Cream (Daddy’s Little Crumbs #1)

Chapter 1

Nothing could go wrong today.

It was my birthday. It was practically illegal to have a bad day.

Right?

And yet, I was standing in the middle of the bakery kitchen with a face full of pink frosting. But nothing else could go wr—the fire alarm rang out.

Oh god. It was my birthday, and I was about to cry.

Not only was I about to receive a lecture from the local heartthrob fireman, but my cheek blush was ruined. He was going to see how ugly I was.

My two best friends, Keaton and Tobias, wrapped in bathrobes and with bed heads, stomped from the apartment above to the kitchen. Keaton fanned the fire alarm with one of the plastic cutting boards, and Toby pulled the burned cupcakes from the oven.

I should’ve stayed in bed.

“What’s going on?” Keaton asked as he managed to push the button on the alarm.

Toby stood beside me, wiping pink frosting from my face with a fingertip and licking it. “Not bad,” he said.

“I woke up early,” I said, pouting. “I wanted to get a start on the day, maybe have one of those perfect days, you know?”

“Why?” Keaton asked with a wide grin. “We told you to have a lie-in.”

They both stared. They knew I couldn’t sit on my hands.

If I wasn’t whipping batter up in the kitchen, I was playing with my play kitchen and teddies upstairs.

I just wanted to regress and be a little right now, but all the sticky frosting and the idea that a fireman was about to burst through the doors had me staying adult .

. . and I hated it. Even if there was one particular fireman I liked the attention of.

“We had a plan,” Toby said. “And—” He looked to Keaon as I wiped the frosting from my face with a cloth. “We can still do the plan. You’ve just got to get your ass back in bed. And stay there. Or, well, take a shower first. You’ve got frosting in your hair.”

I reached up to my hair, thinking I’d just wipe it out . . . and all I did was add another pink streak of frosting to it. “I wanna cry.”

Keaton hugged me from behind, apprehensive about getting the mess on him too. “You can cry, but—”

And before he could finish, Toby gasped. “They’re at the door.”

I stood and saw him. “Oh no, he saw me.” I dropped to my knees again, this time with a tear appearing. “How does my face look?” I whimpered.

A knock came at the glass door. “Is everyone okay in there?” Rick Morrison, the fireman of my dreams, dressed in rescue attire.

Toby swatted a hand at Keaton. “Go answer,” he said

“Why me?” he grumbled.

Even crying was sticky.

“Maybe because you don’t think he’s attractive,” Toby said. “We can’t go. Look at us. I’m a mess, and Cas is covered in frosting.”

Keaton laughed. “Bet you wish you were covered in Rick’s frosting.”

“I do,” I said, breaking from my tears to laugh. “Go get the door before they break in.”

Rick had been a long-time crush of mine.

He exuded everything I wanted. He was a total Daddy.

He was kind and patient, especially when it came to dealing with us.

I’m not saying we burned a lot of cupcakes, but on occasion, a couple burned and Rick was always there, broad-shouldered and with a chin that could cut diamonds. He was also totally straight.

As Keaton dealt with that situation, my situation was being dealt with as well. All the frosting had left my skin all sticky, and now we couldn’t use either the cupcakes or the frosting.

“At least this wasn’t for your birthday cake,” Toby said.

“We’ve got two hours before opening,” Keaton said on his return. “I’m going back upstairs. We should all get ready. Cas, you should’ve stayed in bed, but we can do our thing down here.”

“What thing?” I asked, blinking and feeling the sugar crystals harden on my face. It was covering up where the blush had been, and sort of making me feel cute.

The “thing” was breakfast in bed with presents.

Keaton was the planner, and he was bossy-ish when he needed to be.

He oversaw the business side of our three-person business, Oh Crumbs.

All three of us had been friends since kindergarten, and we’d started it a year ago.

Keaton’s parents bought the building, which came with a very old bakery, and after a month of TLC, we were up and ready.

Before that, I’d been working in a restaurant in town—I was a partially trained dessert chef.

Toby was an artist and now a cake decorator.

He made those illusion cakes which everyone obsessed over, and since I couldn’t do them, I had to remind him he’d be nothing without my tasty cake bases.

Together, we were a power trio—and not only did we share a business, but we shared a lifestyle.

We spent most of our downtime together in little space.

