Lark woke ear­ly, and togeth­er they left the house qui­et­ly, leav­ing Kel­lan upstairs. Lark pre­pared an arm­ful of lilacs and a maple bough, cre­at­ing a lush spray for the car ride to Labrino’s. As day broke, Lark com­fort­ed Rainy, reas­sur­ing him that lis­ten­ing to their friend was a sign of true friend­ship despite his feel­ings of fail­ure. They adorned the fence with the flow­ers and soon turned their atten­tion to the local shop, Bread.

Owned by Maudie Antoinette, Bread began as a bak­ery known for deli­cious domed peas­ant loaves made from a secret recipe left by a van­ished Span­ish bak­er. In less than a year, Lark had befriend­ed Maudie, bond­ing over cher­ished books and a barter arrange­ment with a local dis­tiller. Their friend­ship led to inte­grat­ing a used book shelf into the bak­ery, slow­ly expand­ing into an entire wall of book­shelves, trans­form­ing it into a quaint book­shop filled with char­ac­ter.

As they unpacked books, cus­tomers appeared, pri­mar­i­ly for Maudie’s bread and pas­tries. An old man entered the shop, bring­ing an air of delight as he browsed the shelves. Lark’s pride in their shop was evi­dent. The old man engaged Lark, even­tu­al­ly inquir­ing about what lay under the counter. When Lark revealed the rare Mol­ly Thorn, he was tak­en aback and expressed his long­ing to pur­chase it, although she hes­i­tat­ed. He promised to return.

As they pre­pared for Lark’s upcom­ing birth­day, Rainy felt antic­i­pa­tion over­shad­ow­ing ear­li­er grief. Mean­while, Kel­lan orga­nized dec­o­ra­tions while Rainy con­tact­ed friends for food and drinks. The night of the cel­e­bra­tion was live­ly, filled with music and laugh­ter, rem­i­nis­cent of a com­mu­nal gath­er­ing with­out the pres­sure of cor­rect­ness.

The old man also attend­ed, enjoy­ing the music and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it as the gath­er­ing grew. He shared whiskey and offered thought­ful reflec­tions on life, appre­ci­at­ing Lark’s pres­ence as a trea­sure to the com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, Rainy not­ed Kel­lan’s absence and sought him out, frus­trat­ed but even­tu­al­ly rejoin­ing the cel­e­bra­tion.

As the night wound down and guests depart­ed, Lark found warmth in Rainy’s embrace. They dis­cussed the mer­ry chaos of the evening and turned toward dreams of chil­dren they nev­er had. In a ten­der moment, Lark shared visions of adven­tures and names fit­ting their imag­ined son and daugh­ter, draw­ing Rainy into a dream­like con­ver­sa­tion as the night slipped away.