Courtship of the Cake

by Jessica Topper

  “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a lady out front.” Saved by the Brow Ring. “And she doesn’t want to speak to anyone but you.”

  “Is she a regular customer?”

  Mick’s employee shook his head. “I don’t recognize her. But she’s—” He laced his hands and arced them over his torso until they met the waistband of his stovepipe jeans.

  “With child?” Mick ventured a guess.

  “Very.”

  I turned my eyes back to the cake images I had printed out. This was either business, or it was . . . personal. Very personal. Either way, I was here to look at cakes. Wedding cakes. I needed to start acting more like a blushing bride and less like a jealous lover.

  “Thanks, Tom. Tell her I’ll be right there.”

  Mick scraped his chair back, and I felt the loss as his knee moved away from mine. “Never a dull moment,” he murmured apologetically.

  I fixated on a scrumptious four-tiered creation, its squares stacked asymmetrically, until my eyes watered. “I’ll bet.” Pull it together, Danica, I warned myself. I felt as off center as the cake in the photo.

  “Come with me.” His voice was barely above a hush, and when I glanced up at him, he was smiling. “I’ll bet it’s a gender reveal.”

  “A what?” I asked, following him to the front of the shop. I expected to see someone standing in nothing but a trench coat, waiting to flash us. But instead, an elegant and very pregnant woman waited, wearing a tailored pinstripe maternity dress and fidgeting nervously with an envelope in her hand.

  “It’s okay,” she addressed Tom, “if he’s with another client, I—” The woman broke into a relieved smile when she saw Mick. “Oh my God. You haven’t changed a bit, Mick Spencer!”

  There was that bashful half smirk I was growing addicted to. “Well, I sure as hell can’t say the same for you, Jenna,” he joked. “No more homecoming queen banner.”

  She rolled her eyes skyward. “Please. My mother still has my room set up as a high school shrine. It’s all there. Were you in the middle of something?” she ventured, casting a curious glance at me. “I’m sorry for barging in.”

  “Oh, my appointment can totally wait,” I assured her. Judging from the mound straining at the sash of her stylish dress, I had a feeling she didn’t have much longer to go.

  “Dani James, Jenna Humphreys.”

  “It’s Humphreys-Blair now. We hyphenated. What a beautiful ring, congratulations!” She looked wistful as she half shook, half inspected my hand. “I can’t even wear mine, my hands are so swollen.” Turning back to Mick, she pleaded, “My mom’s hell-bent on throwing me a huge, tacky baby shower here in town, now that I’m in my eighth month. But Vince—my husband—and I really wanted an intimate reveal party in the city. So . . .” She anxiously tapped the envelope against her hand. “We compromised. I told her we’d do it small and in her backyard, but only if you would do the cake and surprise us.”

  “I would be honored.”

  Mick grabbed an order sheet and took down all of her details for when, where, and how many servings needed as I looked on. “Whatever style you decide is best,” Jenna said, then glanced at me with a smile. “He was my lab partner in high school. I totally trust him.”

  I grinned at the image of Mick in a white lab coat and safety goggles, and decided he looked hotter in the white chef’s coat. Way hotter.

  “I was in charge of lighting the Bunsen burner and I never once caught her hair on fire,” Mick joked. “And her hair was huge back then, so not an easy feat.”

  “You wouldn’t know it now, would you?” Jenna patted her sleek chignon and laughed. “You were also my hero when it came to frog dissecting, yuck.”

  She pressed the envelope to her enormous belly for a moment, then with a big breath, handed it over. “Just you and the doc will know. And the little sweet pea him- or herself, of course.”

  “I’ll guard the secret with my life.” He put a hand over his heart. “Lions’ honor.”

  “Go, Lions,” she laughed, shaking an imaginary pom-pom on her way out the door. “Rah-rah! Thanks, Mick. Nice to meet you, Dani.”

  “Best of luck,” I called.

