Courtship of the Cake

by Jessica Topper

  GRIN AND BEAR IT

  A Jeep came barreling up the driveway behind us, spitting gravel as it turned sharply to park on our left. Its soft top was down, exposing just the roll bars. I had always wanted a Jeep like that as a teen, had hung pictures on my walls and begged my dad. But he had questioned its safety and its practicality, right down to its exterior door hinges that would surely rust in our climate. Out jumped a stork of a guy, measuring at least three inches taller than Nash. His hair was a tawny lion’s mane, and his grin was little kid in a candy shop, personified. “This must be Bear.” I laughed, because nothing about him warranted his grizzly nickname, except maybe his height. “Hi, I’m Dani.”

  “Bartholomew Bradley, at your service!” The guy took a sweeping bow, quite graceful in his tight leather pants and motorcycle boots. He wore a black short-sleeved work shirt, and sure enough, it had a tiny oval patch that read Bear in embroidered cursive over the pocket. Pops of colored tattoos broke up his monochrome look: nautical stars of black and green on each bony elbow and a musical staff wound around his chiseled biceps, red notes dancing along the black lines.

  “Dude!” The hero worship in Bear’s wide dark eyes was evident as he turned to Nash. The force was strong with this one.

  “Can you see,” gasped Nash from under the vise grip of his friend, “why we call him Bear?”

  “You, too, come on now!” Being hugged by Bear was a full-body, happy experience. He rocked us back and forth. “Home to the Half Acre. I knew you couldn’t stay away forever, Nash. And you!” He released me from his squeeze so he could hold me at arm’s length. “Check you out. I totally get what Mick was saying.”

  Just what in green hell did that mean?

  Was Mick already telling tales out of school?

  Bear held up my hand close to his face so he could inspect the goods. His were workingman’s hands: callused and steady. Clean, yet looked as if they’d been recently scrubbed free of grease. “Nice rock, bro. So happy for you guys!” When he brought my hand to his lips, kissed it, and smiled, I knew I had made a friend for life. Despite whatever Mick was saying. I couldn’t help but smile, too.

  “Oops, piñata duty calls!”

  “You were right about him,” I said, shaking my head and laughing as Bear bounded up the grass like a puppy. Nash had tried to explain Bear on the car ride down from New York, but there was something about him you had to experience for yourself to believe. His unabashed good nature and genuine zeal was infectious.

  “He brings my blood pressure down. Like you do.”

  Nash now had a guitar case in one hand, and my hand clamped in his other as we strode up toward the side yard. Everything looked picture-perfect, like out of a home and garden magazine. A large white tent anchored the festivities, each corner decorated with red and blue balloons and coordinating curling ribbons. Children were squealing and darting in and out, playing some crazy game of freeze tag where the large maple tree was “safe” and everything else was up for grabs. Bear was now hoisting a donkey-shaped piñata high into the tree with a rope as the children used his leather-clad legs as an extension of home base, swinging off him and yelling “SAFE!” at the tops of their lungs.

  A rainbow of gift bags and birthday presents overflowed one small table, and abandoned pizza and juice pouches occupied another. Face-painting and temporary tattoos were happening on a picnic blanket where two teenage girls sat, patiently applying magic to the eager faces and arms of kids barely able to contain their excitement.

  I thought back to my own birthday parties as a kid; with two workaholic parents, there was never an “at home” party for Posy or me. Slots were scheduled at a local place, with built-in fun: skating, mini-golf, movie theater, water park. Party “facilitators” were assigned to do everything, from games to cake serving to keeping track of your gifts as you opened them. The party started and ended at those places. Not to say our house wasn’t fun and loving. But it just wasn’t as . . . open-ended.

  I heard the whirring of a camera shutter. Our paparazzi had slender tan arms, a floral maxi dress, and a face completely obscured by a professional-looking camera. Between pops of the flash, I caught a glimpse of large hoop earrings and a long, sleek bob of brown hair.

  “Quinn,” Nash announced in a somewhat resigned tone.

