It’s a relief to get back to the Proud Muffin after a full day at school and a few hours of homework at the library. My parents let me work out a special arrangement with Vin and Alec and the school counselor to arrange my schedule around baking shifts, as long as I maintain a B average or better. Most days I split, with baking in the morning and a few classes in the afternoon. And I get a gym waiver because baking for eight hours is more physically intense than playing half-hearted volleyball and learning country-western line dances.

When I pull in, I claim the last parking space. The lot is churning with hot, sweaty people. Dozens of them. It might not be my shift, but I have a great excuse to spend time at the Proud Muffin: community night. I breeze in through the front door, trying not to look like I have any ulterior motives. I’m here to socialize and listen to a local band. I’m definitely not going to wait until everyone else is distracted and then search through the receipts in the POS system for the rest of the people who bought my brownies.

“Hey, Syd!” Gemma shouts from behind the counter, through the frenzy of drink orders. Her hands are moving so fast you can barely track them. Ten shots of espresso seem to be pulling at once. “You came!”

I feel the sudden contours of my frown. “I’m here every Thursday night.”

And then I realize — Gemma is surprised because I’m not at home, crying over W. Honestly, I’m a little surprised, too. I guess there’s nothing to get you over a breakup like having to resurrect other peoples’ love lives.

“You okay?” Gemma asks over the scratch of frothing milk. She’s looking at me with a special blend of pity and understanding. But what, exactly, does she understand? What has W told her about our breakup?

Does she miss anything about me? Is she absurdly, exhaustedly glad to be done? Am I just some sad, overbaked significant other who crumbled while she did the harsh but necessary thing?

“I’m staying busy,” I say. “What about . . .” I almost ask about W, then swerve at the last second. “What about you?”

“Oh, you know,” she says. “Work.” Gemma swivels and sets out two drinks on the counter. “Lone Star lattes!” she shouts in a high-pitched voice. Both drinks are topped with foam in the shape of Texas with a star-shaped silver sprinkle dropped in just the right spot to represent our fair capital city. When most of the baristas do this, Texas is barely a state-shaped blob. Gemma’s an artist. An actual one — she’s had her own shows in art spaces around the city, and she’s saving up money to rent a studio.

“Monday should be a big reunion because so many people are coming back for spring break,” she says, burying her attention in new orders. “W wants to come. I hope that’s okay?”

There are actually two weekly community nights, one for QTPOC. Alec and Gemma lead those, Marisol brings in her favorite home bakes, and all queer and trans people of color who work at the bakery have the Monday night shift open in case they want to attend. For obvious being-white reasons, I’ve never been there.

I remember the first time W went, though. Back in autumn, when the sky was smoky gray, I dropped her off right outside. She gave me a nervous strapped-in-the-car kiss and then almost floated into the bakery.

W’s dad is Tejano. She has fairly light skin, and most white people who meet W assume she’s totally white. It was the only part of her identity that I ever saw her talk about with less than perfect certainty. I wanted to help — but for obvious being-white reasons, I couldn’t really give any advice.

So I listened.

And I told her about Monday nights at the bakery, just in case.

Eventually she started going. I’m glad she’s still going. As much as I hate that we ended abruptly and I was left standing in the cold — literally with freezing droplets all over my body — I hate the idea of her losing this place.

I hate the idea of anyone losing it.

“Yeah. You can tell W . . .” My throat narrows unexpectedly as I picture her on her massive, over-pillowed bed, leaning back, chewing on her thumbnail as she checks her phone. “Tell her of course it’s okay,” I say as Gemma finishes off a monstrous mocha with a shake of cayenne and a flotilla of chocolate shavings.

Gemma nods, her eyes on the drink, braids whipping as she turns to both sides of the counter and cries, “Smokin’ hot mocha!”

It’s too busy to check the POS system now. I’ll have to wait until everyone’s upstairs and the orders have died down. I leave Gemma to finish the drinks and join the crowd of people funneling up the narrow stairs at the back of the bakery.

