My cupcakes are ready. Marisol is still wildly working on a three-tier tres leches cake with elaborate sugarwork. People are gathered around her by the dozens, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. I’m so proud that I get to bake next to her every day. I let myself imagine a kitchen that’s ours — a kitchen where we work like this for years to come.

“All right, everyone, it’s time to sample Syd’s Agender Cupcakes!” D.C. shouts. “Step right up and taste the greatness of a cake that is not dairy-free or gluten-free but very much gender-free!”

I expect my family to charge up and grab cupcakes as a show of support, but they’re mesmerized by Marisol. A few people flock over cautiously — mostly strangers. They’re a mix of ages, a mix of presentations, a mix of pretty much everything. People start picking out whichever cupcakes call their name. They respond with grins at the ganache and shouts of surprise when they hit the mascarpone filling.

“Agender cupcakes!” cries a person in their mid-thirties, motioning over a friend.

“I feel seen,” says a person with a small backpack and a long ponytail, who looks about my age.

I look over the crowd again. I take us in. Maybe we do all have something in common.

Jay gently works his way forward and grabs a cupcake with mile-high frosting and jaunty sprinkles.

“Hey,” I say. I grab a cupcake and take a bite to fortify myself. That’s when it hits me: I’ve been working all day and, besides a few strategic bites for judging purposes, I haven’t eaten much of anything. I scarf down the rest of my cupcake right to the paper and then ask, “Are you . . . um . . . agender too?”

“Genderflux!” Jay belts over the music, swaying loosely with the beat. “Some moments are a little femme. Some are a little masc. Sometimes it’s an agender paradise!”

I think about Jay’s life, which is so beautiful. Jay’s pronouns, which are so flexible. Jay’s smile, which is also really beautiful and right now full of chocolate cake crumbs and little flecks of raspberry.

“Thank you,” I say.

Jay waves the empty cupcake wrapper at me, like she can’t even imagine why I’m thanking her.

I look down at the table that, two minutes ago, held thirty-two agender cupcakes. They’re all gone. “These are my life,” says the friend of that thirty-something who insisted they come over.

“I love your shirt!” shouts an old person with gray and purple hair.

“Y’all, have you seen Syd’s shirt?” D.C. asks through the megaphone. “It’s true! Cupcakes have no gender!”

A great big cheer goes up, but it’s the little ring of thirty or so people around me who cheer so loud that it feels like the ears of everyone in Austin must be ringing. I thought I was finally doing something just for me — and it’s the first time I’ve connected with this little community.

Looks like those two things aren’t a binary.

Looks like nothing is.

The only thing I’m a little sad about is Harley missing this moment. They’re the one who gave me the shirt. More than that — they’re the one who gave me the confidence to really use my magic. We used it to bring people together, and I just did it again, but this time I was bringing people together in a whole new way.

Just because Harley isn’t here, that doesn’t mean my little triumph went unobserved, though. Marisol is staring at me from her station, where people are now digging into her cake. She’s topped it with a crown made entirely of spun sugar. “Bow down to la reina!” Gemma shouts, and everyone does exactly that.

After reveling in her coronation, Marisol hooks her thumbs in the loops of her jeans and heads over to me. “Let’s take a walk.”

I look around, feeling certain that I’ve done something wrong. But I fall into step with Marisol anyway. We wander over to the dusty edge of the field, where the grasses and wildflowers grow as tall as our knees.

“Sit,” she says.

There’s a log, so I perch there, probably looking like I’ve been sent to the Big Gay Principal’s office. Again.

“Alec told me about your brownies,” she says.

“Really?” I ask, doing some frantic math. “You didn’t eat one, did you?”

“No such luck,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I’ve been seeing this girl for a while, she’s okay.” She gives the shrug of someone who’s deeply uninterested in her own love life. I have no idea what that feels like.

“You think my brownies really broke people up?” I ask as she sits down next to me. “Alec believed it?”

