“So, you’re serious about the new displays?” I asked, finishing the second beer and setting it back in the cardboard to take home with me.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t, Brady.”
“I guess it took me by surprise because you’ve always maintained that The Fluffy Cupcake was a cupcake shop, not a bread shop.”
“That may have been true when you first started at the bakery, but as with everything in life, things change. Your breads have added to the landscape of the business, and some days, we sell more bread than we do cupcakes. The new wicker and wire displays will showcase the beauty of them better than we can now by keeping them behind the counter. They make new wrapping to keep the bread crusty and still protect the loaves from germs and handling by the public. That was always my biggest hang-up. Now that I can protect the product, I think it’s a win to do it.”
I nodded, my gaze still on the lake. “You don’t mind giving up the tables you’ll need for the displays?”
Haylee’s hands weighed back and forth in front of her. “Everything is a tradeoff, Brady. While we’ll lose a couple of tables where people can sit and visit, I don’t think that will make a huge impact. I plan to put those few tables outside during the summer months for the tourists to use. We don’t have a ton of regulars who sit in the bakery during the winter, so I don’t see a problem with it. The benefit is, the customers can pick out their own loaves rather than the front worker always having to deal with it. It streamlines things, especially during the summer months.”
“All excellent points,” I agreed. “It also allows for impulse buys. People are more likely to buy a couple of loaves when they are in control of picking them out.”
She wore a smile on her beautiful face when she answered. “You’re right. We’ve seen that with the packaged goodies, too. The display cases are beautiful works of art, but when people can grab a couple of different pre-made packages of cupcakes and check out without waiting in line for help, they tend to buy twice as much as they otherwise would. I’m learning to make changes where I see they need to be made. It’s slow, but I’m learning.”
I couldn’t stop myself when my hand came down on her back to rub it up and down a few times. God, she was warm and soft. The longer we sat together, the more her jasmine perfume teased my senses into overdrive.
“I don’t know anything about how to run your business, Haylee, but I think you’re doing great. I can bake bread, but you do it all.”
She tossed her head back and laughed in a way I had heard only a few times in the seven years I worked at The Fluffy Cupcake. The first time I heard it was on the first anniversary of my hire when she brought out the nut roll cupcakes and saw my reaction. The sound went straight through me and lodged somewhere in my chest. I hated that she didn’t laugh like that more often, and I always wondered why. She was reserved and quiet most of the time. It was only on a few occasions that she let her guard down enough to show me little peeks of the real Haylee Davis.
“You underestimate yourself, Brady. I know we knock heads a lot in the bakery, but that’s because we both have strong personalities. We have strengths the other doesn’t, and that’s why we work together so well, even when we’re pelting each other with bread dough.”
“You’re saying I’m indispensable then?” I asked jokingly, and she immediately leaned into me, her laughter filling my head again.
“I’m saying that without your added talents over the last seven years, The Fluffy Cupcake wouldn’t be where it is today. Both Amber and I know that. We were nervous bringing someone on who was an unknown to us and the town, but over the years, you’ve proven yourself to be valuable and dedicated.” She stuck her finger in my chest and gazed at me from under her brows. “And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it until my dying breath.”
I smirked but didn’t remove her finger from my chest. She was touching me, and I didn’t care where or how, as long as she was. “Mums the word,” I promised, zipping my lips and tossing the key into the water.
Haylee’s hand fell to the sand, and she sighed as she gazed out over the lake. “I suppose I should head home. I’m on for baking at four a.m. tomorrow.”
I pushed myself up off the sand and offered her my hand. “Me, too. My boss, I tell you,” I grumped, rolling my eyes.
That same laughter I loved so much filled the air again, and I bit back the moan of pleasure it shot through me, especially when she slipped her hand into mine. I hoisted her up, and she brushed the sand off her pants. It was innocent, but it shot a white-hot poker of desire to my groin.
I was going to need that cold shower sooner rather than later.
Five
I snapped the collar straight on my polo shirt and smoothed it down over my hips. I was already late for the date I didn’t want to go on, but Amber wouldn’t let me cancel. Okay, so technically, I was meeting him in fifteen minutes. Canceling would be rude, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to—especially after spending Sunday night drinking beer on the beach with Brady. I hated that I liked it as much as I did, but I also couldn’t deny it. There was no way a guy like Brady Pearson was interested in anything more than a business relationship with me. Maybe a friendship at the most. Besides, I didn’t want anything more from Brady Pearson, right?
I let out a loud ha and shook my head in disgust. I’d had to remind myself of that the entire time we worked at the bench together this week. He was always brushing by me and innocently caressing my shoulder or smiling that playboy smile of his when he thought I wasn’t looking. I was always looking, which I kind of think he knew and was using to his advantage.
We’d come to a truce about the business, deciding that working together was smarter and more natural than fighting against each other’s ideas. That was where this truce ended, though. Brady was all power, heat, and male sexiness that I wasn’t prepared to wrangle. It would be like a baby tiger trying to take down a fully grown elephant. It wasn’t going to happen.