I spend so much time in the kitchen that sometimes I forget about the special alchemy of the community space. The walls are lined with original art, including Gemma’s recent photo series The Hills Are Alive and (Sometimes) We Live There, where she took a bunch of rural Texas queers, including some who live in the city now, and shot them in their original landscapes: skimming their fingers over wildflowers, flying around on horses, turning porch swings into everyday thrones.

The outfits in this room are an art form in themselves. Whole eras of American culture have been deconstructed, ripped apart, and torn wider until there’s room for us. Imagination is splashed across bodies; I’m surrounded by a swirl of color, texture, the negative space of bare skin. Then there’s the place itself. It’s the best living room you can imagine, crossed with the coziest stage in a nineties coffee shop, raised to the power of a queer lending library. A band called the Deep Eddies, dressed in candy colors and razor lines, are plugging in their equipment.

I find myself looking around with purpose. Just in case W’s here. Just in case Harley’s here. My heart grates against my ribs. What if they’re both here?

All around the room, people are making the most of this formless time before the party really starts, finding friends or hastily making new ones. I notice a few well-established groups who have smaller meetings here throughout the week: local two-spirit folks by the snack table, a group of UT drag queens in burnt orange dresses, the bisexual brujas lining the back wall, the Shakespeare queers with their voices ringing above the rest of the crowd.

I notice — I always notice — that there’s no real agender contingent.

Mini-crowds glue themselves together quickly. But there are just as many folks milling around, intent on doing their own thing, or moving between groups with a sparkling, fizzy fluidity. Most of the people here range from their late teens to early forties, but there are a few middle schoolers looking around at all of this with big eyes and infinite wonder, a group of white-hairs in the corner talking shit about someone named Jan, and a seventy-ish newcomer wearing a they/them pin, a cowboy hat, and a smile as bright as a Texas sunrise.

Onstage, Vin and Alec wait for us all to quiet down. Or rather, Alec waits, and Vin waves wildly at all of us.

That’s the other reason I needed to be here. It’s a chance to observe Vin and Alec. They look like they could be back together. But any good baker knows that how something looks on the plate is only part of the story.

Alec clears his throat once, which does more than all of Vin’s hand-flinging. Leaning down into the mic, shoulders bunched, Alec gives the intro. “All right, y’all. Welcome to community night at the Proud Muffin. Make new friends. Find yourself some family. Flirt, sure, but nothing that you wouldn’t do in your prude auntie’s house happens in this room. Pronoun stickers are by the door. Remember: nobody owes you their labels. And do not police each other’s identities or we will kick you out into that humid, heteronormative night. Okay?”

“Okay,” a few people chorus. Someone raises a thumb high.

“And cobbler is half-price all night,” Vin adds in a natural boom, no microphone required.

“I was supposed to say that, remember?” Alec asks, teeth locked tight, the mic picking up the hard edge of his words.

Most people have already turned away. Most people don’t notice.

I push my way forward.

Alec flits around, helping the band. Vin leans on one side of the stage, watching everyone, arms crossed and face in the hardball stage, as clumped and unmoving as dense caramel. They’re definitely not back together. They need my help — and I don’t know what to bake next. I could try the same cake again, but what if a simple sorry isn’t enough for these two? What comes after the apology? Make-it-right rugelach? Show-you’ve-changed churros?

“Why are you staring at Vin like that?” Marisol asks, bumping into me with her hip as a way of saying hello. “He’s our dad. Stop.”

“Vin’s only ten years older than you,” I point out.

“Okay, he’s our grandpa.”

I give a grudging nod. Marisol’s right. Queer culture — and the way people treat us — shifts so rapidly that two years can easily feel like twenty. Our generations are different. It’s a known fact.

“I was not staring at Vin,” I say. “I mean, I was staring at his face, but I wasn’t enjoying it on a hormonal level.”