“Alec and I have been wondering about you for a long time. If you’re like us.” She kicks back, letting her long brown legs glow in the last of the sun. Her cutoffs are surprisingly short and stringy. She’s always in slacks at the bakery. She’s always holding herself so carefully. She looks different here. More relaxed.

“Wait,” I say, everything still catching up to me. “You and Alec are . . . like me? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, first of all, we weren’t entirely sure, and that’s not an easy thing to ask somebody. Second, you would have thought we were on equal footing in the kitchen, and I couldn’t have that, could I?” She flashes me a grin that undercuts her point, so I know she’s not too serious. She inspects her nails, one of the tips broken by her impromptu cake. “Also, I’m not your unpaid magical baking mentor. I have my own shit going on.”

“That’s beyond fair,” I say.

Marisol nods.

“Can I ask you one question, though?”

A hundred clouds gather on her face.

“This new girl,” I say. “You actually like her, don’t you? Like, a lot.”

The clouds on Marisol’s face darken.

“Because you were right next to those brownies. I mean, if you had any reason to want out, you would have taken one . . .”

Marisol just shakes her head and smiles, which should be a contradiction, but it’s exactly how I know I’m right. I catch her eyes flicking back to the crowd — to the new girl, Lex, with her amber curls and her unseasonable flannel and her unflappable calm.

“You’re dating Lex?” For some reason I’m surprised. I didn’t think Marisol would date anyone who works at the bakery — she never has before. It feels like another sign that maybe Lex is special.

Marisol sighs. “We went on a date . . .” Oh my god, the night I was at the gay bar! “And no, I did not eat those brownies you asked the counter staff to push the next day. I wanted to keep seeing her, but I tried to keep things chill . . . and it came off as cold I guess. Lex is a really warm person, right? So, I apologized.” That was my cake! She stole my cake to help her apologize to the cute new barista! “And we’ve been hanging out ever since. I guess if the new bakery happens, we’ll be hanging out a lot.”

I bite down a smile.

Now I have one more reason that the bakeout needs to do its magic.

“Seriously, though, I promise I won’t ask you too much about the magical baking stuff,” I vow. “And I think I’ve figured some things out myself. Like, for a while I wondered why the magic doesn’t show up at work all the time, or maybe it’s just . . . quieter? But when I bake for myself, when I bake for people I know, that’s got more of me in it.” That’s when I use my baking as a place to work through my own feelings and share them with people I care about.

Those brownies were the big exception. I couldn’t hold back what I felt in that moment.

Marisol picks a flower, dismembers it prettily. “Sometimes we use work to hide, too. To not feel as much. Like it’s easier to make cake for strangers and pretend it’s just a job, like it’s not your soul.”

I swear that I’m going to limit myself to one question. “So, now that I know what I can do, what happens next?”

Marisol bats me on the shoulder with a wildflower. “Now you get comfortable with it. You learn how to work with your power and you can do pretty amazing things.” She gestures around at everything we’ve done here today. The whole big bakeout, the crowds, the community. We found a way to bring everyone back together right when it seemed like we were breaking apart.

“I still can’t believe that you and Alec . . .” I flash on the hazelnut cake. While I was eating it, I could feel secrets deep inside of me loosening up, coming free. I had Alec’s magical bake in my hands and I didn’t even know it.

“Syd, you have gotta stop thinking you’re alone.” Marisol stands up. “Speaking of which . . . I talked to the others. And we all agree that if you want in on running the new Proud Muffin, you can be our sixth.” As if she can’t offer me something so sweet without a little acid to balance it, she adds, “When you turn eighteen.”

A week ago, I would have snapped that offer off the table and said yes as quickly as possible. Today, all I can think about is Alec, and how hard he’s been beaming ever since he decided to go back to the kitchen. Plus, my brain is sending out warnings that running a bakery is going to be just as much organizing work as this bakeout — but every single day. I want to help the Proud Muffin however I can, but I have a lot to learn from people like Marisol and Gemma and D.C. before I’m in charge of anything, or anyone. “I think I’m going to just bake for now. Ask me again in a few years?”

