And I hope they continue to lose customers. Autumn Wonder needs to be number one in this town.
“Are you upset about that at all?”
“Yeah. It’ll be a really sad day if it has to close—especially for all the cherry bourbon pie lovers,” she sighed. “The customers can’t seem to get enough of it.”
“Hmmm. Since you’re temporarily working there, did they give you the recipe for that pie? Do you know the exact ingredients?”
“It’s my recipe and I’ll never tell,” she jokingly whispered.
“What? How is it your recipe if you’re not from Fayetteville?”
My intern’s report specifically says Texas…
“That’s another one of those things I changed about myself when I became a celebrity,” she paused. “I was born and raised here. Sweet Seasons is my mother’s shop.”
SHIT!
“It’s your mother’s shop?” I almost choked.
“Yeah. You didn’t see our family photo in the kitchen, or notice the woman who takes your lunch order sometimes? Everyone says we look just alike. She practically raised me in there. Sweet Seasons is like her second daughter…What are you doing?”
Wishing you hadn’t just told me that…
“Umm…I’m trying to rest my back from cleaning out all the ovens by myself. I think you gave me the hardest job on purpose.”
She giggled. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I am…If you’re not in too much pain later do you want to come over and watch a movie with me? Or since you claim you don’t really watch movies we could—”
“I’d love to.”
I needed to tell her that I was the CEO of Autumn Wonder. Tonight. I needed to admit it and tell her it was just business, nothing personal—that I had no idea she was connected to that bakery when we first met, that my business plan was already in place months earlier, and that I wanted to continue dating, or whatever the hell we were doing.
I picked up a bottle of red wine from the local market and a pan of hot spaghetti from Noodles Italian Kitchen.
I prepped several speeches in my head as I walked through the hotel lobby. I told myself that before I stepped inside her room I would tell her the truth.
Lay it all out on the floor. Let the chips fall where they may.
I knocked on her suite and within seconds she opened the door wearing a tight T-shirt that exposed her stomach and tiny teal shorts that showed off her legs.
I’ll tell her tomorrow…
“Good evening,” she blushed.
“Good evening Selena.”
We stood looking at one another for what felt like forever. It took me controlling every muscle in my body to not pick her up and carry her into the suite’s bedroom for the rest of the night.
“I’m sorry,” she finally stepped back and let me inside. “Come on in.”
There were signs everywhere: “Down with Autumn Wonder,” “Why have Autumn Wonder when you can have all the Sweet Seasons?” “Keep Sweet Seasons Alive and Baking!”
Oh god…
“You made all these yourself?” I picked up a ‘Fuck Autumn Wonder’ sign that was etched in pink glitter.
“Yeah! Aren’t they pretty? I’ve been working on them all day! Excuse me for a second, I’ll be right back.”
I looked over the set of signs by the window and wondered why one of them featured a picture of a bomb blowing up the expansion store.
I picked up a copy of the Fayetteville Observer and cringed as I read the highlighted article:
New Mega Coffee Shop Threatens Neighborhood Staple
Fayetteville’s last family-owned sweet shop, Sweet Seasons, is already feeling the heat from three month old mega shop Autumn Wonder. Already an anomaly, Sweet Seasons has managed to survive against the likes of Starbucks due its addictive bakery offerings and locally-influenced coffee blends. However, now that Autumn Wonder has moved in with the same exact offerings at a much cheaper price, you can bet that times will be a lot harder for the little shop that’s a mere two miles away from its newest competitor.
Sweet Seasons originally opened in 1985 as a simple coffee shop, but once the owner, affectionately known to the community as “Kathleen Kelly,” brought one of her homemade pies to work for a Christmas celebration, an employee suggested that she incorporate it onto the menu. Months later, there were twenty signature pies on the menu, and years later—twenty seven years later to be exact, that same employee, Lance Michaels still offers his suggestions for Sweet Seasons.
“I hate Autumn Wonder and Starbucks!” he says. “They’re the reason why coffee isn’t sacred anymore! All they do is muscle the little guys out and their coffee tastes like shit!” [sic]
I couldn’t bear to finish reading the rest of it. I slid the paper underneath a stack of signs and sighed. I heard Selena come back into the room and turned around to see that she’d changed into a set of pink long-sleeved flannel pajamas.
What the…
“I think I preferred your first outfit.”