  Mick turned the sign on the door from Open to Closed and tucked the envelope into his pocket.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We close for a couple hours in the afternoon on Saturday,” he explained. “Day shift left, night shift hasn’t come in yet. Tom, my manager, went to lunch. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, styles.” He led the way back to where we had been sitting. I stared at him. “What?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you curious at all? About what’s in the envelope?”

  “Of course. But right now I’m more curious about you. Am I really supposed to believe”—he shuffled my printouts around on the table—“these generic, impersonal examples you brought today are what you want?”

  Busted.

  “You can believe anything you want,” I mumbled. “It’s just a party. It’s just a cake. Isn’t it the ‘ever after’ part that really counts? Why place such significance on one day?”

  “Because sometimes all it takes is one day,” he said quietly. “Or in some cases, one amazing evening.”

  Mick

  BEST INTENTIONS

  Dani wouldn’t confirm or deny what I had said. She also wouldn’t meet my gaze. We stood side by side, going over the different cake designs until she was fidgeting right out of her cute, curly-headed little mind.

  “You must have incredible willpower,” she laughed. “How can you stand to be in the same room with that envelope and not open it?”

  “I’m sleeping under the same roof as you . . . same principle,” I teased. Minus the cold showers, of course. “I’m going to let you do the honors.”

  Dani’s fingers flew to her lips. “Do you think Jenna will mind?”

  “I hereby deem you,” I pronounced, allowing my hands to fall on her shoulders as if I were dubbing a knight, “my pastry sous chef today. I trust you, and she trusts me. I think we’re good.”

  Dani let out an excited yelp and reached into the pocket of my chef’s coat. “So official,” she said, turning over the sealed envelope printed with the medical group’s logo. “How many of these have you done?”

  “Maybe a half dozen or so.” I thought back. “Never for anyone I knew. Not that I really know Jenna all that well. Haven’t seen her since high school, actually.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t . . .” Dani slid the envelope down the slanted buttons of my coat. “Date the homecoming queen, then? Player?”

  “Nope.”

  “Lions’ honor?” she toyed. “No sexy experiments in the science lab?”

  “Trust me, nothing sexy about formaldehyde and a dissecting probe. Open it, or I will.”

  Biting her lip, she slid her fingernail under the flap and it gave way. She turned her back and I heard the rustle of paper.

  “So what are we baking?” I asked, stroking back her curls from her cheek and leaning over her shoulder.

  Dani melted against me. “A pink cake,” she said softly. “It’s a girl.”

  “Yay for Jenna,” I said, my hand stroking over hers so I could get a glimpse of the sonogram report, too. “I can totally see her spoiling a little princess rotten.”

  “So now what?” She turned to me, tucking the results back into the envelope and handing it over.

  “I’m thinking pink ombré, four layers. Starting very pale and ending in a brilliant, no-mistaking-it, girlie-girl pink.” I reached for a pencil and began to sketch on the back of the envelope. “White chocolate buttercream between the layers. And covered in ruffles of white fondant.” It would be elegant and classy, like Jenna in her lawyerly pinstripes.

  Dani made a face. “I am not fond of fondant. Not that I’ll be eating her cake, but . . .”

  “You’ve never
had my fondant,” I bragged. “Besides, I want absolutely no chance of color showing through. Even the thickest slather of frosting can”—I dredged a fork over Tom’s freshly iced cake, revealing ruby red beneath—“betray your best intentions.”

  Dani’s eyes never left mine as I brought the fork to her lips.

  “By the way, if you go with the red velvet for your wedding cake, this is the icing I use. It’s made with flour. No cream cheese touches this cake.”

  “Incredible.” Dani swooned. “I feel like I’m learning all your bakery secrets today.”

  “Not all of them,” I assured her with a wink. “Gotta keep you coming back for more, right?” Dani licked a fleck of icing off the bowed V of her top lip in response. Good God, how could one miniscule move from her make me want to move mountains? I pulled a spatula from my tool kit and smoothed it over Tom’s cake, covering my tracks and preventing me from doing something totally rash and stupid. “Next time, we taste.”