  She stayed at a safe distance from us and turned without a word, continuing to document the party through her lens. I couldn’t decide if she was rude, shy, or whether she kept herself behind the camera to avoid punching Nash Drama out. Based on just the little history I knew, it was probably the latter.

  Her main subject in focus was a little boy with an easy smile and large dark eyes. He stood right in the thick of things, other children tearing around him in tag mode, and dug at the bark of the tree with a stick. The wispy blond hair that kept blowing in his face could only have come from the man standing next to me, who seemed to have lost the ability to speak. My new diamond ring cut into the skin of my other fingers as Nash squeezed and kneaded my hand like a stress ball. I tried to keep it relaxed and malleable for him, but when my eye followed the trail of the moving camera lens, every nerve jumped alive.

  Mick was walking up the great lawn toward the party. From the corner of my eye I watched his easy stride, and the way the worn denim of his jeans encased his slim hips. The simple gray T-shirt he wore was made majestic by his strong shoulders and pecs, and its hem hung tantalizingly loose over his flat abs. How could someone work around all that sinful food and stay in shape? The man was either genetically blessed . . . or he had major willpower.

  The blond boy whizzed past us, and a half dozen other children followed in his wake yelling “Cupcakes!” at the tops of their lungs. Mick held the treats aloft, grinning as he stepped deftly around the kids who hurled toward him like homing missiles. The Pied Piper act made my ovaries hurt—what the hell was wrong with me?

  “Back, back, you little ankle-biters! Except for the birthday boy.” A hand came down to tousle the blond locks, and rested easy on the little boy’s slight shoulder as they bumped legs and made for the tent.

  Nash had barely lifted a snakeskin cowboy boot toward them when a voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “You’ve put it off this long, Nash. Can you at least wait until he’s had his cake?”

  Her cork wedge sandals gave her a few extra inches, but the mother of Nash’s child was still a slight, little thing. Nash made a point of looking right over her head, tilting it left and right as though he didn’t see her.

  “I hear her, but where is she? Oh, there’s Quinn. Up on her high horse,” he muttered.

  Even if she hadn’t had the bulky camera slung from her neck, I got the feeling there’d be no bear hugs from Quinn. She had her brother’s cavernous eyes, but all similarities stopped there as she surveyed me with a guarded, cool glance.

  My mother suddenly came to mind, and all her endless research on animal dominance. I knew wolves rolled over to show submission and baboons presented their buttocks. WWDD? I wasn’t about to fall to the grass or show her my butt, but I wanted her to know I didn’t pose a threat. Kill her with kindness, I heard my father say. Turn awkward into awesome.

  “Dani, Quinn,” Nash blurted. “Quinn, Dani.”

  Yeah. This wasn’t awkward at all.

  “Bear tells me congratulations are in order.”

  Quinn, however, didn’t offer up any such thing. She put her hands on her hips and stared Nash down. Which was kind of funny, since he towered over her and she had to look up to do it.

  “Sis!” Bear yelled from his post. “The natives are getting restless.”

  Quinn glanced at the tree and labored a dramatic sigh. “All right, all right. Coming!” I had the feeling she’d rather see Nash strung up there than the piñata so she could have at him with a big stick. “Welcome to the Half Acre, Dani. We’re just one big happy family here.” She offered up a half smil
e over her shoulder as she moved on. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

  Before I could turn to question Nash, a whirlwind of perfume and clanking costume jewelry hijacked our attention.

  “Stuart Nash! As I live and breathe!” A striking older woman held her arms out in a ta-da! gesture like she was a magician’s assistant waiting for applause.

  “You know I don’t like to be called that, Sindy,” he scolded, but stooped down so she could drop kisses on both his cheeks.

  “That’s me,” she sassed. “With a capital S-I-N!”

  “Stuart?” I murmured, amused.

  “You didn’t think Drama was really his last name, did you?”

  Mick was at my side now, cupcake free and fine as hell, sending my body temp spiking higher than the arches of Sindy’s eyebrows. She had to be well into her seventies, but her voluptuous body, pressed into a vintage cherry-print swing dress, looked well preserved.

