Devil's Food at Dusk

by Anna Martin

  “Dad?” Remy’s day was getting more and more surreal.

  “Yeah. I think we both realized we’d made a mistake. I knew all along, but it took me too long to figure out that it was a mistake that I didn’t want to make permanently. Losing you wasn’t worth looking good for my job. It wasn’t worth it.”

  “Is that why you quit?”

  Joe shrugged. “I just didn’t want to be that person anymore.” He looked nervous. “What I really want is to be here. With you. But that’s going to be up to you. I didn’t do this as a bribe.”

  “You’re going to give me this place and walk away if I say I don’t want you back.”

  Joe’s face flashed pain, but he nodded.

  Remy walked closer and looped his arms around Joe’s neck. “You’re just… going to give it to me and fuck.” He lunged up and kissed Joe, hard and quick. “I can’t believe you.”

  “I’m sorry, Remy. So, so sorry. Will you believe that?”

  Remy looked around him. Yeah, he believed it all right. “I do. And I’m going to pay you back for this.” Joe looked stricken. “No. That doesn’t mean that I want you to walk, I just… can’t. I can’t take a restaurant as a gift even if you and I work this out.”

  “We’ll talk about it, okay? How ’bout that? I just—I would’ve done this with you, but I didn’t think you’d let me. This was the best way I could think of to show you how sorry I was.”

  Remy nodded. He brushed Joe’s hair, loose and unstyled for once, off his face. “I get it. I really do. This place… it’s perfect.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “Can I kiss you again?” Remy asked. He’d missed it so much. Joe’s kiss, his arms, the touch of his skin. He missed it, and it was right in front of him, and he wanted it back.

  “Yes.” Joe nodded, chuckling a little. “Yes, please.”

  Three months later….

  The dining room at the new Cafe Stella was a swirl of colors, pale yellows and whites, emerald green, navy blue and deepest purple. White tablecloths, wood floor, lights everywhere strung over beams and draped off poles on the ceiling. It looked like some sort of fairyland, complete with soft guitar music and smells like Joe had never smelled before.

  “It looks amazing in here,” Magnolia murmured from the doorway. She had the cafe’s namesake in her arms decked out in a frilly purple dress and a silver headband with a yellow crystal star on it. Joe had found that headband one day when he and Remy had been shopping for a birthday gift for Grace. It looked perfect against her dark curls.

  “Doesn’t it? I’m so proud of him. Both of them.” Joe smiled the smile that everyone had started calling his Remy smile. The one he had when he watched him cook, pore over plans for the new dining room, and argue with Andre about menu items and decor. Magnolia's returning smile was similar. She'd been smiling a lot like that lately. “The table’s set out in the courtyard. Everyone’s out there,” Joe told her.

  He gestured to where the entire Babineaux clan was gathered, plus Shawn and Bryce and their parents. Joe and Grace had set long tables with white cloths and clusters of candles, lanterns were strung across the space between the buildings, and the entire courtyard glowed purple in the soft wash of dusk.

  Magnolia put her hand on her chest. “It’s amazing,” she breathed.

  Joe grinned. “Please go tell Remy that. I think he’s about to have a heart attack.”

  “I will. But I think I need to find the other chef first,” she said with a small smile.

  Joe watched her search the small crowd for Andre. When she found him, he looked up, like he knew Magnolia was near. Andre put his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. Magnolia blushed.

  Finally. Joe hadn’t been watching their dance for nearly as long as everyone else, but he’d cheered just as hard as the rest of the family when Andre told them he’d gotten the nerve to ask Magnolia to dinner. It had only been a few weeks, but if Andre’s constant grin was anything to go by, things were working out for the two of them. And Joe had other things to focus on that night.

  It was the tasting party for family and friends, the final voting round before they took Cafe Stella’s first seasonal menu to print. Joe had watched Remy and Andre get more and more wound up over the past few days. As far as Joe could tell, they had no reason to worry.

