The Icing on the Cake (Otter Bluff)

by Linda Seed

  She was offering more than minimum wage—just not much more. She wanted to be responsible with her money, and she didn’t want Ryan Delaney to think she was spending freely just because she had a deep-pockets investor backing her.

  Still, she could see her father’s point.

  The next day, Cassie changed the per-hour wage in the ad, raising it by two dollars, and she got a promising e-mail from an applicant within the hour.

  They arranged to meet that afternoon at Cassie’s Cakery.

  “So, why did you leave your last job?” Cassie scanned Dylan Broderick’s resume in her office at the bakery as her applicant sat in the newly purchased visitor chair, one foot resting casually on the opposite knee.

  “The owner was a dick.”

  Cassie looked up sharply, and the guy shrugged and gave her a half grin.

  He had attitude, but that wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. Red hair, freckles, a mischievous, fuck-off look in his eye, and a right arm with a full sleeve of tattoos. But he had experience at one of the best bakeries on the Central Coast.

  “Was he?” She kept her voice casual. “How so?”

  “Woman I worked with had a baby, and he wouldn’t give her maternity leave. He said either she showed up at work when her sick days ran out or he’d find someone else.”

  “But the Family and Medical Leave Act—”

  “Yeah. He told her to sue if she didn’t like it. He knew she wouldn’t, with a new baby and all. Like I said. Dick.”

  “Oh. Well, I’d have to agree with you, then.”

  They talked about his experience—exactly what he’d done, for whom, and for how long—then moved on to the topic of Cassie’s business and her vision for it.

  “I’m new at this,” she said, putting her metaphorical cards on the table. “I’ll make mistakes. But then I’ll learn from them. And I hope to learn from you, since you’ve been around in this business more than I have.”

  He looked at her with cool blue eyes. “You increased the pay in your ad.”

  “I did.”

  “Still not enough for me to have to teach you your job.”

  “You’re absolutely right. It’s not. And I don’t expect you to teach me my job.” Cassie leaned forward at her desk and rested her forearms on the surface. “But if you’ll bear with me while I learn it through trial and error, we can talk about a raise in three months when we see how things are going.” She had an inkling that Dylan’s arrogance might be well-earned and that he might have the skills to back it up. She hoped she was right.

  He narrowed his eyes at her, and she wasn’t sure whether he was going to accept her offer or tell her to go screw herself.

  He leaned forward and offered her his hand. “Deal. When do I start?”

  With Dylan on board, the next couple of weeks were an all-out rush in the run-up to the grand opening. The two of them worked on menus for what the bakery would offer routinely and what they’d be doing for the grand opening in particular.

  Cassie’s specialty was cakes—as the business name indicated—and Dylan’s strength was bread, so that worked out. Lacy had agreed to work the coffee bar in the mornings while Nancy watched the kids. In fact, she seemed excited as hell to be getting out of the house and back to work.

  Fortunately, Cassie didn’t have to spend a lot of money on equipment to make specialty coffees, as much of what she needed had been left behind by Moonstone Mocha.

  The week before the grand opening, Brian came up for a quick visit. Cassie found that vigorous and imaginative sex relaxed her at a time when she greatly needed relaxation. So that was good. But she was too busy to spend much time with Brian outside of bed.

  She’d thought he would understand the reasons for that, but apparently he didn’t, because he kept badgering her to slow down and be with him when she simply didn’t have time for that.

  “I thought we could just hang out, see a movie or something,” he said as she rushed around his bedroom, gathering up her clothes from the floor on her way to the shower.

  “Just hang out?” She stared at him in disbelief. “My grand opening is in less than a week, and I’m nowhere near ready.”

  “I know, but it’s Sunday. Can’t you just—”

  “No, I can’t, Brian. I have to test recipes, get in the rest of my supplies, work on marketing for the opening …”

  “I can help you with the marketing,” he said. “After I get back to LA, I can put together some ideas for you.”

  She was silent, standing there naked except for the ball of clothing clutched to her chest.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just … the marketing. That’s okay. You don’t have to help.”

  “Why not? We’d talked about it. I thought you wanted me to.” He got up from where he’d been lying on the bed and put on some pants. Cassie wished she were wearing pants—fighting felt so much easier when you were properly panted.

  “I did want you to.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, it’s getting close to the day, and you’re …”

  “I’m what?”

  “You’re not really available, that’s all. You’re busy. And I get that. But I can’t wait until you’re ready, because I have to get things moving. I’m running out of time.”

  He nodded, bobbing his head up and down, his face grim as he avoided her gaze. “You don’t have time to wait for me to help you, and you don’t have time to hang out with me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It just means that I barely see you, and now that I’m here—”

  “Whose fault is it that you barely see me?” She’d raised her voice—that meant they were going to get into it. And if they were going to get into it, she needed pants. Cassie quickly put down her clothes, slipped on her panties, and fastened her bra. She pulled on her jeans and slipped her T-shirt over her head as though donning armor for the coming fight.

