heavily. “And this is the person who can help me with my momma drama?”
He licks his lips and tips his head to the side. “Most people solve their problems by simply voicing them out loud. So maybe just view me as a sounding board.”
“You want me to voice what’s going on?”
“Yeah…why not?”
“Because I’m in a dirty alley with a man who too often voices all of his thoughts…most of which are dirty.”
“You make a good point,” Dean replies with a wink. “But I promise, I’m not thinking anything sexual right now. You’re a nun in my eyes…so just say it. You’ll feel better.”
My head is shaking back and forth, but before I can stop myself, I exhale the heaviness in my chest and start talking. “My mother wants me to bring Nate to their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary party in a couple of days, and I’d rather eat the curdled cream out of the bottom of that carton I just tossed than give her the satisfaction of dating the man she’s wanted me to be with since I was a teenager.”
With a slow nod, Dean gestures for me to continue.
“Honestly, she makes me crazy. All she cares about is my love life and becoming a grandmother. She’s never taken an interest in my bakery or my career aspirations. She’s never remotely cared what I’m passionate about. All she cares about are her expectations for me. Expectations I am clearly not living up to.”
“So, is this Nate guy really that bad?”
I cringe and shake out my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen him in years. The truth is, I don’t want to take him as a date because I don’t want to date anybody. I don’t care about my love life or getting married or having babies. I want to birth bakeries, Dean. Lots and lots of bakeries with lots and lots of croinuts. And I want my franchise to blow up so much that I can live in Paris for a while and come up with a brand-new recipe while sampling other people’s baked goods and get a really fat ass that my mother would hate.”
Dean’s deep laughter breaks through my ranting. “I think you’d look fantastic with a fat ass.”
“So do I,” I reply excitedly, just picturing myself walking the streets of France with a fresh croissant in my pie hole. “I just need her to get off my back until the Denver location is open. I can’t handle the stress of that and her. It’s too much. There’s going to be bloodshed.”
Dean nods thoughtfully as he ponders my predicament. “Don’t hate me, but why not just take this Nate guy to the anniversary party? Surely, he’s not going to think you’ll want to marry him afterward. Take him to that one event and then ghost him. Your mother wouldn’t have to know.”
I shake my head. “Oh, she’d know. Nate’s parents are my parents’ best friends. They’ll talk. Then my mother will secretly invite him over for dinner without telling me and then invite me over with an obnoxious surprise and a patronizing smile. I’ll be miserable because my mother will make passive-aggressive comments about why I never called him after the party, and then I will lose my temper, flip the table, and accidentally catch the house on fire.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you might be a bit of a pessimist,” Dean deadpans.
I narrow my eyes at him. “You give my mother an inch, and she’ll take 5K. I can’t take Nate to their party. It’s asking for drama, and I have enough of that with the Denver bakery right now.”
Dean shoots me a knowing look because he knows firsthand how the construction has been a mess over there. As a silent investor, he’s updated regularly on the progress, and it’s been setback after setback even though we’re opening in a month. We purchased an old building to stay on brand with the charm of my flagship bakery here in Boulder, and the renovations ended up more in-depth than initially estimated. If my contractor doesn’t get his shit together, I’m going to be serving cold croinuts at my grand opening because I’ll have to bake them here in Boulder. Talk about a horrible start to my career as a franchiser.
I pin Dean with a serious look. “My focus needs to be entirely on my business right now.”
“I can respect that.” Dean nods in agreement. “In fact, your ambition is pretty damn sexy.”
I roll my