I can’t look directly at Marisol, though. We bake next to each other all the time, and it’s not like she’s ever anything but gorgeous, but she really goes all out on community night. Tonight, she’s got dusky red lipstick on, applied with the confident hand of someone who can pipe a hundred rosettes in under a minute. Her jeans ride low on her hips, the generous scoop of her tank top showing off her sculpted brown shoulders and the upper curve of her breasts. I remember the day she came back to work after top surgery. It was the only time I’ve seen Marisol approaching giddy.

“I can’t stop thinking about that cake you made.” She slaps me on the back. Twice. “Perfect crumb.”

“Really?” It feels like we just leveled up in our kitchen relationship. There are so many different kinds of relationships, and I’m suddenly glad that I didn’t break this one up. I’m also truly proud that she loved the cake — even if it was originally meant for Vin and Alec.

“It was exactly what I needed.” Marisol’s face tightens with determination and she angles away into the crowd, as if she’s looking for someone. Did my cake help her make up with one of her exes, maybe? Did it mend a broken friendship? I track her until she’s lost in the churn of people. As much as I want to know what she’s up to — and if it has anything to do with that slice of Very Sorry Cake — there are other mysteries to solve.

Like who bought the rest of my brownies.

As the music starts, I edge back down the stairs. There are a few strays hanging out at the tables, but no one is sitting at the bakery counter. Gemma must have taken a break to go up and listen to the band, because the only employee left behind the counter is Lex — a relatively new hire. She’s gently butch and nosebleed tall. Wherever she goes there seems to be a dog-eared book nearby. She wears blocky black glasses that stand out against her amber-brown skin. I know that she’s Dominican and the only other person at the Proud Muffin who was mostly raised in a northern state. Upstate New York, in her case. We’ve bonded a little about being the only people here who weren’t born knowing what “bless your heart” actually means or knowing about Frito Pie. And I’ve got to hand it to her — she keeps the flannel look alive despite the desperate heat. Her brown-and-gold curls are pulled up in a careless style that shows off ear tattoos, little black moons that run in matching curves.

“Just going to ring myself up for a drink,” I say.

Lex gives me a little nod and goes back to reading. I have about a minute before she realizes I’ve been on the computer too long, or a customer barges up and places an order. Or worse: one of the managers notices me fiddling around in the POS and starts to ask questions.

I haven’t used this system in a year, since moving on from my counter duties, but my fingers are hardwired to remember the menus. I work my way through, only backtracking a few times, until I find the function that lets me print all the receipts for the two days when the brownies were sold. I wait until Lex’s back is fully turned, the music upstairs extra loud, and I hit print. A long tongue of paper spits out of the register.

Lex turns back just as I shove it in my pocket. Her eyes go wide, magnified by the glasses.

“You need help with something?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got it under control.”

I duck into the back, to the employee bathroom. I lock the door, take out a pen, and start circling every time I see SO, for special order. Then I check the price column. There were three different special orders in play on those days, but only the brownies were two-fifty. I look for spots where they were sold, mostly in five-dollar pairs.

There were twelve brownies when this started.

Two went to Vin and Alec.

One I gave to Eve.

Jay ordered two by phone on the day I put them out — easy enough to spot.

Kit and Aadi, the iced green tea enthusiasts, bought two around noon the next day, which I can see in the time stamp.

That leaves two credit card purchases made at the front register. One by Martin Thomas, one by Araceli Jimenez. They each bought two brownies, which equates to two more couples that I have to find and fix.

It takes me a while to spot the final purchase.

A mystery customer bought one brownie and paid in cash.

I leave the employee bathroom, washing my hands first. It’s a habit. And it gives me time to think about where I’ve seen one of those names before.

The kitchen is dead — all of the day’s baking is wrapped up by four in the afternoon — but there’s always the possibility that Vin or Alec are lurking around the offices. So I keep it as stealthy as I can.