  “No, Drama’s just his middle name,” Sindy answered, before I could think of a clever response to Mick. “I’ve known this one since he was knee-high to a grasshopper,” she cooed, giving Nash’s cheek a pat. “You’ll always be little Stewie Nash to me!”

  “Enough, woman.” Nash’s voice carried his signature bad boy flirtation, yet was laced with the utmost respect. “Or I’ll start calling you by your stage name.”

  “Go right ahead,” she dared. “You know I’ve got nothing to hide.” Turning to me, she held out a regal hand. “Sindy Wolkoff.”

  “Otherwise known as the legendary Sinnamon Sin, Burlington County’s most famous burlesque dancer.” Nash had outed her, but Sindy just curtsied demurely.

  “You see,” she added, barely giving me time to introduce myself before clasping my arm conspiratorially. “I grew up in a little Jersey town near here called Cinnaminson, so it was a play on words.” She gave a toss of her rockabilly hair and addressed Nash. “And that was a very long time ago, young man. Before you and Mickey were even a thought. Dani, have you met my nephew?”

  With a clang of her bangles, she grabbed Mick’s arm and fused our hands together.

  “Yes,” I managed, feeling those husky blue eyes of his roam over me. “At his bakery.”

  “Oh!” She clapped her hands to her ample chest. “You’ve been to the Night Kitchen! Come, say hi to Walt!”

  “You’ll have to forgive my aunt,” Mick said, slowly releasing my hand. “She gets a little carried away sometimes.”

  Sindy was pulling Nash around the perimeter of the tent. He still had that guitar case clutched in his hand and my heart ached for him. He looked so foreign amid the hometown festivities, like mayhem meets Mayberry, USA. There were clusters of adults standing around chatting and laughing, but no one seemed overly taken by the fact there was a rock star in their midst. Perhaps they didn’t know? But the way many turned their heads and lifted a hand in greeting, they certainly seemed to know him.

  Perhaps they didn’t care.

  I watched as Nash leaned down to shake the hand of a man sitting under the tent near the gift table. Sindy stepped back and beamed, then motioned madly to us.

  “My uncle’s in a wheelchair,” Mick supplied, as if to prepare me. The tips of his fingers burned through the thin material of my blouse as he guided me around the tree roots and tent stakes with a hand on the small of my back. His assistance was not necessary, but not exactly unwelcome. “His diabetes is pretty bad.”

  “Neuropathy?” I had seen plenty of diabetic patients when I did my PT clinical rotations.

  “Yeah. It got so bad he lost control of the car on his way to work last summer. Crashed right through the bakery window.”

  “Your bakery?”

  “It was his before it was mine. But yeah.”

  I snuck a glance at Mick; he squinted off into the distance, as if focusing on an earlier point on some invisible timeline somewhere among the trees.

  “That’s why I left New Orleans,” he continued. A conga line of children broke our stride, and gave him a moment to turn and lock his eyes on mine. “Well, one of the reasons. What’s yours?”

  “You don’t know me at all,” I whispered. The delicious shiver that left goose bumps despite the blaze of the late-summer sun turned inward with the opposite effect, melting my defenses with the realization that I didn’t know Mick at all, either.

  “I know enough.” His lips brushed against my earlobe. “I know you dreamed of me that night. And I’ll do my damnedest to make sure you dream of me again.”

  His words scorched the frayed edges of my memory. Our evening of dancing, laughing, and stealing kisses in the photo booth had been delicious in its buildup, but my dreams had, indeed, taken things much further than he had dared let things go that night.

  When I had told Jax I had been the one to leave Mick high and dry after the wedding, I hadn’t exactly been telling the truth.

  One night, no strings, with a hot stranger in a sultry town like New Orleans after celebrating all things romance would’ve been the icing on the cake, so to speak. Had Mick played fair that night.

  • • •

  “I wanted to see you home safe.”

  “But I still haven’t told you about all these colors,” I had protested, slowly stripteasing the beads off both of us. Mick felt like everything that was good and safe, and I didn’t want him to leave my touch. “Gold was for power, remember?” I whispered, as the last string of beads fell to the floor, and lifted the hair from the back of my neck, turning away from him.

