I'm sorry for the delay. If you haven't checked my profile recently (and that's not really a surprise, haha), long story short, I had some computer problems that prevented me from getting this up, though it's been done for months. But here it is now. Chapter 7 is in the works— which happens to be the second-to-last chapter, btw— but I'm not sure when I'll be done. Hopefully soon, because I feel like this chapter is pretty uneventful.

Anyway, thanks if you're still reading this. We're almost there.

x x x

Chapter six

Things with Katie got better by the day, until they were back to however they'd been before. Or at least, Carl thought that they might be, if that were even possible—Katie seemed so different now. And he knew he was different, too.

Talking to Ellen again reminded him of why he'd started dating her in the first place. That undisruptive quality he'd grown to inwardly criticize now sometimes came as a comfort, especially compared to the firestorm that was Katie. With Ellen, he didn't have to worry about emotions bouncing out of control with just a word or a glance from either party.

But it was because of exactly that that he knew he didn't love Ellen, and he probably never had. As to how he actually felt about her now—well, that got hard to figure out at times. Whenever he thought of her, he felt a little sad, but then the sadness got clouded up with pictures of Katie, and then he wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"Would you like to go to the moonlight festival together?"

It was one of those questions Carl knew was coming, before Ellen even opened her mouth. Before he'd even gotten to Blue Sky Ranch, in fact. He could sense as he closed up the café that day with Katie that something was different that night, though this wasn't the first time Ellen had asked him to visit her at the ranch.

"Oh, I don't know, Ellen." They stood against the fence in the field beyond her house, watching Bob herd the cows into the barn. The breeze tugged at the hem of her skirt, at his unbuttoned collar. "It's kind of a couples thing, isn't it?"

"I know that," she said, and the tone of her voice made it apparent she was embarrassed. "That's why I asked."

"I…I don't think I'm ready for that, to be honest." He knew he wouldn't ever be, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Oh." He wasn't looking at her, but the way she sounded so vulnerable made him want to squirm. "I need to know, Carl. Is it…is it someone else?"

"No, I—maybe. Maybe it is." It had finally come to this—he knew he couldn't run from it anymore.

Ellen kept a poker face, though her voice betrayed her. "It's okay. You can say it."

"All right, all right." He licked his lips, his mouth going dry at the thought of what he was about to say. "Let's just say—hypothetically speaking—that it's the café."

She was quiet for a long time. "I see. So you're going to the festival with the café?"

"No, no! You know what I mean, don't you? Isn't that why you broke up with me, because of the café, and all the time I spend on it?"

She laughed, and he realized she'd been teasing him. Of course. "Okay, okay, it's the café," she said, smiling a bit. "What about it?"

Carl grasped at his curls anxiously, feeling them scrunch in his fingers. "So it's because…the café is making me so crazy right now. She—hypothetically speaking, the café is female—she just…makes me crazy. Oh wait, crazy, that's an awful word. I don't mean that. I'm not crazy. She isn't either. I mean, I'd like to think she's not—I'm still talking about the café, of course…"

"I don't know about the café's sanity, Carl, but I'm starting to wonder about yours. You're not making much sense right now."

"I'm sorry, you're right. Let me start over. Okay. The café." He took a deep breath, and spoke slower, though he still stumbled over his words. "She's on my mind all the time lately. It's…it's actually not very pleasant, if you'd really like to know, because it makes it hard to do—well—anything. Like my job. Or to eat. Or sleep. You know, basically everything I need to do to live. And every time it happens, every time I think about her—the café—I just want to be there, right next to her. For absolutely no reason at all. And I smile—it just happens—I smile just because she's there. It's…it really is crazy. There's no other word for it."

It took Carl a moment to notice his face hurt from smiling so hard. He quickly sobered up and waited for Ellen's reaction.

She was quiet a long time, so long that he began to regret saying so much, and in such a vague, silly manner, but then she said, "It sounds like you're in love, Carl. With the café, of course."

"Is that so," he murmured in wonder, taken aback by her bluntness.