Marisol looks over her sunglasses at me with no small amount of suspicion. “That’s the most mature thing you’ve ever said.”

We head back to the bakeout just as the afternoon melts into evening. What used to be five hundred different bodies in direct sunlight is now one big silhouette, touched with yellow from all the string lights. Nobody seems to be leaving.

Nobody wants to walk away.

I wonder how much of the money Gemma and D.C. have tallied. I need to know if we’re having a wild celebration tonight, or a wake.

“All right,” Gemma shouts, as if she could hear my thoughts. “We have some good news. We’ve reached ninety percent of our fundraising goal, which is a shit ton of money that you gave to save the best bakery in Austin!”

Cheers rise up.

D.C.’s voice rises above them. “But ninety percent isn’t one hundred percent. If people can dish out just a little bit more . . .”

I can feel the crowd deflate under the weight of this news.

We’ve given everything we have.

It’s not happening.

And somehow, we’re supposed to pick ourselves up and have an afterparty.

“Wait,” I say, my voice rising to a shout. “Harley said not to start the afterparty until —”

“Where is Harley?” Marisol asks.

A light from the end of the driveway answers our questions. It’s not a car — we’ve barricaded the driveway so nobody can park near the house, and back here there are only dirt paths.

I know what that light is. The flickering white headlamp of a bike.

Actually, it’s more than one bike. Harley seems to be at the head of a small bike parade. I run halfway down the drive to meet them. As the headlamps pulls closer, I can see that Harley is on Shadowfax this time, flanked by two small people wearing pink helmets with Proud Muffin stickers on them. Dean and Verity wave at me. Bringing up the rear is a strawberry-blonde person with the same stubborn smile as Dean and the same curls as Harley.

Harley lets the bike fall right before reaching me. They’ve got their messenger bag back firmly around one shoulder. I didn’t realize until just now how strange it looked to see them biking around without it.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Why did you leave right in the middle of . . . everything?”

“I couldn’t carry this around with me all day,” they say. “Besides, I wanted to surprise everyone.”

“Okay, we are duly surprised,” I say, looking back at my confused coworkers.

“Do you want to know what I’ve been doing all week?” Harley’s smile outshines the string lights. They rock back on the heels of their worn-out sneakers. They dig into the messenger bag and give me a leather envelope. I unzip it, finding it thick with bills. There has to be at least a thousand dollars here.

Then they take the checks out of their pocket.

“Don’t say that the tech gays never helped anyone,” Harley says. “I’ve been in every high-rise in Austin this week. Everywhere we ever delivered an office party cake or muffins for a morning meeting. Actually, I’ve gone basically everywhere we’ve ever made a delivery and gave out some baked goods as bribes. People really like being given unexpected sweet things,” they say, as if this is a wild new concept to them.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” I cry.

“We weren’t really talking,” Harley says, taking off their bike helmet and roughing up their curls, trying to get them to bounce back to life. “I mean, we were texting, but not talking talking.” I know what Harley’s saying. We weren’t really being us together. “And you were so busy planning the bakeout —”

“We helped!” Dean shouts, running over to me. “We baked things! We got more bags of chocolate chips!”

“Hi, Syd! Hi, Syd!” Verity chimes as she joins us.

“Wait,” I say. “I thought you weren’t coming back to the bakery, and you were doing all of this to save it?”

Harley tugs at their front curl. “Well, I might need to focus on school next year. I am sort of in college.” I want to laugh — that used to be one of our jokes. “But I need the Proud Muffin to be right there when I get back, you know? I need it to be there for everyone. Especially . . . especially you.”

The night is warm and my hands are nervously sweating and my heart is doing this very hopeful sort of rising.

I just hope it doesn’t deflate.

“Is there any cake left?” Harley’s mom asks.

Harley’s mom is talking to me.