  “Now we’re talking fault? It’s nobody’s fault,” he said. “People’s mothers need them sometimes. How is that my fault?”

  “It’s not!” Cassie threw her hands up. “It’s not. And it’s nice that you want to be there for your mom. But you can’t just show up when you’ve got a spare minute and you want to get laid, and expect me to drop everything to watch movies with you!”

  Brian was standing with his hands tucked into his armpits. “Okay. Right. Fine. But now I’m offering to help you with some of what you need to get done, and you don’t want my help.”

  “I do want your help. I do! But I can’t wait around until you’re ready to give it!”

  He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Cassie …”

  “It’s fine. Look, Brian, it’s fine. I can do this on my own, and I will. I am. I just can’t get distracted right now.”

  “So now I’m a distraction?”

  Cassie felt the pull of quicksand under her feet, as though anything she said to try to extricate herself would simply pull her in further until she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  “Let’s talk about this later,” she said.

  “I won’t be here later. I’m going back to LA tonight.”

  She felt the sting of heat behind her eyes and willed herself not to cry. She bit her bottom lip and nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you, then.” She picked up her purse from a table in the corner and headed for the door.

  “You’ll see me? That’s all? Just, you’ll see me?”

  “What else is there?” She shrugged. “It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who isn’t here.”

  “And it’s hard to think or move or do anything when everybody wants something from me. My mother, you. Everybody needs something, and everybody’s pulling at me, and I don’t have anything left, okay?”

  “Okay.” Cassie nodded. Now the tears did start to come, and she did nothing to stop them. “Well, I’ll make it easy for you, then. I won’t ask you for a damned thing. I’ll just go, and you can focus on yo
ur mother.”

  “Cassie, that’s manipulative. That’s—”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it—she laughed. “You’re being manipulated here, Brian, but not by me. I’m the one woman in your life right now who’s giving it to you straight. I can’t play on your mother’s level, and I don’t want to. So, I guess she wins.”

  She walked out the door while he was still calling after her, still protesting.

  Chapter 35

  Cassie cried on the drive back to Cambria, snuffling and wiping her eyes as she made her way north on Highway 1. She still hadn’t had her shower—the fight had prevented it—so she went back to her trailer and got cleaned up there.

  Then she dried her hair, got dressed, and resolved that she was done crying about it.

  She didn’t have time for crying.

  When she got to the bakery, Dylan was already there, working on his recipe for sourdough bread with garlic and rosemary for the grand opening. He was wearing a bandanna around his head and a long apron over jeans and a T-shirt, and he was blasting rock music from a speaker hooked up to his iPhone. When she walked in, he was vigorously kneading dough, working it with the heels of his hands.

  “Oh. Hey. Thought I’d get in early and do this. The music bothering you? I can turn it down.” He seemed perky, even happy. And that pissed Cassie off. She didn’t want to see someone acting perky and happy right now.

  She stormed past him without answering, then went into her office and threw her purse onto the desk. Then she came back out into the kitchen, accidentally bumped into a cooling rack that was hanging from a hook on the wall, and sent it clattering to the floor.

  “Damn it!” She picked up the rack and hurled it across the room.

  “Oh. Hey, now.” Dylan turned off the music. “Are you gonna be a dick like my last boss? Because it’s better to know now, if you get what I’m saying.”

  “No. No.” Cassie forced herself to take a deep breath, then picked up the rack and put it in the sink to be washed. “I’m sorry. I’m not a dick. I promise.”

  “Good to know.” He put the dough in a bowl, covered it with a cotton towel, and set it aside to rise. Then he washed the flour off his hands at the sink.

  “I suppose I owe you an explanation for my mood,” Cassie said.

  “No, you don’t.” He dried his hands on a towel tucked into his apron and went about cleaning his work surface.

  “It’s just … I had a really shitty morning.”

  “Understood. We’re good.”

  “I think … I think my boyfriend and I broke up.” As strongly as she’d admonished herself not to cry, here she was, crying.

  “Ah, shit. That sucks. You want me to call your sister?” He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

  “No.” It came out elongated and shaky, a kind of no-o-o-o.

  “Look. I’m just gonna go … somewhere … while my dough is rising. Give you some privacy.”

  “Okay.” Cassie sat down on a stool at the work table and sobbed into her hands.

  “Shit. Shit.” Dylan hesitated, then pulled up a stool next to her. “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but … you want to talk about it?”

  “And then,” Cassie said, wrapping up the story, “I told him that she wins. That his mother wins. And I left. And … I’m pretty sure that’s it, right? It’s over? It really seemed like it’s over.” She dissolved into fresh tears while Dylan sat there looking as comfortable as if his stool had been covered in spikes.

  “That sucks ass,” Dylan pronounced after hearing the whole story. “Competing with a dude’s mother … you’re never gonna win. She gave birth to him. She’s got him by the balls. I mean, she made them, so.”

  “Right. Right. I know that.” Cassie wiped her eyes with a tissue, then blew her nose. “And I don’t even want to compete! Why can’t he just love her, and love me, and live up here where his house is, and visit her regularly, the way people do? Why?”

