by Sable Sylvan
“Honey…I don’t have any ideas about how to fix this situation,” said Rufus.
“Just know this — Rufus and I, we’re nuts about you, and we’re your stud muffins, from now to the end,” said Jevon.
“I know you are,” said Jennifer with a sigh, and then, she felt something inside her change — something flicking like a light switch. If this were a comic book, this would be the part where a glowing lightbulb sprung up above Jennifer’s head.
“Wait,” said Jennifer, turning to face Rufus and Jevon. “Say that again — both of you.”
“Honey…I don’t know how to fix this,” said Rufus.
“We’re nuts about you — and we’re your studs,” said Jevon.
“No — you’re my stud muffins,” said Jennifer. “Honey…nuts…stud muffins…”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jevon.
“The sight of the berry patch must’ve messed with her head,” whispered Rufus.
“There’s no time to explain,” said Jennifer, pulling out her phone. “I need to write this down — all of it before it leaves my head as quickly as it popped into it. Get me to Bear Claw Bakery, stat.”
Jennifer knocked on the door to the staff meeting room. Patricia opened the door. Inside, Terrence and Darius were inside, looking at some papers.
“Hey, Jennifer…can this wait?” asked Patricia. “I’m settling the monthly accounts for Grizzlyfir and Hemlock.”
“Patricia — we’ve got a problem,” said Jennifer. “The marionberry patch — it’s been mauled by bears.”
“Our patch has been what?” asked Terrence. “Darius, I can’t believe that after Hemlock Crew agreed to help Bear Claw Bakery, your bears —”
“My bears did no such thing,” growled Darius. “I’d choose your next words carefully.”
“It was wild bears — if they were bear shifters, they’re with no crew,” said Jevon.
“Of course, you’d say that,” said Terrence with a grunt.
“It’s true — I saw,” said Rufus. “There was no way it was the bears from Grizzlyfir Crew. I doubt they were shifters at all. I think there were plain old wild bears that smelled our berries and wanted a bite.”
“Okay, so we’ll pull out of the content,” said Patricia. “You tried your best.”
“I wouldn’t come to your door without a solution,” said Jennifer. “At least — not anymore. I have an idea — but it’s kinda nuts.”
“What’s your idea?” asked Patricia.
“What if I made another kind of muffin?” asked Jennifer. “What if I didn’t make marionberry muffins, but another kind of muffin? A ‘stud muffin?’”
“I’ve never heard of a ‘stud muffin’ — like a literal muffin,” said Patricia. “But…I’m intrigued. You’re going to need to be able to make it on stage tomorrow.”
“Only if I make it to the finals,” said Jennifer.
“Which you will — because I’m sure these muffins are going to be perfect,” said Patricia. “Do what you need to do, Jennifer — and win this frikkin’ bakeoff.”
Patricia nodded. Jennifer nodded back. Patricia closed the door.
Rufus and Jevon stayed with Jennifer at the bakery. Once their bosses left, they got permission to stay with Jennifer and give her whatever help she needed to make the muffins.
“Rufus — another bag,” said Jennifer.
“Yes, ma’am — slivered or sliced?” asked Rufus.
“Uh — sliced,” said Jennifer. “Jevon — how’s the cinnamon honey mix coming along?”
“It’s more brown than gold,” said Jevon, turning the mixture in the big bowl with a big silicone and wood honey dipper the size of a mixing spoon.
“Good — and is it mixed well?” asked Jennifer.
Jennifer worked on measuring the ingredients out for the base batter for the muffins while Rufus was the runner, grabbing tools and ingredients. She had Jevon working on anything requiring more muscle — mixing up ingredients like the cinnamon honey by hand.
The trio worked through the night on their secret project, the stud muffin. They tried half a dozen samples before Jennifer found the perfect recipe, which all three members of the trio enjoyed.
“We’re finally done,” said Jevon, leaning back against the counter.
“No — we’re not,” said Jennifer. “We need to head back to my place, shower, and sleep, because we have to wake up in four frikkin’ hours to bake up at least six batches of these for the bake-off tomorrow and prepare the ingredients we need to take to the bake-off — after we clean up here.”
