“I know you said this is a shitty—ahem, I mean, ‘bad’ place to work—” I glanced around to see if any children or, even worse, mothers heard my curse word. Fortunately, the bakery was rather empty. It was our post-lunch slump. Things would pick up again in another hour or so as kids burned off their lunches and needed more sugar to jack up their energy levels.
“I didn’t say that exactly, Marcus.” Her jaw clenched a bit tighter with each word. “I said that the Sweets have some morale issues, and it’s mostly because Corden Sweet is up there in his gold-plated office counting his billions while many of his workers struggle to pay their bills and feed their families.”
“But you do okay as a manager, right?” I pushed back. “It’s my understanding that most of the employees here are either retirees or students. Their incomes are subsidized by social security or by their parents. They don’t have families to feed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Marcus, you may be a student, and you may still be sucking at your parents’ teats, but look around. Take off the rose-colored glasses. There are plenty of park employees with families. What about your friend Jolie, for example?”
I froze. I hadn’t ever asked her about her family situation.
Taking in my bewildered expression, my boss looked like she was on the verge of having a laughing fit at my expense. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know you’re sweet on her; don’t even try to deny it. The way you look at her when she comes in here in the morning doesn’t hide a thing.”
Okay, whatever, so she knows I have a thing for Jolie. It’s a free country.
“So, what about Jolie?” I tried to downplay the crush she was accusing me of.
“She’s a single mom,” Colleen explained in a tone that made it clear she thought I should have already known.
“Really?” That was the only word I could muster. I felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs. She never mentioned having a child to me…then again, I didn’t exactly ask.
“Hey, Colleen, is the coffee fresh?” came a familiar voice from the bakery entrance. It was Buster from the arcade. He was carrying an aluminum coffee mug with a hot pink Sweetopia logo, the kind of mug we offered for discounted refills. “I come seeking a caffeine hit.” He fluttered his eyelashes at her and set the mug on the counter.
“I can get it,” I offered. I needed to stay on his good side, even if it meant enduring his relentless flirting, though I didn’t think he was nearly as bad as Ellie in the gift shop.
I turned around to fill up the mug, and Colleen picked up our conversation right where we’d left off, apparently inviting Buster to weigh in. “So, Mr. Young here doesn’t think Sweetopia employees have it that bad when it comes to compensation and benefits,” she filled him in, “because he doesn’t think we’re supporting families.”
“Is that so?” Buster’s voice rose a whole octave while he waited, bouncing on one foot and then the other, for his afternoon hit.
“I just said that most of the park’s employees are either dependents of their parents or they collect social security.” It was no secret that the geriatric demographic was well represented among the staff. Employing so many senior citizens was actually something my parents prided themselves upon. Hell, they were getting pretty far up there in age themselves. No wonder they felt an obligation to help seniors out.
“That’s bullshit,” Buster didn’t mince words. “There are a lot of young parents here. Even I have a daughter.”
My eyes bugged out before I could stop them. “Really?” I exclaimed for the second time that day. How could Buster and Jolie both be…parents? The concept was so foreign to me.
Buster nodded. “Yup. Didn’t you ever read And Tango Makes Three when you were growing up?” He laughed and flicked his wrist in the air flamboyantly. “Of course, her father and I are now divorced—we have joint custody—but that makes me a single dad.” He struck a dramatic pose. “A devastatingly handsome gay single dad.”
“See?” Colleen whipped around with an artfully decorated dragon cookie sealed in a clear plastic bag that she handed to Buster. He in turn presented her with a sparkling grin and a deep, appreciative bow.
I wanted to tell them that I’d seen the staff demographics. I’d seen how much my parents spent on the payroll and on health insurance and other benefits. It was a shit ton of money. But, naturally, I couldn’t divulge any of that in my undercover role.
I was suddenly tired of debating all of this labor bullshit. I just wanted five o’clock to get here so I could go fuck Jolie. Forget this fucking undercover assignment. My parents should have sent one of my brothers. I was not the right person for the job. Clearly. All I could think about was getting laid.
“There’s also someone on staff who has a terminally ill kid,” Buster continued, wrangling my attention away from the fantasy it was creating starring one exquisite Red Velvet Queen. I was undoing the clasps on her corset and—
“Shhh,” Colleen warned, shooting Buster a glare. “I know the person you’re speaking of, and that person would want his or her privacy respected, you know?”
“It’s going to come out soon enough.” Buster ignored my boss’s admonishment. “The employee in question is having a hard time paying for medical treatment for their sick kid, and they’ve been in contact with the local media. A story is going to break really soon, not long after the meeting.”
My ears perked up. Oh, the meeting. This conversation may be fruitful, after all. “So, why not just let me come to the meeting, and I can see for myself how bad the situation is?”
“The meeting is for full-time Sweetopia employees,” Buster reminded me. “Not temps.”
I shot Colleen a look that wasn’t too far off from Buster’s cajoling caffeine plea from mere moments ago.
“I still don’t know why you’re so keen on getting a full-time position here,” she said with a sigh. “I mean, you didn’t even know how to use a mop two weeks ago. And now all the sudden you like manual labor?”