I flicked the bathroom light off and decided a guy like Tieg Tulip I could wrangle. He was about to pick me up for my twenty-ninth date in my twenty-ninth year of life. I had no illusion that it was going to be the date of a lifetime. I gave it better than a fifty-fifty chance that it would also be the last date of my twenty-ninth year of life for two reasons. His name was Tieg Tulip, and Amber was the one who set us up. Amber might be my best friend, but she would never make an excellent matchmaker.
I grabbed my purse, and a light sweater from the kitchen table then locked the door behind me. I had no intention of letting Tieg know that I lived above the business. I’d done that one time in the past, and it took weeks of ignoring someone knocking on my door to get them to stop. If I didn’t hit it off with Tieg, and let’s face it, I wasn’t going to, I didn’t want him to know where I lived.
Sure, he’d know where I worked, but then everyone knew that. Guys usually shied away from making a scene in a public place, too. They preferred private space for that. I rolled my eyes thinking about the fit Jerry had thrown when I finally had to spell out for him just how disinterested I was in dating him. He was one of the few bright ones who figured out that I lived above the bakery and had climbed the stairs one night while half-drunk to knock on my door. I still don’t know how he made it back down the stairs while drunk and angry without breaking his neck, but somehow, he had.
“Well, if it isn’t the fluffy cupcake,” a sugary sweet voice said from behind me. I sighed. Great, as if things weren’t bad enough with Tieg Tulip, now I had to deal with McFinkle.
“Darla,” I said dryly, leaning up against the front of the bakery. “A delight, as always.”
“I hear you’ll be doing the cupcake bake-off again this year,” she said, her nose turned up in distaste. “I think it’s getting a little worn.”
“You may think whatever you’d like, Darla.” This woman was getting on my last nerve. She could have opinions, but I was tired of always being at the brunt of them.
S
he flipped her hair haughtily and stuck her nose up in the air the way she always does. “Won’t matter. This year, I have the winning recipe. I hope you’re ready to get the pants beat off you. Not even the fluffy cupcake, you, not the business, can top this. It’s going to be epic.”
“I look forward to the competition,” I said, no emotion in my voice whatsoever. Darla could tell me that the sky was green, and I would say she was right. I learned at the ripe old age of six not to trust her or to argue with her. Darla has to be right about everything, and I wasn’t going to be her punching bag more than I already was.
She hiked her bag over her shoulder and sneered at me. “Maybe you should let Brady be the face of the business at the bake-off instead. He’s more, what’s the word,” she motioned her hand around as though searching for the proper way to express herself, “visually appealing than you are.”
“That’s two words, Darla.”
“Two words that describe that fine specimen to a T. I would worry if I were him that those hips and ass of yours swinging around could just knock those cupcakes right off the table.”
“I’ll make sure to send him the memo.”
With her nose in the air and a stick up her ass, she strolled down the street, not even caring that she just ruined my night. I shook out my shoulders and pushed off the wall of the bakery. No, I won’t give her that power. Whenever she comes around calling me names, my mood always plummets, and I couldn’t keep doing that. I was getting better about not engaging with her in an antagonistic way. I had to get better at controlling the way her words hit me, too. It would never be easy, but in the long run, it would always be worth it.
A man strode up the street dressed in a short sleeve dress shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of dress shorts. My gaze strayed to his feet, relief filling me when he wasn’t wearing sandals with socks. He was wearing perfectly acceptable black Nikes—score one for Tieg Tulip.
He pulled himself up short in front of the bakery and thrust a bouquet of, yup, you guessed it, tulips, out to me. “Haylee, I presume?”
I accepted the tulips and smiled. “Tieg, I presume?”
“Of course, who else would bring tulips?” he asked, as though I was a tulip short of a bouquet.
Off to a good start.
I pushed back the eye roll threatening to escape and offered a smile instead. “Who else, indeed. I’ll put these in the cooler inside, and then we can head out?”
“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head. “You can bring them with us. That way, everybody knows I’m a gentleman.”
Blink. Blink.
I was infrequently at a loss for words, but Tieg Tulip had managed it in our first two minutes together. Propelled along the sidewalk by his beefy mitt, I struggled to find something to say to put the night back on track.
“Amber says you’re a science teacher?”
“Ag-science,” he corrected, as though I should know there’s a difference. “I teach small animals and dairy science besides my duties running FFA.”
“Exciting,” I said with fake enthusiasm, even though it sounded a lot like watching paint dry to me. “As a baker, I don’t know where I’d be without my farmers and their fresh eggs and milk.”
“You’d be working somewhere else,” he answered logically.
I bit back a sigh and plastered a smile on my face. “Without a doubt. So, where are we going for dinner?”
“We can eat at a restaurant any day, right?” Tieg asked, and I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I put together a little private picnic at the lake instead. You won’t believe the goodies I’ve got in my basket.”
I was pretty sure, considering our already bizarre conversation, that I would believe it. I was also sure I wasn’t going to be a huge fan of said goodies.
I STROLLED THROUGH the park on the way back to my apartment but paused halfway through, wondering if that was Haylee sitting at a picnic table near the community dock. I tipped my head to the side in fascination. Was that a bouquet of tulips stuck between the slats of the table? She sat across from a guy who looked like the love child of sasquatch and an Abercrombie and Fitch model. Curious, I walked closer, glad the guy had his back turned to me.