  “Dude’s got issues.”

  “He does! And I just … I don’t have time. Not now, not when I’m this close to having what I’ve always wanted. I don’t have time to deal with his issues.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “But that doesn’t make this any less awful.” Cassie crumpled up her tissue and tossed it into a trash can, taking in a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I guess not.”

  She stood up, smoothed her hair with her hands, and ran her fingertips under her eyes to get any last hints of smeared mascara. “I guess it’s hopeless.”

  Dylan tilted his head in a maybe-not, maybe-so gesture. “Not necessarily.”

  “How is it not hopeless?”

  He shrugged. “Dude’s gonna get sick of his mother’s shit, and he’ll come around. But he has to do it on his own, not because you tell him to. Not because you issue an ultimatum.”

  “Okay. I get that. You think he will?”

  “Maybe. Unless …”

  She waited.

  “He could be using his mother as an excuse,” Dylan went on. “Like, this thing is moving too fast, and he’s scared shitless, and his mother is a convenient way to get out of this before he’s in too deep.”

  “Well … damn it.”

  Brian hadn’t intended to have a fight with Cassie, and he certainly hadn’t intended to have a relationship-ending blowout. All he’d wanted was to come to the Central Coast, spend some time with Cassie, and go back to LA feeling like a new man.

  Instead, he was going back to LA feeling like a flaming pile of garbage.

  How had that happened?

  He could acknowledge that some of it had been his fault. He wasn’t going to be around to help Cassie get ready for her grand opening, and that sucked. He didn’t blame her for being annoyed.

  And yes, he’d offered to help with marketing, and then he’d been too preoccupied to do it. So she had some valid cause to be pissed at him.

  But what kind of person got angry at a guy for taking care of his sick mother? For Christ’s sake. What kind of person did that?

  He loved both of them, and one of them was in one place while the other was somewhere else.

  How was he supposed to choose between them?

  “This is bullshit, Thor,” he said as he drove with the dog in the passenger seat beside him. “This is total bullshit.”

  Thor whined a little and curled up on the upholstery.

  It wasn’t like staying at his mother’s place and worrying about her was fun. It wasn’t like he was enjoying it. Did Cassie think he was down there partying with movie stars, taking up surfing, shopping on Rodeo Drive, and hanging out at clubs every night? Did she think he was having the time of his goddamned life?

  He wasn’t. He was spending his time watching his mother for signs of terminal illness, bringing her herbal tea and begging her to eat something. He was trying to make up reasons for her to get out of bed. He was doing the grocery shopping and fielding the phone calls, cleaning the loft and doing all of the things she’d hired Lorenzo to do before the fake-Italian douche had taken off for God knew where.

  He wanted out of this as badly as Cassie wanted him out of it, but how? He couldn’t just turn his back on his mother when she might really be in trouble.

  And Cassie should understand that, shouldn’t she?

  What would she do if it were her own mother?

  He ran through all of it in his mind as he drove. By the time he got to his mother’s loft that afternoon, he was certain that he was the one being wronged here, and he’d resolved not to call Cassie, not to apologize.

  She was the one who needed to apologize to him.

  “Mom?” Brian called as he came into the loft, letting Thor off his leash.

  He was relieved to find his mother in her studio space, working on a painting. She looked up and saw it was him, and she seemed almost … normal. Her color was good, her expression was upbeat, and she looked like herself for a change.

  The weird thing was, that expression changed the moment she
saw him. Everything just sort of fell, and her voice turned breathy and weak.

  “Oh. Brian. I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “How are you feeling?” He put Thor’s dog bed on the floor, and Thor promptly curled up in it.

  “Oh … you know.” She sagged a little, as though half the air had been let out of her.

  “No, I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

  “It’s the same,” she said. “I don’t want to bother you with it. Headaches. Nausea. I can barely stand without worrying that I’ll collapse.”

  “Have you eaten anything today?”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “I can’t eat. I simply can’t.” Lisa abandoned her painting, pleading exhaustion, and went into her room to lie down.

  Brian fed Thor, unpacked his bag, then decided to tidy up Lisa’s loft, which had become a little disorderly in his absence. He put some glasses in the dishwasher, then found a tea bag stuck to the side of the sink. He took it to the kitchen trash can, stepping on the pedal to make the lid rise.

  Inside the trash can, he found a takeout box from a local Thai restaurant. He picked it out of the trash and opened it. There was nothing left in the container except residue of sauce clinging to the sides and a few random noodles. A receipt had been taped to the side of the container, and Brian looked at it. Time: twelve-thirty that afternoon. The customer name on the receipt: Lisa. The single item that had been ordered was his mother’s favorite.

  So, maybe she hadn’t lost her appetite after all.

  Brian didn’t want to talk to his mother about what happened with Cassie. He hadn’t intended to, and he’d told himself numerous times on the drive here that he wouldn’t.

  And yet, the whole debacle was pressing so hard on his mind and his emotions that he somehow ended up doing it anyway.