Angry Baker's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

Allan kept the invitation pinned to the trail marker for three days before he remembered the license. He was carrying flour sacks from the truck when it hit him—February twenty-fourth was less than three weeks away and he hadn't filed the paperwork. He dropped the sacks by the back door and went inside to find the license application. It was still blank, tucked between two cookbooks where he'd left it in November. The paper felt too clean in his hands, like something that should have been filled out months ago. He sat down at the counter and started writing his name, but his hand went still after the first three letters. This wasn't anger freezing him—it was something worse. He'd been so focused on making the bakery work again that he'd forgotten the one thing that would let the wedding happen at all. The license office closed at four-thirty. Allan checked the clock—three forty-five. He could make it if he ran the four blocks, but the application needed both signatures. Melissa was at the house, not here. He grabbed his coat and drove home instead, the blank license on the seat beside him. When he pulled up, Melissa was in the garden. He held up the paper through the window. "We need to fill this out now," he said. She looked at the blank lines and her face went pale. "How close is the deadline?" she asked. "Friday," Allan said. "Three days." They filled it out together at the kitchen table, then drove to the license office with ten minutes to spare. The clerk took the application and stamped it without looking up. Allan waited for relief, but it didn't come. Instead he felt the weight of what he'd almost ruined—not through anger this time, but through forgetting. On the drive back, Melissa was quiet. Finally she said, "We're going to need a list. For everything else." Allan nodded. He'd spent so much time trying to prove his bakery could succeed that he'd nearly let the wedding slip away. The license was filed now, but the close call had shown him something he couldn't ignore—making money wasn't the same as building a life with someone.