"Yes."

They stood there for a while longer, even after Bob had shut the door behind the last meandering cow. The darkness stained the sky completely now, and the almost full moon watched them unabashed.

"You know, Carl, I'm jealous," she said at last, as a chilly night breeze skipped along the tips of the long grass. "I want to find the man—the café—that I'm meant to be crazy with."

He looked at her and saw she was smiling. He grinned back.

"You will, Ellen. I know it."

x x x

"All right. We've been practicing this for a few days now. Do you think you can do this on your own?"

"This was your idea," Katie said, scowling at him. "If you've changed your mind, then just say so."

"You're right, you're right," Carl said, tugging his sleeves down to his wrists and then pushing them back up to his elbows again, a nervous habit. "Okay. Let's get started."

"I'm supposed to be nervous, not you," Katie grumbled under her breath as she started collecting ingredients.

She had her back to him so she couldn't see him smile. "This is my kitchen, so of course I'm nervous," he said in a stern voice, in spite of his facial expression. "Need I remind you of the Great Calloway Café Kitchen Fire of Last Week?"

She made a face at him when she turned back around, scrunching her mouth in an attempt to look indignant, but he could tell she was trying not to smile herself. "No, I remember it quite well myself, thank you."

It was early, much earlier than Katie normally came in, though Carl was used to being up early to do all of the baking before the café opened. But until now, he'd always done it alone. They'd only just started these early morning baking sessions for the past week or so. Carl had decided it was time she started doing more than just waitressing—his decision, of course, being heavily influenced by the fact that she demanded he let her do more than "sweep up the crumbs."

The day he'd hired Katie, Ronald told him she had some skills in the kitchen, though Katie herself had said she was no good at pastries. However, he now knew the former was an exaggeration and the latter a severe understatement.

The naïve Carl of one week ago decided to start her off with what he felt was a safe, simple task. He asked Katie to stick a couple cake pans in the oven—he'd already filled them and preheated the oven—and check them after twenty minutes. It took thirty-five for him to smell the smoke up at the front of the café, though he didn't consciously notice it then, and another five after that for Katie smell it too and dash to the kitchen.

It was then that Carl instituted the morning baking boot camps, to instill important habits such as setting a timer. He gave her a much more in-depth tour of the kitchen, went over all the safety procedures, and finally, over the past couple of days, they'd tackled baking cakes. He must have drilled her a hundred times until she had the recipe memorized, down to every last measurement and step.

Translating that information, however, proved difficult. As Carl observed her, he saw that Katie seemed to have no concept of staying tidy while she worked. Her hands, fumbling now to crack an egg, were absolutely coated with flour, as was half the countertop she was using.

"Oh!" she gasped, cracking the egg against the counter with too much force, so that it exploded right on the spot. Her head jerked up to look at him, and, perceiving his pained look, said with haste, "Don't worry about it. I'll clean it all up when we're done, I swear."

He merely sighed in response. She picked up another egg and raised her hand, poised to crack it, but Carl quickly stopped her.

"You're being too forceful," he said, grabbing her wrist and lowering it. "You need to be gentle. Maybe I should show you."

"You've already shown me," Katie answered, obviously frustrated—not with him, but with her own inability. "I just can't do it, I guess. Maybe we should give up. This was a bad idea."

"No, no, don't say that. I meant, let me actually show you." He released his hold on her wrist and put his hand on hers, moving it and the egg over to the bowl. "First of all, if you don't know how to do it, start with cracking it on the bowl rather than the counter. It's easier that way."

"Okay." He could hear the concentration in her voice, and she seemed unaware of their awkward position—he had to stand partially behind her, his arm pressed to hers, his chin hovering near the top of her head. It made him giddy with unease, but he kept his hand steady.

"Keep your other hand on the bowl to stabilize it." Katie obeyed the instruction. "You should only have to tap it once. Do it firmly and swiftly, but don't use too much pressure. Like this—pay attention to how it feels." There was a wet cracking sound, the egg splitting perfectly across its center. "See?" He took his hand off of hers so she could drop the yolk and egg white into the bowl.