When I got a little bit closer, I could see it absolutely was Haylee sitting there with some sort of bento box in front of her. Whatever was going on, her hunched shoulders told me she wasn’t enjoying herself. Her eyes met mine, and what they said had me strolling over to them.
“Oh, hey, Haylee,” I said casually. “I didn’t know you were out and about tonight.”
The look of relief on her face told me I’d read the situation accurately, even from thirty yards away.
“Brady!” she exclaimed with a little too much excitement. “What a surprise.”
“Beat it, buddy,” the guy said, swatting at me like a fly. “We’re on a date.”
My gaze flew back to Haylee, and she was mouthing save me, her eyes filled with desperation.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was looking for Haylee. There’s a problem at the bakery. I need your help,” I said to her, “or we might not be able to open tomorrow.”
The guy across from her snorted like a feral hog. “I’m sure you can handle it with all of your muscles.”
I balled my fists at my side and inhaled deeply to keep myself from punching this guy. I didn’t know who he was, but I wasn’t playing tonight. “I don’t own the bakery, Haylee does. It’s her call on how the oven gets repaired.” I turned and addressed her, hoping she understood there was nothing wrong with her expensive bakery oven. “It won’t heat when I turn it on. Just sits there and clicks.”
She stood instantly, and the dramatic nature had me believing she was frantic. “That’s not good. Not good at all. If we don’t have the oven, we can’t bake that special order for tomorrow. Oh, brother.” Her hand was at her throat as she acted her way into the record books. Haylee turned to the guy across from her. “I’m sorry, Tieg. I will have to address this. I’m sure it will take all night. Thanks for the lovely picnic. It was nice of you to go to all the bother.”
Haylee practically grabbed my hand to get away as fast as possible, but Tieg stopped us in our tracks.
“You forgot your tulips!” he exclaimed, thrusting them at her and going in for a kiss that was inappropriate in the current setting—or ever, for that matter. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him to back off.
I grabbed Haylee’s waist and diverted her around the guy, a growl on my lips while I did it. I propelled her down the street toward the bakery, one hand at her waist and the other plucking the tulips from her hand and tossing them in a garbage can.
“Who was that guy?” I asked, slowing our pace and releasing her waist now that we were far enough away from the beach.
“That was the twenty-ninth date of my twenty-ninth year of life. It was also my last date forever and ever amen. I’m never dating again.”
I bit back my laughter, figuring it wise to listen to her rather than make fun of her. “What about the tulips?”
The sound she made was a cross between a snort and a gag. “His name is Tieg Tulip. He wanted me to carry them around with us during the date, so people knew who gave them to me.”
“Where does Amber find these guys?” I asked in confusion. “I assume Amber set you up.”
Haylee held her arms out. “Oh yes, and she wouldn’t let me cancel when she sprung it on me last minute.”
“There are a few bits of good news here, cupcake,” I assured her when we reached the bakery.
“I sure hope so because the last hour has been nothing but pain.”
I unlocked the door and ushered her in. “The first bit of good news is that there isn’t a thing wrong with the oven.”
She wiped her hand across her brow and sighed. “Definitely good news.”
I led her toward the back of the bakery and motioned her toward the bench. “The second bit of good news is, you just eliminated one more guy that you don’t want
to marry.”
She burst out laughing. It was the kind of laughter that made my groin react instantly. God, she was stunning, and all of these dopeheads didn’t even realize it. “That is the best news of all.”
My finger went up into the air. “Actually, the best news of all is that we’re both free, it’s only six-thirty, and we have the bakery to ourselves.”
“For?” she asked perplexed.
“A trial batch of the newest fluffy cupcake. Strawberry cheesecake sorbet.”
She grabbed an apron off the hook and tied it around her waist, a smile plastered on her face. “I like the way you think, Brady Pearson. Let’s get our cupcake on!”
The high five I gave her before I jogged to the cooler was in place of the kiss I wanted to plunk on her sweet, plump, kissable lips. One day, I would find a way to kiss Haylee Davis without getting slapped, so I’d bide my time with cupcakes—for now.
Six
I licked the frosting off my fingers and grinned at the man across from me. “So?” I asked, the mess around us ignored while I waited for his verdict on the cupcake.
Brady moaned low in his throat, and the pleasure written on his face said eating my cupcake was as orgasmic as making love was. I bit back laughter. Eating my cupcake. Was that some subconscious Freudian thing?
Probably.
It was the fluffy part of the equation that reminded me why a guy like Brady would never eat my cupcake. I had to stop saying that! Guys like Brady don’t date women like me. I was left with guys like Tim, Jerry, and—gag—Tieg. Those were the kinds of guys who didn’t mind the fluffy part of the equation. Well, except Jerry and Tim and Tieg. Ugh. Never mind. They all mind the fluffy part of the equation. Tieg mentioned the size of my hips more times in an hour than I cared to remember. I set the cupcake down, my appetite gone at the thought of his thinly veiled reminders about my weight.
Cupcake (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 1) Page 4
