by Tasha Blue
"That would get people talking." Carla laughed. She put the cake topper into the walk-in refrigerator and then began to pull out the ingredients for a fresh bunch of cinnamon sultana drops, while Lily popped out to the front of the shop to prepare for the lunchtime rush hour.
Carla thought over their conversation as she whisked together eggs and flour in a bowl. She had been wondering herself lately, if perhaps it was time to seek out a man in her life, but the thought of online dating or cheesy speed dating at a local community center made her cringe.
In a perfect world, she would meet the man of her dreams completely unexpectedly and there would be no drama, no heartbreak, and everything would just come together as though it had always been planned to happen that way. She sighed. The world was not so perfect. If she wanted to meet someone, she had to put herself out there.
The idea was intimidating, at least a little, but as she thought about it, the scent in the air caught her attention. She brought her mind back to what she was doing and focused on her work in the kitchen. After the fresh batch was done, Carla took off her apron and returned to the front of the store to help Lily serve the rush of customers that always arrived for lunch hour. Most were regulars who came in daily from the office block across the street for an afternoon pick-me-up and many had become friends.
"Hello, Linda!" Carla said brightly when she saw one overweight woman in a coat, who always bought two vanilla cupcakes and an éclair. "How are the grandchildren?"
"Very well, thank you, Carla!" Linda beamed back. "How is your mother?"
"She's just fine!"
It was the same with almost every customer that came through those doors. Carla loved to bake, but she also loved to brighten up people's days in other ways and always made that extra effort to have a chat with her customers. Coming to Carla's Cakes was like dropping in to see an old friend. When the lunchtime rush was done, Carla let out a long breath and laughed.
"It was busy today!" she commented.
"Well, this place is awesome, Carla." Lily said matter-of-factly. "I know that if I worked in those grim offices across the street that I would be coming here as often as possible to get away. Being in this bakery is like being wrapped up in a warm cinnamon hug."
Carla laughed at the description. "Is it?"
"It is." Lily told her fondly. "Sometimes when I've had a bad day or Pete has driven me up the wall with dirty soccer gear, I lie in bed and imagine that I'm surrounded by cupcakes and all my troubles just melt away."
"Wow." Carla chuckled. "I didn't know this place was having such an effect on you. If you're dreaming in cupcakes, maybe you need some time away!"
"I'll have my time away." Lily assured her. "Just as soon as Pete proposes. Then I can start planning the honeymoon! I want to go to Iceland and see the Northern Lights, or maybe to Canada to see Niagara Falls. Or maybe to the Amazon! Or maybe we should save our money and buy a house... Do you think a honeymoon would be as romantic in a B&B just outside of town?"
"I think you and Pete will be loved up wherever you go." Carla told her fondly. "For what it's worth though, I hear the Northern Lights are beautiful. They have these incredible hotels there, too; made completely of ice."
"That can't be true!"
"I swear on my life it is. I saw it on a documentary."
"A documentary on Iceland?"
"A documentary on unusual hotels."
"Me and Pete in a honeymoon ice-castle, looking up at the stars..." Lily said wistfully. "I just can't wait for him to get down on one knee."
Carla smiled, but felt a little pull in her stomach at Lily's words, which told her that she was lonelier than she would even admit to herself. Carla loved the bakery and everything she was doing in her life, but she wouldn't mind spending a little time in an ice-castle under the skies with a man's arms around her, either.
Chapter2
Daniel made a face as he looked at himself in the storeroom mirror in a suit that was much too tight and he pulled at the collar to loosen it. The sleeves of the jacket didn't quite reach his wrists, and the pants were clinging to his thick muscular legs.
"I'm not sure this is the right size, Cliff," he said self-consciously. He tugged at the sleeves some more and grimaced at his reflection.
Cliff checked the label and laughed. "No, you're right. That's the pageboy's suit. He's fourteen."
"Well, that's a relief." Daniel said, letting out a long sigh. "I thought I'd put on thirty pounds since giving you my measurements."