“Ummm, yeah.”

“There’s always cake near Syd,” Harley says.

“So this is Syd,” Harley’s mom says, giving me the most excruciating once-over. “All of my children talk about you quite a bit. I think you’ve got them under some kind of spell.” She smiles and holds out her hand.

“Mom,” Harley says, cutting her off. “Cake?”

“Right, right.”

Dean, Verity, and Harley’s mom head down the driveway toward the tents, leaving us to run the envelope of money and the checks over to the Proud Muffin employees, who’ve flocked around Gemma and D.C. As soon as they see what Harley’s pulled off, everyone is shouting and crying. Vin and Alec watch us from a safe distance, looking elated and exhausted in equal measure.

Gemma grabs the megaphone. “Austin, you did it! You brought the Proud Muffin back from the brink!”

D.C. swoops in next to her, letting out incoherent sounds of joy. He finally gets it together enough to add, “You made it work and now it’s time to work the dance floor at our afterparty!”

Lex hurries over to get the music going, but it looks challenging with one of her hands fused to Marisol’s.

As a beat spills through the air, Harley pulls me aside.

We wander away from everyone else, but it feels like we’re wandering with purpose, and soon I realize exactly where Harley’s taking me. The clearing with the chandelier in the live oaks. The one we sat under the first time we were here together. It’s lit up now, casting a warm buttery glow.

“Okay,” Harley says, turning to me and shoving their hands deep in their pockets. “We’re going to finish this.”

“Okay. Yeah.” I brace myself for an argument, pointed and intense.

“I still have two questions left,” they say softly.

“From Truth or Pie?” I ask, feeling suddenly terrified. But I promised Harley — I promised both of us — that I would see this through.

Harley stands alone in the chandelier’s light, and the afterparty in the tent feels a million miles away. I want to be celebrating, but I need to know exactly what I’m gaining and what I’m losing tonight. “I asked you if you were ever really in love with W,” Harley says.

“And now I know that —”

Harley shakes their head, and I fall silent. “Really I should have asked: Do you think you could fall in love with me someday?”

“No,” I say, with complete honestly. Just as Harley’s face twists I rush to add, “I think I already am.”

The smile sneaks back onto Harley’s face. “Second question. Where do you want to go on this magical diner road trip?”

“Everywhere,” I say, joining them under the light of the chandelier.

Harley’s arms fall around my shoulders like that’s where they go, like they belong there. Their fingers clasp lightly around my neck. “That’s a very Syd answer.”

“Well, you’re the navigator. You pick where we go first. And then I’ll pick the next stop. And then we’ll pick the third one togeth —”

Harley leans forward, burning off every last one of my worries as our lips meet. There’s a lightness I didn’t expect, a giddy relief that our beginning isn’t over, a whisper of sweetness as our lips brush and mingle and melt. Without breaking away from each other, we both smile, and Harley spins me under the chandelier. I bring one hand up to their face and tug that front curl for good measure.

“So this is what it’s like,” I say.

“What?” Harley asks.

“The best night.”

I drop another kiss on Harley’s shoulder, where their tank top cuts off. “You know, all of this biking makes you delectably salty.”

Harley wrinkles their nose, suddenly shy.

They kiss me lightly, carefully.

Then boldly.

I kiss them again and again and again — every kiss I wish I’d given them over the last few weeks. When my lips are nearly numb and my smile is exhausted, we twine our fingers, line up our arms, and head toward the biggest tent, walking with our sides pressed together.

The night is getting darker. The music’s getting louder.

We stop at the edge of the crowd and watch the other proud muffins making the most of their time together.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s dance it out.”

We step onto the dance floor and face each other, and on the same downbeat we start to move with zero abandon. Harley’s shoulders pedal around in circles as I leap and punch the warm air like risen dough. All around us, people churn and shout. The city shifts and changes. I take a big breath of this night, this perfectly unplanned moment, Harley so close to me.

It tastes like a beginning.