  The tables were piled with dishes from pastas to salads, grilled fish and meats, grape and olive studded bread. Everything was new and exciting, experimental, different… except one thing that nobody had been willing to let go. A towering drunken devil cake sat glistening, chocolatey and perfect, on the corner of the table for when tasting and voting was done and celebration time began.

  Remy waited until all of their friends and family were seated. “Thanks for coming,” he said to the crowd gathered at the two long tables. Andre stood next to him and grinned silently. Joe watched Remy, more proud than he could ever remember being of anyone ever. “It means a lot to both me and Andre that everyone is here tonight. Please eat, drink, and have a good time. But don’t forget to vote before you start the drinking part!” Everyone chuckled. “Seriously, we love everyone here. All of you. Tonight wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  Remy nodded and sank into his seat. Joe reached over and squeezed his thigh.

  “Grab your forks,” Andre called. “We start in three, two, one…. Okay, everyone, dig in!”

  About the Authors

  MJ O’Shea has never met a music festival, paintbrush, or flower crown she can stay away from. She loves rainstorms and a perfect cup of tea, beach days, music, bright colors, and more than anything a cozy evening with a really great book. She is from the Pacific Northwest and while she still lives there and loves it, MJ has the heart of a wanderer. So she puts all her dreams of far off places and extraordinary people in her books.

  * * *

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  Anna Martin is from a picturesque village in the South West of England and now lives in Bristol. After spending most of her childhood making up stories, she studied English Literature at University before turning her hand as a professional writer. Apart from being physically dependent on her laptop, Anna is enthusiastic about writing and producing local grassroots theater, visiting friends who live in other countries, Marvel Comics, learning new things, and Ben&Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk.

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  A Sneak Peak of Macarons at Midnight

  Coming Soon from Mj O’Shea and Anna Martin!

  Don’t drop it… don’t drop it… oh no, no, no… “Son of a freaking bitch! Ow!” The bag in Henry Livingston’s hand slipped, like he’d known it would all along. That’s what you get for being lazy, isn’t it?

  He’d been running late and trying to do too many things at the same time. Of course, he’d tripped on the one uneven tile he knew was there, which had always been there, and poof went a twenty-pound bag of flour everywhere. He’d tried to grasp the heavy bag with his fingernails and nearly pulled one out in the process, but no luck. There was a thick, squishy thump, and then the sound of industrial paper ripping on the corner of the worktop.

  Anyone who didn’t know exactly how much flour a twenty-pound bag could hold probably didn’t want to find out. The mess turned his kitchen into something like the aftermath of a disaster movie, spread out all over the black and white floor tiles. White powder floated through the air, slow, and in a weird way somehow enchanting, catching the rays of light and dusting every surface in Henry’s pristine kitchen. His pristine kitchen he’d just wiped down only minutes before. Of course. The whole place looked like some kind of drug bust gone awry, the nail bed of his left index finger throbbed like the devil, and he was st
ill late. As usual.

  Wasn’t disaster the rule for those sorts of situations? It was for Henry. Disaster seemed to follow him everywhere he went—at least where messes could be made.

  “What have you done this time, twinkle toes?” Millie, called from the front room.

  His assistant wandered back, fanning herself with her hand and laugh-coughing at the floury mess. Millie’s intense cherry-red hair had flown out of her bun, humidity and the heat from the bakery turning her bright, wiry curls into a dandelion puff around her head. Henry had to smile. Even if she was laughing at him. She giggled some more while she pointed at Henry, covered in powder, staring at the explosion as if he could somehow make it disappear with his mind. No respect. None. He didn’t figure he’d ever get any from Millie. She was more like another older sister than an employee, and as much as they might bitch at each other, Henry wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “I’ve only been out front for five minutes! How’d you already manage to turn your kitchen into a coke raid?”