The best man stepped back into his changing room cubicle to put on his street clothes, which was actually just another suit, and then he sat on the padded cubes in the waiting area to give his opinion on the groom's suit when he emerged.
Daniel was a very handsome man with piercing blue-gray eyes and dark hair in an expensive cut. He always dressed well and had a careful confidence about him. He had a self-awareness which made every word seem carefully chosen and when his sharp eyes locked on a person, it could be unnerving or remarkably alluring depending on whether he was using his trademark gaze to glare at someone, or invite them to flirt.
Underneath the veneer of the elite businessman, however, Daniel had a good sense of humor, which was often brought to the surface, particularly when he spent time with old college friends such as Cliff.
Cliff came out wearing his chosen grey tailored suit with a black tie and checked himself out in the mirror. He shook out his arms and then his legs and then turned to Daniel with a hopeless shrug. The suit fit him well, but there was an expression of panic on his face which made him look like a child in his Dad's clothes all the same.
"Do you think it looks good?" he asked uncertainly.
"It looks fine, Cliff. You look sharp."
"Does it fit properly, though?" Cliff pressed. "Diane's exact words were ‘I am not marrying you if you're wearing the wrong sized suit.’ I begged her to come with me so that she can dress me as she wants for the big day, but she said that it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding day."
"What?" Daniel laughed. "Isn't that about the wedding dress and only the rule on the night before the wedding? I don't think the superstition extends to the groom's suit-fitting."
"Well, it's too late to change anything now anyway,” Cliff said dejectedly. He let out an angry huff at his own reflection and his expression was dissatisfied. "The wedding is on Sunday."
"You look good." Daniel insisted. "She's going to love it. Perfect choice. Amazing."
Cliff cast him a disdainful glance and shrugged off his jacket. He sat on the cube next to Daniel's and let out some of his pre-wedding jitters.
"She wants this day to be perfect." he said. "There are just so many things that can go wrong, though. We've got the florists and the caterers and the musicians and the reception... I'm relying on a hell of a lot of people to get it right."
"They do this for a living, Cliff. They'll get it right." Daniel assured him. "Besides, what's the worst that could happen? If the flowers aren't perfect or the food is late coming out, people will get over it. We're going to be there for you. The ceremony is going to be great. The party's going to be great."
"I didn't think I'd be this nervous." Cliff said anxiously. "I just want this day to be perfect for Diane. She deserves the fairytale wedding and the dream honeymoon that all the girls dream about. I want everything to be just right."
"It's just one day." Daniel told him calmly. "Then you have the rest of your lives together and you're going to have great lives. So why are you worrying? You love Diane, she loves you, and you're going to be happy."
Cliff grinned at him gratefully. "I knew there was a reason I chose you to be my best man," he said. "You're always looking on the bright side. I promise that when you get married, I'll be just as positive as your best man."
“Me married?" Daniel said with somewhat of a scornful chuckle. "That's pretty far off yet, I think."
"What happened to Marcy?"
"God knows." Daniel sai
d coolly. "I went on dates with her and I thought everything was going well, but then she just stopped returning my calls."
"You know, I always got the sense she was a gold digger, anyway." Cliff said pointedly. "She got this gleam in her eyes like a snake whenever you pulled out the credit card."
"No, she was alright." Daniel replied calmly. "Besides, I'm not rich enough for anyone to think it's worth trying to extort anything out of me."
"Are you kidding me?" Cliff laughed. "You earn more than me and my brothers put together. How much did you bring home last year?"
"I'm not telling you that..." Daniel replied, raising his eyebrows slightly as a knowing smile came to his face.
"Because it's some stupidly astronomical figure that will put me to shame," Cliff predicted. He stood up, looked at himself in the mirror again, shook his limbs once more and huffed. He paced back and forth a few times and experimented with doing up all the buttons and then posing this way and that and never seeming to be happy with the cut of the suit.