"Jeez," Katie sighed in awe, shaking her head. "You're so good at this! I wonder if I'll ever get the hang of it."

"Of course you will," he assured her in a quiet voice. He smiled and leaned against the counter next to her, looking down at his shoes. He paid close attention to how they were only inches away from hers. "You just need to practice."

Her eyes followed his gaze to the floor, and it seemed then she noticed their closeness. They looked back up at each other at the same time. Then, slowly, Katie reached up and pressed her hand hard against Carl's cheek.

"What…what are you doing?" he asked, his words distorting slightly since her hand was squishing half of his face.

She waited a second longer before taking her hand away. "I'm giving you a flour handprint."

He stared at her in silence while she smiled at him, waggling her fingers, still coated in flour, an innocent wave. "You look funny," she declared, sounding proud of her work.

Without a word, he picked up both his hands, which had been pressed against the flour-covered counter as he leaned against it, and grabbed either side of her face with his own powdered palms. "Really? Do I?"

"Yesh," she said, her lips puckering comically between the hands pressing in on her cheeks.

"It's 'yes, sir.'"

"Yesh, shir," she corrected herself, holding in a giggle. Then she reached up and took two fistfuls of his hair. He winced, though she wasn't pulling very hard.

"Oh. Tell me you're not putting flour in my hair."

"Oh, but I am." He could feel the muscles of her face underneath his hands straining to smile. He kept his face solemn and didn't budge, instead speaking in an even, ominous tone.

"Let go of my hair right now."

"You let go firsht."

"I'm your boss."

"You wouldn't fire me."

"Katie? Is this what you wanted me to see?"

Both Carl and Katie turned, a difficult task for both of them considering how tangled they were. They saw Joe at the same time. He stood in the kitchen doorway, just inside the door.

"Joe!" Katie released Carl's hair, and so Carl followed suit and dropped his hands. Their elbows and fingers brushed on the way down. "I—I forgot you were coming."

"And I didn't even know you were coming," Carl said through his teeth, smiling at the other man.

"Well, you did invite me, so…" Joe said to Katie, starting to back away. "But maybe I'll come back some other time…"

"No, no, wait!" She grabbed a nearby rag and started frantically wiping at her fingers.

"You invited him?" Carl asked her in a low voice, so that only she would hear.

"Yeah, I wanted him to see my first cake. I didn't think it would take so long, and that he'd see us…never mind." She looked back at Joe, but he was gone, the door swinging in the space he'd previously occupied.

"Oh, darn, he left," Carl muttered sarcastically, but Katie had already tossed the rag back down on the counter and ran after Joe.

x x x

Katie eventually came back after a while. Carl stayed behind in the kitchen and cleaned everything up, getting ready to start making pastries for that day. When Katie finally did return, she was oddly quiet and didn't respond to any of his attempts to get a conversation going. He eventually gave up, too frustrated to continue his cause.

It was when Katie was in the back making a fresh pot of coffee and Carl was at the front clearing tables that he happened to hear a snippet of interesting conversation.

"…Joe's been sulking the whole day. I can't even get him to pick up an ax to chop some wood. That girl really did a number on him this morning."

This was Woody, who Carl knew Joe was working for as an apprentice. He was sitting at a table with Tai.

"Katie, right?" Tai laughed when Woody nodded. "What happened?"

"He tried asking her to the moonlight festival today, but apparently she turned him down flat."

"Really? That's too bad. And kind of a surprise, since they've been spending so much time together lately…"

Carl momentarily forgot his role as stealthy eavesdropper and spoke up. "But that's not right," he exclaimed, hardly able to contain his astonishment. "Joe asked her a week ago and she said yes."

Woody's bushy white eyebrows came together together in a puzzled expression. "No, no, he told me this morning that he just asked today and she said no. You must be thinking of someone else."

Carl shook his head, but Tai already changed the subject, the two old men continuing their chat about other things as though Carl had never spoken.

x x x