I head toward the counter where we keep our cake binder filled with standard baking instructions and cake order forms. I flip to the section for recurring customers. Araceli Jimenez and Verónica De León have a standing order for a cake on February 12. It must be their anniversary, because the requested text is “Araceli and Verónica have been swimming for (X) years.” This year it was twelve.

I recognized Araceli’s name because I was the one who made the cake this year. It’s made to look like Barton Springs, with the two figures piped into different places on the cake each year. There’s a recent photo for reference: two people in their late twenties, thirty at the most, sitting on the edge of the springs with their feet in the water. They’re both femme, fat, beautiful. I remember mixing the frosting colors for both of their bathing suits — a red retro pin-up one-piece with white trim for Araceli and a flower-print bikini for Verónica. They’re smiling, but not at the camera. At each other.

Twelve years.

They’ve been together since they were my age, and now they’re not. Marisol said she was drawn to my cake, so maybe they were drawn to the brownies. Maybe there was a reason. Still, it’s my fault the brownies were there in the first place.

It’s like I pushed Araceli and Verónica in the deep end.

It’s like I dropped their anniversary cake on their toes and then shrugged.

I didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t really matter. Accidents happen in the bakery all the time, and you don’t just walk away or pretend it never happened. You fix it. You make another, better cake. Because everything we create matters to someone. It can change their day, their mood.

Sometimes, their life.

I go back upstairs, feeling more determined than ever. And that’s when I catch sight of Harley in the corner, talking to D.C.

A pronoun sticker shines on Harley’s chest. They. We’re both off on Thursdays, which means we’re not wearing our work clothes, we’re out of our comfortable ruts. Harley is wearing a pair of surprisingly tight charcoal jeans, a whisper-thin white T-shirt, and — oh help — a black leather vest hanging open over their chest. Their hair looks even looser and softer than usual. I swear, my fingers start moving toward Harley’s curls involuntarily.

D.C. nods emphatically at something Harley said. The two of them are radiating cuteness. I don’t deserve someone being cute in my general vicinity right now. Not after I broke up Araceli and Verónica.

Not after I broke up all of them.

Harley’s attention snags on the fact that I’m watching, and they turn without my saying a word. The lead singer of the Deep Eddies whispers a countdown into the mic. A new song starts with a crinkle of static and a body-flooding rush of guitar.

Harley’s smile cracks open on the downbeat.

I want this entire night to be about them. But across the room, I catch sight of Alec. As much as I want to talk to Harley, I keep getting sidetracked by the mess I made during my breakup. Cleanup on aisle Syd.

Alec works his way through the crowd, talking to all of the people who call the Proud Muffin their social haven, their safe space, their second home. He looks happy to see everyone, but under that delight, he also looks exhausted. His clothes have an unprecedented wrinkle, like he’s been too busy arguing to iron. His smile is stiff as fondant — seriously, that stuff is the worst — and Vin trails behind him, cracking a joke here and there. They’re not together, but they’re going through the same old motions.

I rush up to Harley, past all of the dancing bodies. There’s no stopping me. I can’t see the whole plan yet, but it’s starting to take shape. This is how it feels when I know I need to bake, when there’s a shimmering need for something sweet.

“I have to go,” I shout over the music. “Do you want to come with?”

“Where?” Harley asks.

“I need supplies.”

If anyone talks about shopping for food in Austin, they’ll probably spout whole sonnets about Whole Foods. The original location, on North Lamar. It’s the Disneyland of grocery stores. And listen, I love sneaking in there on the dog-breath days of summer to buy coconut gelato and eat it as I walk around in the AC.

But nobody I know can actually afford to shop there.

Harley and I are at HEB, strolling down the aisles, filling a cart with basics because I’m not sure what direction I’m going with this recipe. The answer itches at the corners of my brain. I don’t know how to scratch my own brain, though, so I keep grabbing flour and baking powder and trying to be patient with this magic.