“I’ll clean up here and meet you at your place,” promised Rufus. “Jevon? Can you make sure she actually gets into bed and doesn’t stay up revising the recipe?” Rufus came over and gave Jennifer a kiss on the forehead.
“Does a bear shizz in the wood?” asked Jevon, wrapping an arm around Jennifer’s shoulder. “Come on, babe.” Jevon kissed the top of Jennifer’s head.
Jennifer smiled to herself. Not only were her two bears helping her, but they were also working together. Tomorrow’s bake-off was going to be a challenge — but with her two bears by her side, she might just have a snow bear’s chance in Hell of winning the dang thing.
The bell to the bakery dinged. Jennifer turned. A woman was walking toward her — but she wasn’t wearing plainclothes. She was wearing a uniform, a uniform with an apron, and that apron read…
“Toad in the Hole Cafe? Isn’t that cute! I must say — I haven’t heard of that cafe,” lied Jennifer. “How can I help you today?”
“Well, I was in here to see about your marionberry muffins,” said the woman at the counter, whose nametag read ‘Brittany.’
“Spying on us?” asked Patricia, arms crossed. “Brittany Patrick, I’m disappointed. Tell your boss she has to do better than send in a spy.”
“I’m a customer,” said Brittany — and it was technically the truth. “I’ll take one marionberry muffin, please.”
Jennifer went to the display case, grabbed a marionberry muffin, put it in a bag, and gave it to Brittany.
“On the house,” said Patricia. “Buh-bye!”
“But I wanted one of —” started Brittany, pointing to the plate of fresh marionberry muffins made by Jennifer before the bear fight.
“Buh…bye,” said Patricia slowly. “You best leave before I call those bears back and set them on you!”
“Hmmph,” said Brittany with a smirk. “Whatever. At least my cafe doesn’t get torn apart by shifters like a dozen times a year. At least I can control my customers. Well…ta-ta, and thanks for the muffin.” Brittany pulled the muffin out of the bag, chomped on it, with her mouth open, leaving crumbs all over the floor, before waving and exiting the store.
“Let me guess — ” started Jennifer.
“That’s the baker you’re up against at the bake-off,” said Patricia. “She’s represented Toad in the Hole Cafe for the past five years, and she always bakes the same thing.”
“Let me guess — marionberry muffins, and every year…” started Jennifer.
“You know it,” said Patricia with a sigh. “They always take first.”
Chapter Ten
“Carefully now,” said Jennifer. “Please, please don’t drop them.” Each of the bears had insisted on carrying three boxes of muffins at a time! She was ‘spotting’ them, making sure passersby gave the bears clearance. She was also bodyguarding the muffins. The last thing she needed was for the general population to eat the muffins up before the judges got their share of the muffins. Marionberry juice seemed to attract shifters like blood attracting sharks, and just as the ocean currents spread that crimson blood, the unseasonably soft July breeze wafted the scent of the muffins through Port Jameson’s Main Street.
Of course, Jennifer was being overly protective of her muffins. The muffin lane — the row of tables filled with muffins for the bake-off — was full of muffins that smelled more strongly of marionberries than hers. Unlike Bear Claw Bakery, other people
were offering muffins for sale. Jennifer just hadn’t had the time to organize such a sale with Patricia or to bake enough muffins, but she had made a few batches of muffins for people to sample as small chunks. She’d also turned broken but good muffins into sample size bites.
“We’re not going to drop them,” said Rufus. “Okay — Jevon won’t drop them. I’m not as, uh…graceful as Jevon.”
“Yeah, well, these muffins smell so good I can’t promise the full dozen will make it to the table,” joked Jevon.
“Don’t even joke about that,” hissed Jennifer. “We’ve been working up to this for weeks! It all comes down to this! Get those muffins to the table in one piece, and I’ll bake you each a dozen — no, three dozen — stud muffins to take back up the mountain.”
Rufus put his boxes of muffins down. “They’re not in one piece.”