  He drew a ragged breath, but hesitated, with his fingertips on the zipper of my dress.

  He had all the power. It scared the hell out of me.

  “Dani . . .”

  “Green,” I said, clutching the fabric to my breasts as he slowly eased the zipper down, knuckles caressing, thumb tracing the curve of my spine. “Green for faith.”

  “Trust me,” he breathed. “We should just—”

  Just one glance over my shoulder found his eyes locked on me, disarming me with their startling blue and causing me to stumble, falling into him and letting the dress pool to the floor.

  “We shouldn’t.”

  I wanted to drown in him. I wished I could stop the dizzying pace in which my head and my heart were racing. I had been drinking, but it wasn’t all from the alcohol. He had me churned up and turned on, and this night . . . this thing . . . us. We had to happen.

  I stood there, breathing deep, eyes fluttering closed, as his hands found the strings of my panties. “Purple for justice,” I panted, victorious. His fingers grazed my belly, then the hem, playing down the lacy dampness to my throbbing core. He let out a strangled groan as if he was the only one being tortured. I wanted to climb on his desire and bring us both crashing down. I wanted to misbehave, and redeem us, for days on end.

  “Here’s your chance to earn another PhD,” I challenged.

  “In ‘Pinning her Down’?” he growled, hands circling my wrists and bringing them overhead. We knocked back against the exposed brick on my bedroom wall, bumping, nipping, and grinding against each other.

  “You could frame me on the wall, right here . . . Passionate, hot . . .” I teased.

  “Pounding,” he countered, “heaving . . .”

  “Dripping.” I groaned wickedly, pulling a leg up to wrap around his thighs. He caught it with his hand as I strained to meet him.

  “Deep.” His lips buzzed against my ear, and I almost creamed myself.

  “So deep,” I agreed, practically shaking under his touch.

  “Drunk,” he insisted, gently untangling our hands. His hand gave my thigh one last caress before letting it slide from his grasp.

  “Why does it matter?” I was exasperated, and beyond turning back. “We could be so good together—”

  “I know,” Mick said firmly. “Which is why we wait. And if you’re still feel
ing the same way tomorrow, let me take you out for beignets in the morning. Say you’ll meet me at the Café Du Monde.”

  “But you—” He didn’t let me finish, pushing a finger to my lips, then thinking better of it and crushing his lips there, too.

  “You don’t understand,” I said when we came up for a breath. “I haven’t asked . . . haven’t wanted anyone to stay . . .” Until now, my scaredy-cat brain prompted, but “until morning” came out. Even my looser, drunken mouth wasn’t bold enough to say it.

  He kissed me gentler then, as if he understood. I let him lead me slowly to the bed with his fingers lingering at my elbows, guiding me with his lips. Softly he set me down, and reached for the piece of groom’s cake in its box. I began to protest; I needed nothing sweeter than the whole of him. “No, not for you to eat, silly,” he chided me, sliding the box under the mountain of pillows beneath my head. “For you to dream.”

  • • •

  Let me take you out for beignets in the morning. His voice had been sticky and hot, as sweet as the offer itself.

  That I couldn’t refuse.

  And so I had awoken that next morning, hungry, happy, and hot and bothered. Sheets twisted and body aching. Victorious; as if some sort of test had been passed. Yet scared as hell.

  I had tamped down the dreams for so long, lying to myself and to others about it, and the shame flamed my face, thinking about it now. At a child’s birthday party, of all places. But Mick’s piercing gaze was forcing the thoughts to rise to the surface, raw and real.

  “Too late,” I found myself saying. “You had your chance.”

  Mick

  PICK YOUR POISON

  It had killed me to walk away from her that night. Now I had to endure not only her walking away, but watching her waltz straight into Nash’s arms as he introduced her to my uncle. I was pretty sure I knew how the piñata felt. Every squeeze Nash applied to her skin, every playful glance, every laugh they shared felt like a whack to the gut, the heart, and the head.

  “So tell me,” my aunt asked, eyes wide. “How did he propose?”