“Grab a cookie sheet, okay?” I ask, pointing, and Harley doubles back for one as I keep rolling forward.

“I didn’t know they have pans here,” Harley says, hugging it to their chest, treating the shiny silver sheet like treasure. “Wait, don’t you own cookie sheets?”

“Of course,” I say.

“You destroy them with the sheer force of your baking, don’t you.”

“Maybe grab two. And a whisk.”

This store looks bare-bones, but it has everything a person needs. That’s the magic of HEB. The aisles are wide, the store well-lit. The music over the speakers is probably the only source of canned pop in the whole city, which feels strangely rebellious.

“What else?” Harley asks, bouncing lightly to a Selena Gomez song.

When I told them I was baking tonight, they fell into step right next to me, followed me out to the parking lot. There seemed to be no question about whether or not we would leave together.

I get this sudden feeling that everyone in the store, if they bothered to look at us, would see a couple.

I think about putting my arm around Harley, drawing them close and letting my face rest where their curls meet the curve of their neck. There are freckles there, a cinnamon dusting that I’ve never noticed. I imagine kissing that spot, pressing my lips there. Tasting. Is Harley’s skin salted from biking around, or sweet with powder, or both? Would they sigh into the feeling, or buzz with excitement? Or both?

Harley notices me looking, and their face goes through a transformation, a soft twist to their features. It feels like they’re asking what I’m up to. It feels like they’re perfectly aware of what I’m up to, and they want me to know that they know. I suddenly feel so warm I could melt chocolate without a double boiler.

This is what I need to bake.

This feeling.

Newness, excitement, a dash of surprise. This is what I can give Araceli and Verónica. They’ve had the same anniversary cake for twelve years; they need something just as delicious, but different.

I’m still not entirely sure what Vin and Alec need, but this is something they deserve.

“What’s your favorite dessert?” I ask, stopping the cart in its squeaky tracks.

“What?” Harley asks.

“Your favorite,” I say. “Or, if that’s too hard, top five.” Because when you start to care about someone, when they’re taking up all of your thoughts in a new and wonderful and terrifying way, you bake what they like. It’s not one of my favorite bakes I need to dig up but one of Harley’s.

They look up at the ceiling, then down at the gray-streaked floor. “I . . . um . . . chocolate chip cookies are okay?”

“Chocolate chip cookies are okay?” I hold up both hands. I stop everything. “You don’t like baked goods, do you?”

“That is correct.” Harley squints one eye closed and waits, like I’m about to pass sentence and they can’t watch.

“You work at a bakery,” I reason.

“Right, and if I loved every good that was baked, I would stop my bike and eat people’s birthday cakes under a bridge and then where would we be?”

“Why a bridge?” I ask. “Besides, I bake all day and I don’t eat everything.”

“They don’t give you complete lack of supervision and a getaway vehicle,” Harley points out.

My initial shock has burned off. The truth is, I’ve been willfully overlooking this for a while. Harley hasn’t shown any interest in the baked goods at the Proud Muffin. If anything, they’ve shown anti-interest.

I clack my fingers against the bar of the shopping cart.

“You like savory food, right?” I ask.

They nod.

“Salt and heat?”

They nod and nod.

“Nothing too sweet.”

They shiver like we just took a hard left into a horror movie.

“Okay,” I say, and kick the squeaky cart into rolling again.

“You’re acting suspiciously fine,” Harley says as they jog to catch up with my newly invigorated march through the store.

“You don’t have to like every baked good,” I say as I swipe a bag of candied ginger off the shelf. “I’m just going to systematically figure out the ones you do like.”

“That sounds intense!” Harley calls out as I take a sharp turn at the end of the aisle.

I add a few more ingredients to our cart, all of which Harley finds inscrutable. They give up trying to guess what I’m making and focus on lip-syncing to the Carly Rae Jepsen song over the speakers.

