it slowly.
“Once you’ve got it all even inside, time to pop it in the freezer and wait.” I do just that and wipe my hands on the front of my apron. “Thank you all for tuning in. I did put another orb in the freezer earlier, and it should be done in just about three minutes, so while we wait, I can answer some of the questions I received in my DMs.” I look at the cue cards where I wrote them down last night.