It wasn’t because we’d had awful childhoods, but we’d had some awful teen years.

We got bullied a lot, called all types of names.

Keaton’s parents had put him into private school, so it was just me and Toby for a while, and during that time we both discovered our love for baking, which turned into a love for playing and pretending.

In reality, it’s something we’d always done, but now, as adults, we had the money to go all out—or well, Keaton had the money.

The apartment upstairs was a sensory heaven, with play spaces where all the chairs were beanbags, though some were memory foam.

We had our own library full of picture books, and far too many tea pots and cups.

We could’ve hosted several teddy bear tea parties at the same time.

The only thing missing from our lives were Daddies, but for right now, we were all happy to be a trio of besties playing little.

Except today was my birthday, and I had a birthday wish.

We were an hour away from opening the store and the guys gave me a whole stack of bear-face-shaped pancakes, covered in my favorite fruits and syrup.

We shared my breakfast meal too—I couldn’t devour it all alone, I barely made a dent through one of the thick fluffy pancakes, never mind four of them stacked.

“Should we sing Happy Birthday now?” Keaton asked. “Or should we wait for Maggie to arrive.”

“Let’s do it now,” I said. “You’ve got to use the two and seven candles for it.”

Toby snorted. “Which way around should they go?”

“Don’t you dare laugh, you’re next.”

Keaton was the oldest, his birthday had just been before Christmas.

He was a Sagittarius. I was an Aquarius baby.

All that air sign, which meant I was in the clouds and offered up word vomit to represent my feelings whenever they got to be too much.

Toby was a Gemini—well, on the cusp, he could’ve been a Taurus with all that bull energy he could have.

My birthday cake was already made and prepared.

Three tiers, with a model of me made from chocolate at the top.

It was a bit clunky, but I refused to let Toby do it, even if it would’ve turned out like a masterpiece.

We brought it out of the kitchen fridge and to the display at the front of the bakery.

It wasn’t a large set up, you could often see right into the kitchen unless it was obscured by the one large commercial tray stands for our oven.

It was honestly probably one of my favorite things, because you could make so many cupcakes on it.

They sang their Happy Birthday song for me, and I blew out the candles on the cake.

My wish was made. I wished for a Daddy.

Twenty-seven was such an odd age. I was in age limbo, unsure where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to be doing.

There was that little part of me that thought I should be settling down, maybe finding a man, but Sugar Bay was mostly full of people coming for the river rafting on the bay or exploring the mountain.

If I wanted something permanent, I’d need to find someone who lived here—and the only men I found remotely attractive were the hockey guys and the men in uniform.

Once we were open, our first customer of the day—and every single day—was Maggie. She was an older woman, retired, always telling stories about when this place was a different bakery and how she’d been rejected from a job here. It seemed to be something new every day.

“Where’s the birthday boy?” she asked at the counter.

Keaton manned the register while I was in the kitchen baking and Toby was doing the decorating, probably one of the illusion cakes that had Sugar Bay in a chokehold.

And before Keaton could say anything, I knew it was best to face her.

She was adorable, our number one supporter—self-appointed, of course.

“I’m here,” I said, appearing behind Keaton.

Maggie looked at me, cocking her head and smiling. “Well, I’ve got something for you. You’ve gotta close your eyes first.”

I screwed them shut, just for her, the slight stickiness of sugar still on my face even after scrubbing it clean. “Okay.” I placed my hands on the cold counter.

In my hands, she placed something light yet wide. “Open them,” she said. To which I saw the large badge with my age on it. And a card. “I didn’t know what to get you, but I know you love those collectable teddies, so I got you a gift card.”

“Oh my god, you absolutely shouldn’t have,” I said. “Can I give you a hug?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said. “And it’s my pleasure. My George is just happy I’m getting out of the house. It’s good for my mobility if I’m walking around.”

I gave her a hug. She smelled so sweet, or maybe that was still me. Either way, I squeezed her and she squeezed me right back.

“Well then, put the badge on,” she said, grabbing it from the counter. “And I’ll take two of the—oh my god. Wait, is that your cake?” It was tucked away on the end of the counter, but very visible, even if the pastels did blend a little with the walls. “Is it cheeky of me if I ask for a slice?”

Keaton laughed. “It’s there for the customers,” he said. “Free of charge, obviously.”