The parking lot is coated in darkness. I balance the bags on my arms, feeling strong and capable and hopeful about Harley falling in love — at the very least with the scones I’m going to make.

Halfway to my house, I get a text. I glance down when we hit a red light.

“Shit. My sister is home.”

Her last class before spring break was early this morning. I thought she had another driving day before she made it to Austin. She must have powered through and gotten back early.

“Does she not let you bake?” Harley asks, clearly confused.

“It’s just, the house will be crowded and Tess will be tired but my parents will want to do family stuff and . . .”

And besides needing to get magic to the rest of these couples, I really want there to be flirt-baking tonight. Bake-flirting? Either way, it’s never going to happen if my house is overrun with family members.

Harley looks out the open window, slides their elbow out into the night. “You know, I do have a kitchen.”

And just like that, we’re headed to Harley’s.

They live on a green street tucked behind St. Ed’s. There’s a single spot in the driveway, and Harley tells me to pull in.

“Is your mom not here?” I ask.

“She works late a few nights a week and my little sibs are with a family friend.”

Without another word, something shifts. We both know we’re going to have the entire house to ourselves. We both want a place where we’re not surrounded by coworkers or Proud Muffin customers or broken-up couples. As much as I love community night, leaving suddenly feels like the best idea I ever had.

When we’re parked, I pick up grocery bags from the trunk. Harley gets out of the passenger seat, leans back with a foot kicked up against the car, arms crossed loosely over their chest. Their chin tips up when I look at them, smile as brazen as the last bit of daylight in the sky. I don’t know if I’m going to kiss them tonight, but I’m going to let myself think about it every time I look at their lips.

Baking involves a lot of that.

Harley grabs the other half of the grocery bags and ushers me inside. There’s an exploratory feeling; I move through the space like I’m discovering a new civilization instead of visiting a house a mile away from my own.

There’s a carpet of toys underfoot, coral and blue walls covered in family photographs and kids’ artwork, sometimes directly on the walls. And I’m not talking a few uninvited scribbles. Trees reach up from the wooden floorboards nearly to the ceiling in some places. A row of birds is perched behind the couch. A storm cloud pelts the welcome mat with inky black rain.

“Here’s the kitchen,” they say, pulling me toward a little open square lined with butcher-block countertops.

I ask for a mixing bowl, measuring cups, a knife, and a box grater.

“We have those!” Harley says, pulling them down from various cupboards painted with stars and moons. “What else?”

“That’s it,” I say. “Nothing fancy.”

I believe, to the depths of my cupcake heart, that whatever magic there is in baking doesn’t come from fancy equipment. It doesn’t shut anyone out because they can’t afford a $500 stand mixer.

I pour out a cup of flour. Harley watches my hands. We fall into a new kind of quiet together. In my last year of dating W, silences were tentative, breakable, spun sugar. Harley has been leaving comfortable gaps for me to fill with my thoughts, and I’ve been trying to do the same. But this is different. We’ve been trading banter for days, and now we’re letting our bodies catch up.

We move around each other in circles, giving each other plenty of room. Then our patterns tighten, our looks sharpen, our margins grow smaller until we’re side by side, arms pressed together. Our shoulders jostling for no reason. My hip jutting out to find theirs in the half-dark.

“What next?” Harley asks, and I honestly don’t know if they’re talking about the recipe anymore.

“Now I cut the butter in,” I say.

“Do you need the knife?” Harley asks, and looks befuddled when I laugh.

I plunge my hands into the bowl. I usually do this part with a pastry blender, but this time I rely on my fingertips, not just because I don’t think Harley has a pastry blender — two knives work almost as well — but also because I want to feel everything.

My fingers sink in, down to the knuckles. When the butter is a scattering of silky little pieces that I know will melt just so as they bake, I scatter the candied ginger on the countertop and use the knife to chop it into little yellow flecks that glitter with crystals. I lift one that looks particularly tempting, the cut side a raw amber.