  Dani

  LOVE IS LIKE A SOLDIER

  After the date from hell, Quinn yielded a little. She finally let us cross the street with Logan on Sunday, and even take him to the town playground.

  My cell phone rang, just as we arrived at the park. Laney. I hadn’t responded to her texts last week and never called her back the night we got into town. Time for damage control.

  “Hey, hi!” I plugged my free ear with a finger to cut out the noise of the playground.

  “It’s about damn time you answered. What the hell?”

  “Sorry, sorry.” I pinched the phone between my cheek and shoulder so I could use both hands to steady the tire swing for Logan. “It’s been hella crazy on tour.”

  Laney was quiet on the other end of the call. I gave up a silent prayer that she’d take all the background shrieking to be festival din.

  “I can’t chat long, Laney. I’ve got a client waiting for a four o’clock Reiki appointment.”

  “So help me, Danica. I’m going to Reiki you over the coals if you don’t tell me what’s going on.” Laney was on a tear. “And where the hell you are.”

  “I told you, I’m with a client. Nash Drama, as a matter of fact.”

  “Yeah? Put him on the line, then.”

  “You don’t believe me? Fine. Here he is.” I held the phone out to him. “It’s my best friend, Laney. Making sure I’m not being held against my will,” I muttered.

  “So, what are you wearing, Laney?” Nash immediately asked in his panty-dropping sex god voice. I gave his shoulder a shove, but he didn’t budge. “Yes, Dani’s with me and she’s perfectly safe.” He listened while Laney no doubt unloaded a slew of unsolicited advice about his music, judging from the look of indignation on his face. “Fair point. Gonna hand you back now.”

  Laney was already addressing me by the time I took the phone back. “I asked him why he hadn’t released anything half as good as ‘Jumpstart My Heart’ in the last ten years, and told him he’d be in for a world of pain if he so much as harms one curl upon your head.”

  “Ah.” Payback, I supposed, for the heart-to-heart call I had had with Noah, sight unseen, when they’d first met. “Everything’s fine. I am all right.”

  “But you are not on tour.” Laney’s screech vibrated through the phone.

  “How do you know that?”

  “My best-friend-superpowered Spidey sense,” she said. “That, and remember Anita?”

  “The flight attendant?” Only Laney would become besties at thirty-five thousand feet with the stewardess on her plane.

  “Yeah. She told me her husband’s band, the Scary Marionettes, joined Minstrels & Mayhem on the Canadian leg of the tour. And Scary apparently requested you for a massage on my recommendation, and was told you had been let go. What the fucking fuck, girl? Way to leave a friend hanging! I want the dirt. Especially now that I know you are still with Nash, even though Go Get Her is off the bill.”

  “They’re not ‘off the bill,’ Laney. Just the Canadian dates.”

  “Huh. Anita made it sound like Scary would be headlining until the end of September.”

  I glanced at Nash, wondering when was the last time he had checked in with Riggs. Or vice versa.

  “Well,” Laney was saying. “I expect to hear more when you come up here and help me pick out a wedding dress . . .” she toyed.

  Now my shrieks were louder than the playground full of children. “Tell me everything!”

  “No. See how it feels? Ha!” God, Laney could be so stubborn sometimes. But I knew that news like this would burst her if she didn’t spill the beans. “Would you believe me if I told you he donned Dreamer Deceiver cosplay and got down on one knee at Comic Con?”

  “That was one of my ideas,” Noah’s voice poured onto the line. “I also thought about hacking into her favorite video game and popping the question at the end. But I would’ve had to dump the ROM, hex edit the file, flash it to a new ROM chip, and solder it all back together.”

  “Congrats, Noah.” I laughed at his fluid tech-speak. He’d lost me at ROM. “So tell me what really happened.”

  “He got a hold of my Magic 8 Ball.” Laney gave a dreamy sigh.