Daniel shrugged indifferently. "I won some pretty big cases last year."
"You're the superman of corporate law." Cliff said with a tad of envy to his voice. "Geez, I could use those kind of bucks about now with the cost of this wedding."
"I really wanted to help out as a wedding gift,” Daniel said earnestly. "You should have let me pay for the band, or the caterers. Or something."
"Never!" Cliff exclaimed. "I just want you there, Dan."
"It's going to be a great day." Daniel insisted confidently. "I just hope you can calm down enough to enjoy it."
"Me too!" Cliff replied. He stood up, did one final spin in front of the mirror, threw his hands up in impatient despair and went into the dressing room to change. Then the two handed their suits to the staff and waited for them to be put into zipper bags.
"You're the only bachelor left from the old crew now." Cliff commented as they waited to receive their suits. "Baz, Will, Tom, Richard, Eddie... All tied down. Then there's you, the most eligible of us all, still just goofing around."
"I work long hours, Cliff," Daniel said to explain himself, looking at his expensive watch with concern even as he said it. "I've always got some deadline or other to meet and the work is stressful and I'm just not good company when my head's in a case."
"You work too hard." That's why you need a nice young lady to come home to. Imagine it: after a long, hard day at the office or the courtroom or wherever you lawyers spend your time, you come home tired, and there's a gorgeous woman waiting for you with her come-hither eyes and a glass of wine. Boom! Troubles gone."
Daniel laughed. "I don't think that's the reality of marriage, Cliff."
"It's not?" Cliff joked in mock surprise. "I better call this thing off, then."
"You can't tell me that everything's perfect with Diane all the time,” Daniel said skeptically. "I mean, when you've had a hard day, doesn't it sometimes feel like a chore to come back and have to make time for someone else?"
"It's not like that when you meet the right one." Cliff told him matter-of-factly. "It's like having an extra pair of shoulders to share the load. The right woman doesn't demand anything from you.
I mean, of course you get the stupid little arguments over groceries and toilet seats, but when it comes to the big picture, the right woman will be there for you and it's nice to know that you've got someone to fall back on sometimes. When you've got a busy and hectic life, it's a huge relief when you finally meet someone who can just make it all go away for a while."
"Wow. I didn't know you were such a romantic." Daniel said with a teasing grin. His usual stern business expression broke for a moment to allow it. "It wasn't so long ago that you were in college prowling bars for anyone who'd take you home. You weren't such a romantic then!"
Cliff laughed at the memory and smiled at his friend. "You'll understand when you feel it, Dan," he told him. "You stop even thinking about other women. It's like an off-switch to everything around you but that one person. I used to be the guy going after one not-so-noble thing, but when I met Diane, she kind of transcended that."
"She transcended it?" Daniel scoffed playfully. "You make it sound like a spiritual experience."
The groom shrugged, unashamed. "Meeting the right girl is the moment when everything falls into place. Life comes together. I think that's as close to a spiritual experience as most of us mere mortals ever get."
"I don't know, Cliff." Daniel said doubtfully. "Maybe that fluffy kind of romance just isn't for me. I could never deal with a woman who had a problem with my work and who didn't want to hear about what I do. The right woman for me would have her own ambitions. She would be a confident go-getter who wasn't dependent on me to be her everything.
Unfortunately, most women I meet want to be heard, but never want to listen. I don't enjoy the company of women when it's all one sided. I don't want a woman just for the sake of having someone on my arm. I want someone who fits into my life that I could connect with, but where are you going to find a woman like that?"
"Dating some of them would be a good start." Cliff told him. They were handed their suits at last and headed out into the store's lot to get in the car and head to lunch. "You're incredible with women. I'll never understand it. You swoop in like James Bond, pick up a woman and then it's over in a week."
Daniel shrugged. "It's not getting a woman on a date that's the problem. It’s maintaining a connection once you're past all that heat from first attractions. Sometimes I'll meet a woman who seems sexy and sophisticated, but as soon as the seduction is over, it's like a switch flicks and she becomes possessive and demanding and I just pull away."