“What are you doing?” Harley asks.

“Tasting as I go.” Another thing that I firmly believe in. “We should taste everything as we go.”

I drop the piece of ginger on my tongue. It releases a wave of sugared heat.

“Can I have one?” Harley asks. Their eyes are somehow both serious and dancing. I place the ginger on their tongue.

They pull away — bold to shy in one move. “What next?”

“Lemons,” I say, barely able to get the word out.

They hand me one lemon, then another, and all I can think when their fingertips leave is that we’re mixing ourselves together. That’s what happens when skin presses skin. We think of ourselves as solid and separate, but we’re not. We trade and swap tiny pieces of ourselves all the time.

The only person I’ve ever touched like this is W. But I’m a little bit different now that I’ve touched Harley.

I’m a little bit new.

“Your evil plan to get me interested in sweets is working,” Harley says half an hour later, “because those smell really good.”

After I pull the scones out of the oven, we move to the couch. A white plate ringed with little yellow suns and blessed with scones sits between us on the coffee table. The toasted, buttery goodness of the smell is unrelenting.

“Which do you want?” I ask, holding the plate up to eye level, watching Harley over the craggy mound of treats.

“This feels like a trick. What happens if I pick the wrong one?”

“There is no wrong one. Just the best one for you.”

“So it’s a salty Rorschach test.” Harley folds a leg up on the couch. “In that case, I want the nubby one with the darkest bottom.” One of the notable things about this recipe is the sugar crystals on the candied ginger leaking down to create a dark, caramelized base, a ginger syrup sealing in all the goodness.

“Interesting choice,” I say, framing my chin with my fingers as I pretend to calculate something important about Harley’s personality.

But really, I’m a mess, waiting for them to try it.

I’m glad that they haven’t been eating my bakes this whole time, though, because there’s something about being here. Seeing Harley’s fingers wrap around the scone, their eyes and hands taking it in before their lips make a move.

They take their first-ever bite of something I made.

They chew.

Slowly.

“Syd,” Harley says, tapping my arm in quick Morse-code flutters. “Syd. Syd. Syyyyyyd.”

Everyone reacts to deliciousness differently. No one is very subtle about it. I live for that lack of restraint. Some, like Eve, swear passionately while others, like Alec, give each bite molecular attention. People sigh, stutter, lick their lips, groan in public, relentlessly chase down crumbs. Vin has been known to start singing in Italian. If a bake is really top notch, Marisol shakes her head like she’s confused at how decent the world can be. W laughs like she can’t believe it. More than once, I’ve shed a few tears.

Harley is the first one to say my name. In fact, they say it another half dozen times, and my body soaks it up like a cool breeze — with a slight tremble. I like how Syd sounds in their mouth, along with the last few crumbs.

Because that scone is gone.

We’re somehow closer together than we were when Harley started eating. Edging toward the middle cushion, shoes off, our calves only a few inches away from each other. I wonder what it would feel like if my bare leg made contact with Harley’s.

And then Harley puts out a hand and grabs my calf. I’m suddenly aware of the fact that I haven’t shaved my legs in a month. Then again, Harley doesn’t shave theirs ever. “Syd. That was like lemon and ginger had sex in a swimming pool of butter.”

I blink, a little startled. That’s the first time I’ve heard Harley reference sex in anything other than a shy, oblique sort of way. It was bold and sudden, and I find myself giggling like a middle schooler at the back of the bus.

They lean in so close that I can see a crystal of sugar shining at the corner of their lips. I touch it with a fingertip, picking up the tiny grain. Harley touches my mouth back — to be fair, I guess. Then they lean in and put their lips to the same spot.

Not quite on my lips. Not quite a kiss.

“I’m doing this because of the scone, right?” they whisper.

“The scone can’t make you do anything,” I say. “It can only . . . inspire you.”

Harley makes a tiny sound. It’s like half excitement, half hiccup. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

Maybe I do deserve this much cuteness in my life. Maybe we all do.