  He snorted out a frustrated laugh. “I was trying to get ahead for once, mix the dough for the Schwartz bat mitzvah cookies tonight so I only had to bake and decorate them tomorrow, but instead of getting ahead, I have a half an hour of cleaning to do, no dough, and I’m already running late for dinner at my parents’ place.”

  “When are you supposed to be there?”

  Henry gave Millie a sheepish smile. “Twenty minutes.” Not a chance he was going to make it. Punctuality had never been Henry’s strong suit.

  Millie shook her head. “Someday you’ll be on time to something that doesn’t have to do with this damn bakery.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Shoo with you, then.” She waved him off. “I don’t have any plans. I’ll clean it up.” She cocked an eyebrow. “But this is coming out of your holiday bonus.”

  Henry grinned at her. He might be the owner of Honeyfly Cakes and Cookies, but they both knew who was really in charge. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, though. I owe you.”

  “Give Trix a kiss for me,” she said.

  Despite never quite understanding each other’s lives, Millie and his real sister had always gotten along. Sometimes, when they ganged up on him especially, Henry regretted introducing them. It was a disaster when they got together and decided what was best for him. Like James. Or that lavender V-neck sweater from Brooks Brothers that made him feel like some prepped out Easter bunny. Still, he was glad he had both of them. And sometimes glad they had each other.

  “I’ll tell her. You do have a phone, though.”

  Millie snorted. “Why bother when she’s in here all the time? Besides, it looks like I have some work cut out for me with all this.” She gestured at the piles of settling flour all over the floor. Henry winced.

  “Okay, I’m out.”

  Henry had walked to work that morning instead of taking his bike since the early predawn had been so warm and lovely, slowly turning from black to a blushy lavender and coating the West Village with a rosy glow. It was his favorite part of living in the neighborhood, and Henry hadn’t wanted to miss it. Of course, nothing was quite as picturesque while jogging in long pants, with his heavy messenger bag hitting him on the back in sweltering six o’clock late-summer heat. He needed a long, cold shower, but that was going to have to wait until he got home from dinner.

  He barely had time to change, but somehow didn’t think his mom would appreciate Converse, a T-shirt, and some ratty old jeans with a sticky dusting of flour and sweat. At least he had an excuse not to stay long. That dough wasn’t going to mix itself, and he had a two-hundred-cookie special order to get out the door by the time the shop closed tomorrow. Henry had a super early morning in his near future. The kind that started after he got home from dinner and took a two- or three-hour nap.

  He rinsed off quickly when he finally made it home to his fourth-floor apartment, sweaty and still coated with flour. More thorough showering could wait, but he had to look like a human, at least, and not the abominable snowman. Or Pablo Escobar. He dressed in loafers and khakis, a pale blue button-up, and a summer-weight jacket before he shoved his wallet in his pocket and grabbed his keys. Good enough? Probably not, since he’d gotten it at Banana Republic and not right off the runway. Too bad. It had to be.

  A large black vintage Rolls Royce Phantom was waiting on the street when he pulled open the front door to his building. Henry rolled his eyes but smiled. Of course. His dad had a thing for the old cars, and the Phantom was one of his favorites. He typically had Ollie get it out when he had a point to make—like how much Henry was missing by living downtown instead of where he belonged. Henry usually ignored his father’s rather heavy-handed points. Pointedly.

  “Hey, Ollie,” Henry said. He felt his face split with a genuine smile.

  The family’s driver had been with them since Henry was a little boy. He was family to Henry, who’d spent more time with him on the trips back and forth to school than he’d ever spent with his actual parents growing up. Ollie’s hair had slowly turned from black to salt-and-pepper to nearly white, and his skin sagged a bit around the edges, but other than that, nothing had changed. He was familiar and comforting.

  Ollie opened the back door for Henry. “Your father thought you might need a car,” Ollie told him.