“They’re not?” asked Jennifer, opening the pastry box and looking over her babies, wrapped in brown kraft paper muffin liners. “Rufus, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“I mean, technically, he’s right — they’re not in one single piece like a cake,” said Jevon, putting his boxes of muffins down. “You need to calm down, hon. You’re already tripping, and that was over us carrying the muffins ten feet from the car.”
“I feel like I’ve had the worst luck with muffins,” said Jennifer. “First, I got assigned to this Herculean task. Then, the berry patch was attacked — raided? Mauled? Oh, I don’t know — it was eaten up by those wild bears! Bad things come in threes, don’t they?”
“Good things can also come in threes,” said Jevon, squeezing Jennifer’s hands.
“Who are you calling a three?” asked Rufus, quirking a brow.
“What do you — oh,” said Jennifer, just then getting the double entendre. “Rufus! We’re in public!”
“Well, then I better not say what’s on my mind — that sometimes, very bad, naughty things come in threes,” said Rufus, winking at Jennifer.
Jevon went and got the trio some big cups of lemonade and Rufus helped Jennifer set the muffins up on the table. The table had been provided and set up by the Port Jameson Chamber of Commerce, which was running the Port Jameson Bake-Off, and they’d included the same chairs and red and white check tablecloths to all participants. Other items, like signage and display stands, were not supplied, and participants had to supply them.
Jennifer set up the muffins on a simple tiered stand she’d borrowed from the bakery, a stand they’d used to display muffins in the window. It was a plain wooden stand, tawny brown like the muffins, which didn’t stand out against the wood stand at all. The muffins on display were usually filled with bits of fruit and wrapped in matching liners — purple bits of fruit in the marionberry muffins, wrapped in indigo purple liners, crimson spots of cranberry in the cranberry walnut muffins, covered in red and gold metallic striped liners, and so on and so forth. Matching the color of the liner to the flavor of the muffin had made Jennifer’s muffins look drab, rather than making them stand out. She put out samples of muffins in some mini-muffin liners that she’d found in the back of the paper supplies closet at the bakery and put those on a simple melamine tray. She folded a piece of paper into a sign and positioned it between the muffin stand and the samples.
Jennifer looked around. Across the aisle of rows, a few tables down, there was a big, flashy display put on by Toad in the Hole Cafe. Their marionberry muffins were advertised via a large cardboard sign with high-quality color images of the muffins — nearly identical to the muffins on the table, down to the iridescent purple toned liners — next to some luscious looking marionberries. The gals were wearing brand new aprons in lime green.
Their muffins looked good — real good — and they looked more than just cakey. They were selling like hot cakes. Jennifer looked up and down Main Street. It seemed that wherever she looked, at least one person was chowing down on a glitter-wrapped Toad in the Hole Cafe muffin — even other people competing in the muffin bake-off!
Jennifer looked down. She was wearing her street clothes — no apron representing the bakery — and all she had for a sign was a piece of printer paper that Rufus — the member of the ménage with the best handwriting — on which he had written the words, ‘Stud Muffin Bears.’
Jennifer looked back at the Toad in the Hole Cafe’s table and one of the bakers, who looked familiar, waved at Jennifer. Jennifer waved back. Were they taunting her? She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” asked Rufus.
“It’s nothing,” said Jennifer.
“Don’t go comparing yourself to others,” said Jevon.
“Because I’m better than them?” asked Jennifer.
“No, because you ain’t,” said Jevon.
“Jevon!” hissed Rufus.
“What?” asked Jevon.
“I’m intrigued,” said Jennifer, crossing her arms.
“Look — I’m not a philosopher, and don’t quote me on anything I’m about to say, or bring it up in fights later,” said Jevon. “But…comparing yourself to others rarely does you a world of good, especially if done at a moment of weakness. When I met Rufus, I thought that he was a no-good, stuck-up, know-it-all shifter who didn’t know the meaning of the dang word.”
“And…well, you weren’t wrong…” started Rufus, raising an eyebrow.