“I feel like I have what it takes for advancement.” I flashed her my trademark smile and adjusted my glasses on my face. Yup, I was going to advance right into the corporate offices after this little undercover mission, with an office right between Clem and Carson’s. “Plus, I want to stay in the States. As long as I’m working, I should be able to stay here…”
“What, you think you’re going to marry The Red Velvet Queen, get your Green Card and ride off into the sunset?” Colleen asked with a chuckle. Buster clearly saw the amusement too and burst into raucous laughter. “You really do belong in a fairytale theme park!”
“Just let me come to the meeting,” I brought the conversation full circle. “If this place sucks that bad, then fine. I don’t know why you’re so adamant I not work here…”
“We’re just trying to save you from a lifetime of misery,” Buster retorted, then glanced over at Colleen for confirmation. She hung her head a bit and nodded. All her earlier mirth had vanished.
“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad.” Geez, my parents weren’t going to be too happy to hear about this discussion.
“Let me check with a few people,” Colleen said, her eyes traveling to the entrance of the bakery, where a family was headed inside as soon as they figured out how to maneuver their double stroller through the door. “If they say it’s okay, I’ll give you the location.”
My smile brightened. I was finally getting somewhere.
8
Cy
“Hello, beautiful!” I tapped on the edge of her dressing room door before letting myself inside. Jolie had collapsed in the dark green wingback chair in the corner of the room, her face buried in her hands. A mess of black curls covered her like a veil. The contrast of her red velvet dress and the green chair made her look like she was posing for a Christmas card.
“What’s wrong?” I headed in her direction, noting how my heart took a swift dive toward the bottom of my gut when I saw her frazzled appearance.
&nb
sp; She glanced up at me, her usually glittering eyes looking dull, tired. “Sorry, I forgot you were coming.” She straightened herself in the chair and appeared to force a smile. It wasn’t the kind that made her eyes crinkle that I was used to seeing. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”
I shook my head as I stopped directly in front of her chair. “No, forget that. What is wrong, Jolie? Why don’t you change out of your costume?”
She echoed my head shake. “The Sweets insist I stay in full costume any time I’m in the park. They don’t want anyone to accidentally see me partially in or out of costume. So I have to get dressed and put on my wig at home. I do most of my makeup there, and then the makeup artist finishes the rest when I get here—”
“Wig?” That is the only word she spoke that I was able to fixate on. “That’s a wig?”
She squinted at me, her brows almost meeting as she let out a huff and ran her fingers through her raven curls. “You thought this was real?”
I shrugged. Well, I’d hoped it was. “So what does your real hair look like?”
She stood and crossed to the other side of the room, putting her curvy backside on display. If I wasn’t mistaken, she was wringing her hands in front of her. I was getting such a stressful vibe from her that it was beginning to put me on edge too. I wasn’t used to people’s emotions bleeding over onto my own. Normally I didn’t give a single fuck how other people felt as long as they weren’t interfering with me. But the distress radiating off her was leaving me with a sick feeling deep in my gut, a new and entirely unwelcome sensation.
All I could think was that I truly wanted to help her.
But I didn’t know how to go about it. Wanting to help anyone was a totally new thing for me. I was a virgin when it came to helping people.
“Jolie?” I pressed. “Talk to me, please?”
Please? I didn’t beg people to talk to me, especially not women. What the hell was going on with me? It was like an alien from Planet Give a Fuck had taken over my mouth, my brain. Totally unacceptable.
When she turned around, she wore a muddled expression on her face. It looked like a mixture of regret and disappointment.
“I can’t do this, Marcus,” she said, her voice low and even. “I’m just not the person you think I am—”
“Because that’s not your real hair?” I laughed as I reached out for her hand. She backed away, folding her arms across her chest, but she couldn’t cover the ample cleavage spilling out the top of her corset. Truth be told, I was less interested in that than how I could make her smile again.
What the actual fuck? I, Cy Sweet, was more interested in a woman’s smile than her tits? This was a fucking momentous occasion right here. Like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon or, you know, the alien usurping my brain theory I shared moments ago. Either way, there was some serious space shit going down right now.
“I’m not really The Red Velvet Queen, you know,” she revealed with the start of a smile, though her tone had a slight patronizing tint to it.
I couldn’t help but laugh again. “Uh, duh, I know that, Jolie.”
“You might not like the person I am out of this costume.” She fixed her amethyst gaze on me, testing me.
“You mean the fact that you’re a mom?” Well, I wasn’t planning to let that slip, but now that it was out there, it wasn’t exactly like I could take it back…
Her eyes expanded as they bounced between mine. “How did you know that?”
“Colleen told me.” I tried reaching for her again. “Please? Let me touch you.”
She relented this time, letting one hand fall into mine. Her skin was cool to the touch, so I warmed it against my own, rubbing slightly. I noticed she let out a soft sigh, her eyes half-closed before they bolted open and locked with mine.
“I don’t understand what you want from me, Marcus.” Her voice sounded small, defeated, not like the royal voice I had heard her use in the throne room.
