BRIAN

The smell of burning pancake batter filled the kitchen.

I stood over the stove with a black plastic spatula in my hand, staring down at the cast-iron skillet. The edges of the pancake were dark black, and thick gray smoke was rising up toward the ceiling fan. Across the kitchen island, Daisy sat on a high wooden stool, wrapped in my big gray sweater. Her chin rested on her hands, and she was watching me fail with a huge smile on her face.

"You know," Daisy said, her voice full of joke, "if your security business fails, you should definitely not open a bakery."

"The stove dial is bad,"...