“Do you want another?” I ask, dancing the plate in their direction, unable to hold back now that I know Harley likes them.

“No,” Harley says staunchly, moving their hand off my leg. That was our first real prolonged contact, and I feel the loss right away. “These children of unprotected lemon-ginger sex have other destinies.”

I groan and boo. But Harley’s right — these scones aren’t for us.

“So how do we deliver these to all the people you still need to get back together?” Harley asks.

“Well, these are for two in particular. Araceli and Verónica.” And Vin and Alec. Everything is for them, because they gave me everything I have. “I’ve been thinking about the delivery process. Taking the baked goods straight to the couples might work in some cases, like Rae and Jay. But for others it would be really hard to dig up addresses, and really shady if we just showed up with unsolicited sweets. Besides, the brownies went out four days ago. Do we really have time to track down everyone and hand-deliver bakes to each couple? What if they start to waft away from each other and no amount of butter can bring them back together?”

I’ve never thought about it before, but timing is as big a factor in relationships as it is in baking. Which cakes fall and which ones rise. Which people choose each other at particular moments and whether those moments turn into something longer. Something that lasts. The same thing goes for breakups. Couples can get back together months or years or even decades after breaking up, but those feel like the exceptions. There’s an expiration date on most people deciding they should work it out.

I wonder if W and I have slid past that day already.

“So we’re on a tight magical schedule.” Harley leans in, conspiratorial now instead of flirtatious. But it still makes my heart bang like a spoon against the side of a metal bowl. “What now?”

“It’s time to bring the broken-up to us.” Marisol had hinted at the idea, but Harley talking about the smell of the scones made me feel certain. “Have you ever come home and realized there was something good cooking, maybe an onion softening on the stove or spice thickening the air?”

I wait for Harley’s slow, certain nod. Harley can drawl a nod — I have no idea how, but they can.

“Has it ever drawn you across the house, tugged at you, until you could barely think about anything else?”

“Sure,” Harley says, like this is the simple math of food.

“We’re going to Barton Springs tomorrow,” I say, “and we’re bringing the scones with us.”

 

2¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter

1 to 2 lemons’ worth of zest

1 cup candied ginger, finely chopped

¾ cup full-fat coconut milk (the kind that comes in a can, NOT the kind that comes in a carton)

1 egg (super optional)

Coconut milk is the real magic in this recipe. It’s just as rich as cream, but it’s got more flavor. It keeps the scones equally good the second, third, and fourth day. This isn’t a short-lived delight.

This is going to last.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

Take out your butter — it should be just-from-the-fridge cold. Cut it into small squares and cut into the flour mixture.

Realize you probably should have added the zest earlier, but you’ve been distracted by the presence of a cute baking partner. Realize that everything is going to turn out delicious either way.

Zest those lemons. Stir the zest and candied ginger into the dough. Take a beat to breathe in that unbeatable citrus-spice combo.

If your coconut milk has separated, whisk until it’s smooth. Make a little well in the center of your bowl and pour it in. Mix until just combined: the dough might feel a little shaggy or crumbly and that’s okay. You don’t want a wet dough, but you can add another tablespoon or two of coconut milk if it won’t stick together.

Shape the scones any way you like. I know that some people are really into wedges. I like to make big, rustic scones, molding them with my hands into large pucks — seven or eight for a batch this size — then watch as each one becomes its own unique, craggy shape in the oven, like a mountain that you can only conquer by eating it.

If you want an egg wash to make the tops of the scones shiny, crack an egg, whisk in a tablespoon of water, and brush the tops of the scones. But honestly, they’re already going to be perfect.

Bake for 12 to 20 minutes depending on the size of your scones, longer for larger ones. When they’re done, the tops and bottoms should be golden brown and everything between should be golden, and when you taste it, golden rays should burst out of you.

Serve while you are still glowing.