  The same thing happened every time. Henry had been planning to take the subway like he did whenever he wanted to get anywhere and walking or biking wouldn’t work, but his parents weren’t fans of the thought of him getting on the train. When had the subway ever been good enough for a Livingston? According to them, never. Besides, if he got to their house on his own steam, how would they have the chance to remind him of what he was missing so dearly?

  “Thanks, Ollie. It will be nice not to have to go down into the subways. It’s hot today.” Henry slid into the cool, dark interior of his father’s favorite toy.

  Ollie smiled and closed the door behind him.

  Henry did whatever it was people always did when they girded their loins. He put his armor on, got his witty banter and his excuses ready for why he’d missed the last few family dinners. Loins were girded. Henry was ready. Dinner with the folks. Always relaxing.

  * * *

  Ollie pulled up to the front entrance of Henry’s family home, a stuffy sandstone townhouse on east Eighty-Second Street. He’d never liked it there, even when he was little. He’d spent hours in his bedroom that he’d plastered with band posters and travel photographs to try to make it look like a little slice of home and not like the stuffy stone monsters that marched up and down the street – including his own. He’d escaped to the park and the museums when he was old enough to go alone. His sister had blended perfectly into Upper East Side life, into society and the right clothes at the best events, but it had never been for him. He’d been ecstatic when he was finally old enough to move away other than a visit or two a month.

  He got out and opened the door for Henry.

  “Have a good night, sir,” Ollie said.

  “Ollie. It’s Henry. I’m really not ‘sir’ material.” He’d always hated being called “sir” instead of his name. It’d started somewhere around his eighteenth birthday, and he’d been trying to get Ollie to knock it off ever since.

  “Of course. Have a good night.”

  The door opened as soon as Henry put his first foot on the stairs that lead to a thick-windowed oak door.

  “Evening, sir.” His parents’ butler guided Henry into the foyer. Here we go again. It was silent as usual. Heavy in its pristine quiet. Thick Persian carpet covered the marble-tiled floor. The walls were tall covered in heavy floral wallpaper and dark cherry-stained wainscoting. Stiff. Formal. Cold.

  Welcome home.

  “Hey, Hudson.” Henry knew it drove Hudson insane when he was so casual, just like Ollie refused to call him by his name. It was part of the reason why he did it. He smiled to himself. The little rebellions felt so good, and really, everyone needed to loosen the hell
up.

  It had been weeks since Henry had made it back to the Livingston townhouse. He’d grown good at excuse making, and the old place made him itch. He started toward the sitting room, where his family was sure to be enjoying heavily poured before-dinner cocktails, before Hudson had a chance to close the door and lead him in. It was another tiny rebellion. It felt as good as the first one.

  “Sir, if you’ll follow me,” Hudson said, walking quickly to get in the appropriate and proper position to escort Henry to the sitting room. They’d probably all been waiting for him for at least half an hour. He did feel a little guilty about that.

  Henry succumbed to politeness and let Hudson do his job, even if Henry had lived in this house until he turned eighteen and he knew damn well where he was going. He found his family exactly where he’d expected them to be, seated with cocktails in the peacock blue sitting room, waiting for their perpetually late and infuriatingly quirky son.

  Their words. Not his.

  “Sorry I’m late, guys. Bit of a disaster at the bakery.”

  He saw his mother flinch when he used the word “guys.” Henry smiled. His mother and sister got up to hug him. They’d both long since learned there was no point in trying to get him to close the bakery and move back uptown where he “belonged.” Veiled reminders aside, they no longer put much effort into trying.

  “Hello, darling. You look well.” His mother’s voice was welcoming. Social. Not exactly maternal.

  They liked each other in small to medium doses, and he supposed they loved each other as well, in a way, but he didn’t know his mother much better than he knew any of the other socialites in her circle. He might as well have been greeting any of them. She was dressed immaculately, as usual. Champagne-colored Chanel pantsuit, beige patent pumps, gold jewelry, chignon without a single flyaway strand. Perfect.