"You're meeting the wrong kind of women. You always hook up with other lawyers or high-flying consultants or stockbrokers or whatever and you clash. You need someone from a different walk of life so that when you're with her, it's something different than what you're used to."
"I guess I just don't know what I'm looking for." Daniel shrugged. "You tend to just end up around more people like yourself, don't you? I mean there are some really nice female lawyers out there, but it's always a clash of ambitions. Maybe you are right. Dating other legal professionals means you always bring the office home."
"Of course I'm right,” Cliff said confidently. "I mean, look at me and Diane. I'm a prosecutor and she's a nurse. We never run out of things to talk about and I'm so attracted to that softness in her. She has such a caring nature, that you don't see when you're tearing out throats in the criminal courts.
I come home and she tells me about people she's met, and the conversations she's had and it makes me smile because she looks so sweet when she's talking about it. She's so gentle. If I came home from a day at court to a woman who was angry because she'd been at court all day too, can you imagine? You'd be squaring off against each other. The house would feel like a battlefield."
"That's what it's like." Daniel agreed. "That's exactly what it's like. Do you remember when I was with Rachelle?"
"I remember."
"Well, I remember one day when we met up after work and my day had been hell because we'd been denied a crucial warrant by the judge and our whole case was falling apart and my client was facing losing his entire company, all because his accountant had been screwing him over.
All I wanted to do was to let off some steam and find some comfort, but Rachelle started going off on one about how her client hadn't gotten some paperwork to her on time and it ended up with us both just raging on without connecting with one another. All my relationships have been like that." Daniel told him.
"Well, there you go." Cliff nodded. "You know what you have to do. Find some nice, down-to-earth woman who has never even so much as watched an episode of CSI. A complete breath of fresh air. You need someone who has a calming presence. A masseuse,
Daniel laughed. "You want me to settle down with a masseuse?"
"There have got to be worse things to settle down with. A wife who could massage would be a dream. I
asked Diane for a massage once and she poured a load of oil over my back and started digging her elbows into my neck. I had to tell her to stop because it was so awful. Still, at least she can cook."
"I'd appreciate a woman who could cook,” Daniel agreed. He unbuttoned his cufflinks in the car and rolled up his sleeves, which was about as relaxed as Daniel ever appeared to be, and continued to talk with his old friend. "A nice woman who can cook and who smiles a lot so that when you walk in the door, it feels like coming home."
Cliff smiled at him and pulled up outside the restaurant. The two got out of the car, headed inside, and ordered. Cliff looked around at the waitresses who were serving them as his menu was taken and their drinks were brought over.
"How about a waitress?" Cliff suggested. "That one over there looks nice. She is blonde, leggy. Didn't that used to be your type?"
"I never had a type." Daniel said.
"Oh, come on!" Cliff teased. "Let's go back to our college years, shall we: Tammy, blonde; Ira, blonde; Emily, blonde; Georgia, blonde. This is your problem, Dan. You're dating the same woman over and over again. Blonde women of the law, it's a real issue."
"I don't go for blondes on purpose." Dan told him flatly. "They just always seem to find me. I've actually always found dark hair and dark eyes really attractive."
"So we're on the lookout for a woman with dark hair and dark eyes who can cook and is definitely not a lawyer." Cliff reviewed. "I will keep my eye out for you. Hey, maybe you'll meet someone at the wedding."
"Are there going to be many single women there?" Daniel asked with a curiosity that was suddenly piqued.
"On my side, there's only my sister; who is out of bounds for you by the way, and a couple of friends who are your sort of age." Cliff mentally calculated. "Diane's got hundreds of cousins, though. She comes from a big family. I've only met one or two, but I know there were at least twenty on the guest list. I don't know how many are single. Her maid of honor is hot, though. I don't know if she's single."
