chapter 2

Over the next week, Cadence frequently scanned the bakery's dining area in hopes that she'd see Marco again. Eventually, she began to figure that she'd made him uncomfortable and that he probably wouldn't be returning. Just when she'd started accepting that she'd have to get over her nagging hope of seeing him there again, she turned around and saw him looking down intently at the pastry counter, inspecting the donuts.

"Yeah I'll have 2 glazed devil's food cake, 2 apple fritters, 2 chocolate peanut butter, 2 strawberry Danish, 2 Boston cream, 3 old-fashions, and 3 maple bars," he told Gina, the assistant at the register. As Gina filled his box with donuts, Cadence casually made her way over to the counter, pretending like she hadn't seen him yet. His eyes met hers and they exchanged a chuckle of surprise.

"Hey!" they both said together. Cadence began to ring his box up.

"Is this it?" She asked.

"Yep."

As Cadence rang up his order she struggled to find something else to say. "These aren't all for you to eat, are they?" She joked.

"Um, well you know," he got kind of flushed, "I guess so."

Cadence cringed at herself. That was rude of me, she thought, crap. "Sorry, I meant like-" She heard the giggling of some girls behind him in line, probably laughing at what she had said.

"Well, uh, have a good one, thank you" Marco said as he paid and rushed out.

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Cadence felt so awful the rest of the day. She was just trying to make a friendly joke but ended up embarrassing a customer, her neighbor in fact, who she happened to be oddly attracted to. She considered stopping by his apartment to apologize. She decided she'd bring a gift too, and settled on a chocolate muffin. She would have loved to bring him a solid dozen donuts (or two!), but didn't want to seem over eager.

After her drive home, however, she decided to screw that whole plan. She was worried about bugging the poor guy, and didn't want things to get even more awkward than they had been that morning. She sighed and stepped out of her car and into the rain, and blindly ran towards the apartment's entrance with her bag and the boxed muffin in hand.

Suddenly though, she was knocked by someone as she went through the door. The box dropped to the ground and the contents of her bag spilled everywhere. It was Marco that had bumped into her.

They both exclaimed their awkward apologies They bent down together to pick up the mess. "Oh this looks so good," he said grabbing the box.

"Um do you want it?"

"No, it's yours."

"Actually, I get this kind of stuff all the time. " Blood rushed to her face. "I don't even know why I brought it. It's yours."

He smiled, "Thanks. By the way, those donuts from your shop this morning were sooooo good. You're an amazing baker."

"Oh, um, thank you. Sorry if I offended you this morning."

"Oh! That's nothing. Those were just some mean girls laughing. It's fine."

"Oh, well, let me make it up to you sometime. Come in and you'll get coffee and a Danish on the house."

"That'd be great," he smiled.