“But…I was wrong,” said Jevon. “Yes — Rufus was a scamp, but guess what? We’re both bad boys at times. We’re hooligans, and neither of us apologizes for that. He is stuck-up — but if I was him, I would be too. He’s a know-it-all — because he does know a lot, albeit book learning. And, well, neither Rufus nor I really knew what it really meant to be a shifter. I thought it was just about…being a bear, frankly. Being a bear’s just plain ol’ fun. I love hiking through the wood, stealing berries, and catching salmon.”
“And me, well, I thought it was a burden — but both of us learned that really, it’s about Fate,” said Rufus.
“My point is this, Jennifer,” said Jevon. “Those gals — they’re doing things differently than you, but they ain’t a threat. This is a bake-off, and whoever wins, is gonna win. It’s Fated at this point. The judges are going to judge based on flash, or judge based on flavor, but no matter what — what’s done is done, what’s baked is baked, and what’s judged is what’s going to be judged. Those gals have their reasons for being competitive and teasing you. Maybe if the gals at Bear Claw Bakery gave the gals at Toad in the Hole Cafe a chance, y’all might find you have some common ground.”
“I mean…the difference is, your two crews are awesome, and Toad in the Hole Cafe is…well, I don’t have enough information to judge them,” said Jennifer. “They’ve left a bad first impression on me, but…ah-choo!”
Jennifer felt something itching at her nose again. She sneezed, carefully, into a napkin, pointing her face away from the muffins. She thought it must’ve been a speck of dust — but then, she sneezed again.
“Bless you,” said Rufus.
“Thank — achoo!” said Jennifer. “Sorry. I just — ah…ah…choo!”
“Are you coming down with a cold?” asked Jevon.
“No — it must be allergies,” said Jennifer. “Ah…ah…”
Jennifer kept on sneezing. It was a bad look. She didn’t want to be disqualified from the contest due to potential muffin contamination.
“You two, stay here, represent the muffins,” said Jennifer. “I need to go home.”
“Uh-uh, sweet cheeks — you’re not going anywhere,” said a voice. Jennifer turned. The sound was coming from a curvy woman wearing a bright lime green apron with a picture of a toad sitting on a lily pad — and there was a reason the woman had looked familiar.
“Brittany,” said Jennifer, crossing her arms. “Come to gloat?”
“No — came to give you this,” said Brittany, reaching into her apron and pulling out a packet of tissues and a blister pack of anti-allergy medication. “The air around here can disagree with some folks.”
“Y-
you’re offering this to me?” asked Jennifer. “You do know that I’m here representing Bear Claw Bakery.”
“Uh — who else would we be offering it to?” asked Brittany. “You’re the only one here sneezing like a donkey with a bee up its nose. If you are sick, go home. If you’re not sick, I expect you to see this day through. If I have to — you have to.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Jennifer. “Don’t you want to win the contest? With me out of the race…”
“I know my muffins are the best in town,” bragged Brittany. “I don’t need to rely on dirty tricks to win this bake-off. Besides, if you go home, you won’t see me get that big shiny gold trophy, now, will you? Ta-ta!”
Brittany waved and walked away.
“That was…strange,” said Jennifer. “Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe I was right. I can’t tell.”
“Camp Grizzlyfir and Hemlock Crew can’t get along,” said Rufus. “We’re the exception to the rule.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Jennifer.
“Well, if us men up the mountain can’t break bread together, what makes you think you ladies down in town can sort out your differences?” asked Jevon. “Maybe some rivalries are meant to be.”
“I certainly hope not,” said Jennifer. “But…the day that Bear Claw Bakery gals get along with the Toad in the Hole Cafe shifters…well, that’ll be the day were-pigs fly.”
Jevon passed Jennifer a cup of lemonade, and she used it to take the anti-allergy meds. They worked quickly, and after a dozen sneezes, Jennifer was back to being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Someone in an event shirt reading STAFF came over and retrieved a dozen of the muffins, leaving the rest of the muffins on display. Jennifer watched as the muffins were carried over to a large fancy looking table on a stage. The muffins were placed next to other containers of muffins.
“I guess judging is starting soon,” said Rufus.
