Autumn Dream

Buddy: Lol the slow burn is burning slowly but surely! Thank you for reading! 🫶

I really ran with my ability to yap endlessly for this story 🤣 But I'm glad you think so! I'd mused about splitting them up into shorter chunks, but most of the chapters have a specific theme or arc to them that I wanted to keep whole. So. You get giant chapters. LOL Lots of things going on with the growing cast! Pru is a trooper. And yes, interesting that Buddy keeps popping up. Why would he hang around... Thanks for reading! 🫶

Aw I'm glad it's landing that way! Definitely my intention to include and balance between lots of emotions — because that's just life! A little melancholy, a little happy, the ability to laugh at the good and bad — and a big, fragile ball of hope. 💖 And the food is definitely big for me here, because I think that's a big part of life for so many people too. Food as love and food as memory. Oh good, because I crack myself up writing some of these scenes. Glad to spread the joy 😂 Thank you! I love Buddy dearly. He's absolutely an onion. If an onion had a giant gooey marshmallow under the first layer. What? I didn't say that. Carry on. Thank you for reading! 🫶

Fair! This is a little bit enemies-to-lovers 😂 Poor Buds does have his reasons. The slow burn is slow-burning. But I think Violet clues us in to the real Buddy: In Keysbridge, his armor is up, he's angry about the situation that placed him there, and he's taking it out on Chase in particular — but softening slowly in spite of himself. Simon is a sweetheart. But yes, very bold and flirty 😂

Lol indeed!

I wonder, indeed... Poor Chase is still learning when to keep his mouth shut. 😂 They’re both young, though — still learning and maturing. And methinks they’re both enjoying their dynamic more than either of them lets on... Luckily, the actual baking seems to have most of Chase’s attention — even if a certain assistant manager is unusually good at distracting him.

“Well done, Chase,” Violet began in her usual composed voice, calm and precise. But there was more warmth under it now — something softer than her sharp eyeliner and the clipped professionalism she wore like a blazer. Afternoon light spilled through the tall office windows behind her, warm and gold in that particular October way, striping the floorboards and catching on the neat stacks of paperwork spread across her desk. Chase sat very still. He’d come in expecting feedback. Not

Great question! We’ll find out later! A non-spoilery answer at least is that they passed away three years before this — and they did leave Chase with some insurance/ other financial benefits. It went toward the funerary expenses, settling debts, legal costs, paying off a portion of their mortgage, a locked away fund for Pru, etc. Enough that it did help them for a couple years, but that now Chase is struggling and refuses to touch savings meant for Pru.

At this point in the story, Chase is a couple months shy of turning twenty-one, and Pru is about six-and-a-half. Their parents had Pru much later than Chase, when Chase was fourteen. And the mysterious stranger is roughly twenty-four! 😁 Thank you for reading!

Buddy's a mysterious one! And Chase loves tall, dark and mysterious... but that totally doesn't apply to Buddy. Pshht The little baker can definitely bake! 🧑‍🍳🍪

I love writing these two dorks' banter 😌 Glad you're enjoying it! And YES! Gilmore Girls, Waitress, and some of my own family stories/recipes are a lot of the inspiration for Chase and Keysbridge. I binged some of Gilmore Girls again before I started writing this last year 😂 Buddy is being punished! Intriguing... Love triangle, you say? 👀

Thank you! I’m glad the interview and Chase’s first few days at Keyhouse are landing — and I’m glad Simon has you wondering where that whole situation might go. 😁 He's a fun character. And that’s honestly a fair point about the workplace hierarchy! The Ashton brand is definitely meant to operate as a high-end hospitality company, particularly at its larger properties. Violet and Keysbridge itself are a little less formal, though, and the Keysbridge Inn is more of a boutique small-town property within the brand’s portfolio. You’re right, though — Buddy is management, but he isn’t Chase’s department head. Chase reports to Agatha, so there is still a hierarchy, just not a direct supervisor/subordinate relationship between the two of them. Day to day, they interact a little more like coworkers than boss and employee. At the same time, Buddy himself isn’t exactly modeling perfect managerial professionalism with Chase either — he’s still learning, too. He needles him, gives him nicknames, makes little personal jabs, and generally keeps engaging when he could simply move on. And Chase has a terrible habit of speaking before his survival instincts catch up with his mouth. 😅 He knows he needs the job badly and absolutely does not generally think talking back to management is a great career strategy. A lot of the comedy for me is that Buddy, specifically, seems unusually capable of short-circuiting that filter. Chase says something impulsive, then has the immediate internal realization of, oh, right, this man is management and I am on a trial week. I also see Keyhouse itself developing a somewhat different culture from what Buddy is used to within the Ashton portfolio — still professional, but warmer and less rigid under Violet, Agatha, etc. Buddy is probably the person most inclined to import the more formal corporate hierarchy into that environment, while Chase is almost incapable of being formal for very long. So I agree that there’s a line there, and I don’t want Chase to come across as though he thinks being outside Buddy’s direct reporting chain means Buddy has no authority at all. But I also don’t want to lose the fact that the two of them seem to bring out a particularly unprofessional streak in each other. That tension is pretty intentional. And yes — if Buddy ever crossed from prickly/antagonistic into genuinely mistreating Chase as an employee, Agatha and Violet would absolutely have something to say about it. Violet already has a pretty good read on him — which we’ll see plenty of. 😂 Thanks again for the thoughtful comment! I really appreciate readers flagging places where the character dynamic bumps up against real-world experience, especially when you’ve actually worked in that environment. I’ve worked in event planning with hotels but not for hotels, so it helps to hear more from that world!

Whaat? Buddy being a try-hard to prevent falling in love with Hallmark town and little bakers? Never! 😂 Poor Buds has his reasons for the grumpiness... Thanks for reading!

The boy on the balcony glared at the stars like they’d personally offended him. He was used to more light pollution — to skylines that drowned the sky out entirely — so the Milky Way spilling across Keysbridge felt less like wonder and more like mockery. Another reminder of how far he was from home. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel sunlight on his skin. Taste the salt and citrus in the air. Catch the faint echo of whispered encouragements. Or maybe he had invented that

Oh to live in the cute fictional little town of Keysbridge, Connecticut. I wish fall was as pretty where I live 😂 Chase is the best, but he does need a hug and a vacation! Prunella is cute chaos 💯 Thanks for reading!