I’d had a few girls corner me about “what I wanted.” I made it pretty clear what I wanted when I whipped out my sizeable assets. There was usually a pretty swift understanding that developed between myself and any ladies I might fancy.
But Jolie was not a girl. She was a woman. And the jumble of thoughts and, dare I say it, feelings bombarding me right now was making me say weird things, foreign things. And it wasn’t just because of my fake accent.
“Nothing in particular.” I squeezed her hand in mine and held her gaze captive with my own. “Except maybe a date?”
“A date?” The quizzical way her mouth formed an O and her eyebrows arched made me guess that perhaps she hadn’t had one of those in a long time.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “To get to know the real Jolie. The one under the costume.”
“I still don’t know—”
My finger instinctively went to her lips to stop her from finishing her sentence.
She backed away, wrangling her hand out from my grasp. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m older? That I have children?”
“Children?” I gulped. “Plural?”
I still didn’t understand why people wanted to make miniature versions of themselves.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Two sons.”
“Wow,” I breathed out, trying to conceal my shock. Well, if you pop out one kid, you might as well pop out another, right?
“That’s great,” I quickly recovered, letting the alien in my head take over again. “I don’t think you’re that much older than me, anyway. What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“I have to think about it.” Her features had softened; there was a spark dancing in her pupils again.
It wasn’t a no.
“Think about it?” I repeated. “Okay.” I wasn’t used to the ladies needing to think about it where I was concerned. This conversation was just full of firsts, wasn’t it?
“I have to see if I can get a sitter…you know…” She fluttered her hand in front of her face as if that would finish the rest of her sentence.
No, I didn’t know how these things worked. I was the youngest of the three sons in my family, and none of us had kids yet—much to my parents’ dismay. But, so far, Carson bore the biggest brunt of that complaint, by virtue of being the only one of us who was married.
“If not tomorrow night, then maybe Saturday night?” I regretted the hopeful upswing of my voice, but there was no way to hide my anticipation. “Or I’m free all next week.”
“Next week is the meeting.” She looked me up and down. “You’re not just trying to get an invite to the secret meeting, are you?”
I chuckled as I shook my head. “I already got one. Colleen is checking on it for me.”
Jolie’s eyes narrowed. “Mmmhmmm,” was all she said.
“Here, let me give you my number,” I suggested, my eyes trailing over to the phone on her vanity. “Is that yours?”
She nodded, reaching for it. “Okay.” She paused, waiting for me to rattle off my digits.
I much preferred having her number than giving my own, so I whipped my phone out. “Let me text it to you.”
“Uh, wrong. Give me the number, Romeo,” she snapped with a smirk. She was clearly on to me.
After I gave it to her, she laid her phone back on the counter and turned to me. “I’m still not sure about going on a date with you. I don’t know if you’ll still like me once you see who I am under all this.” She gestured from her wig all the way down to her velvet slippers, which just barely peeked out from her dress.
“If that’s what you’re afraid of,” I said, taking her hand again, “don’t be. I know you’re just as beautiful underneath that costume as you are…well, you know what I’m trying to say.” I laughed, unable to finish the compliment I was trying to deliver. Real smooth, I chided myself.
In lieu of flubbing up my words again, I swept her into my arms, claiming her lips with my own. How perfectly she fit into my embrace, how sweet her mouth tasted…it was so magical and yet so natural at the same time.
I released her moments later and watched her spin back down to earth after our breathtaking kiss. There was no way she wasn’t just as beautiful underneath that costume.
There was only one slight problem: I was basically in costume too. I had no choice but to take her on our date as Marcus Young. I couldn’t blow my cover when I was so close to victory. How angry would she be when she discovered I was actually Cy Sweet?
The best time to show up unannounced at my parents’ house was dinnertime. Maureen’s cooking was about nine million times better than my own. Who am I kidding? I didn’t really cook so much as heat stuff up in the microwave—or order takeout. Now that I was rather accomplished at.
“How’s my baby?” my mom gushed as soon as I rounded the corner into the living room where my parents were both stretched out on opposite sofas, my mom with her reading glasses and a book and my father with the remote control in his clutches.
I proceeded directly to my mother to bend down and let her give me the obligatory greeting kiss on my cheek. So I’m a bit of a mama’s boy. Whatever. At least that’s what I let her think. It always worked to my advantage.
“Hi, Mom,” I greeted her. “Hey, Dad.”
My dad relinquished the remote control, setting it on the marble-topped end table but he left Fox News blaring in the background. “What’s going on? Did you figure out where the meeting is on Monday night?”
“How did you know it’s on Monday night?” I glared at him. Why was I doing all this recon work if he already knew this shit? I hadn’t even gotten the actual date confirmed yet.
“My PR guy has a mole in the secret Facebook group,” he explained, “but they won’t give out any of the meeting details, time or location, till the last minute. Supposedly it’s to keep it on the downlow.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Imagine your own employees holding a meeting on your own damn property to bitch about you!”
“Who’s to say it’s in the park?” I questioned. I hadn’t really thought of that before. If it was a public place, how could they keep anyone they didn’t want there out?
Sweetest Obsessions - Anthology Page 51