  Noah added, “I found a kit that let me create my own text for the twenty, um . . . triangular faces, and—”

  “You can call it an icosahedron, honey.” Laney loved to tease Noah over his knowledge of big words. “Dani has the smarts, like you.”

  “Oh my God, he proposed on the Magic 8 Ball? That is amazing!” I was so happy for them that I could hardly keep my feet on the ground. Good thing the playground had a rubber bounce-back safety surface as I hopped around.

  “And my reply was uh-huh, yeppers, most definitely, you know it and hell yes!” Laney crowed. “Now, when can you get up here and help me shop?”

  Just like that, my bubble burst. Technically, I, too, had news. Of an engagement that needed continual perpetuating so long as Nash wanted to continue getting to know his son. Things with Nash and Logan were going so well, Quinn seemed to be thawing, and Mick and I had at least cleared the air. So why did I feel so empty?

  For the girl who had wanderlust in her blood, I suddenly felt incredibly homesick. “Hang on a sec.” I covered the mouthpiece. “Hey, Boss. When can I get a day off to go up to the city?”

  “I’ve got that label meeting Monday, remember? We can drive up together.” Nash had Logan whizzing by in a huge, spinning arc. The boy’s eyes were closed, but he sported a full-on grin, so all was good.

  Laney and I set a meeting time, and she finally let me off the line with my solemn promise that I would tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  God help me.

  “Remember, Quinn said not to get him too dizzy, he might hurl.” Nash and Logan had been at it a good fifteen minutes.

  “He’s fine. Quinn is such a helicopter parent.” Nash scoffed at himself for the trendy term that had just come out of his mouth. But he did grab the chain to slow it down.

  I maneuvered far in front of Logan and carefully signed. With a nod and a grin, he jumped off and trotted to the jungle gym.

  “What was that all about?” Nash wanted to know.

  “I told him you’d race him down the slides later if he gave me a turn on the tire.”

  “Selling me out, huh?”

  “You could use a little more playtime in your life while you are off the road.”

  It was a joke, but as I remembered what Laney had said about Go Get Her, I couldn’t help but wonder about Nash and the band’s status on the festival tour. I supposed we’d learn just what the deal was on Monday in New York. Riggs’s radio silence troubled me.

  “You know more signs than you let on,” he said, impressed. “Who taught you?”

  “I know thirty-two. And would you believe me if I told you a chimpanzee?” I laughed and climbed on top of the tire
swing, almost falling off twice in the process.

  “No. Did he teach you to climb, too, Derpy Dani?” Nash asked.

  “She. And shut up!” I squealed and clutched the chain rope with both hands as he gave the tire a good heave-ho.

  “I’m listening,” he prompted, as the swing whooshed by his head and he reached to give it another push.

  “My mom? Totally married to her work. She was involved in a research experiment on animal language acquisition, to see if animals, communicating through sign, showed evidence of things like we humans experience, like self-awareness, identity crises . . . stuff like that. So when I was little, she studied these chimps, sometimes hands-on but mainly on video. And what do parents do with their own kids when they need to be entertained?”

  “They’d stick them in front of a video.”

  I leaned back, the soles of my sandals facing the sky, and looked at him. My smile probably looked like a frown, upside down. “Bingo.”

  “What a cop-out,” Nash said, stepping back and allowing the swing to slow.

  “No, it was an opportunity for mother-daughter bonding. But I was obsessed with Bingo. That was her name, by the way. She was so cute! And way more fun than my older sister. Bingo liked to play with dolls, just like me.” I remembered how we’d visit her in the summer, in a place we called camp, close to the university where she lived most of the year. “Bingo was my girl. She taught me thirty-two signs. Well, really it was my mother teaching the both of us. But sometimes Bingo had more patience for me than my mother did.” I laughed at the memory. “Probably the most undivided attention I ever got from my mother was during that summer, actually,” I added with a murmur.