Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tide Cottage, Freedom
Eden
“Good physio session,” Cody praises. “Even better news? That delicious smell means that our cake is ready too. Why hasn’t anyone else thought of combining baking and physiotherapy? I could make it my new business.”
I follow Cody through the lounge of Tide Cottage.
It’s comfortable, warm, and peaceful like it always is.
Despite my joggers and t-shirt being damp with sweat and my muscles aching from the intense exercise, I feel more relaxed than I have in days.
I always do when I am here with Cody and his husband, Michael.
I fit somehow.
I wrinkle my nose, breathing in deeply the rich, sweet, and familiar scent of the baking chocolate cake, which has filled the cottage. It’s the recipe that Mum used because it was Shay’s favorite for our birthdays.
Shay deserves something special after the shit we have both been through this week.
After the Webbs.
The cozy, caramelized scent wraps around me, reminding me of being a teenager, when I would help Mum bake the star shaped cake each year.
We only received one cake between us both.
I was the shadow, after all.
Plus, my adoptive parents didn’t have enough money to make more. They already saved all year to afford a cake, party, and a present for us.
What cake would I even have asked for?
The birthday party was Shay’s. The friends were his.
I sacrificed my life for Shay to be able to live his. So, his happiness is all that matters, right?
I pass Cody’s surfboards, which are stacked against the far wall, padding on bare feet into the kitchen. The walls and open shelves are painted sky blue.
The afternoon sun streams over the exposed beams and wide-planked wooden floors. It also spotlights the baking battleground, which Cody and I left behind us.
“We forgot to clean up.” I stare in horror at the flour, cocoa, and sugar that spill across the counters.
I rush to the sink, snatching up a cloth. I begin to wipe down the sides.
“Hey, hey.” Cody grabs my arm to still me. He is dressed in blue boardshorts and matching t-shirt. “Leave it. We have your famous English Chocolate Birthday Fudge Cake to stuff our faces with.”
“But what about when Mike sees this?”
Cody is the wild spirit. Michael is stern.
They balance each other out, but I don’t want Cody to get into trouble because of my recipe.
Friends protect each other.
Cody looks at me, confused.
“Mike isn’t my dad or D’Angelo.” He chuckles. “I’ve heard about the prank war between Shay and him over jam on counters. Trust me, Mike has seen worse, especially when I was in my baking experimental phase.”
Shay sometimes talks about his experimental phase.
Was he talking about baking?
My brow furrows. “Like what?
“This is nothing compared to the Great Cupcake Explosion,” Cody whispers. “Let’s just say that’s how I learned never to experiment with baking powder.”
I hum in agreement.
Perhaps, I’ll have to ask Shay what he discovered in his phase.
He may tell me some interesting things to add to my bakery notes.
Cody plucks two aprons off a peg, slipping one with REAL MEN BAKE COOKIES on over his tumble of hair. Then he tosses me a second rainbow one with BAKE SOMEONE HAPPY in black letters on the front.
I tie on the apron.
“As your birthday is coming up, what cake would you like me to bake you as a gift?” Cody offers like it’s not a big deal.
No one has baked me my own cake before.
I stare at him in shock. “There’s no party.”
Cody gives me a look that I don’t understand. “Ehm, okay. But you can still have a cake. You’re family and my best friend.”
Best friend?
I almost smile, before I catch myself.
“Star,” I manage to say.
Cody quirks his brow. “Isn’t that your twin’s favorite thing? What would you like?”
I blink. “I don’t know. I’ve never had my own cake.”
“Well, you will this year. How about a surprise?”
“No surprises.”
Cody tilts his head, before he beams. “How about a cat shaped cake?”
I relax.
Is it greedy to ask for more?
“A cat and a squirrel…?” I suggest.
“Great idea. Now, to our awesome fudge cake.” Cody snatches up a pair of oven gloves that look like cat paws (I’m jealous; would D’Angelo add a pair like that to our kitchen?) and pulls open the oven.
There is a surge of heat.
Too much.
Shit, what temperature did Cody set the oven to?
Cody coughs at the steam, blinking. He drags out the cake, setting the tin down with a clatter.
Then we both stare at the sunken, cracked mess of a cake in shock.
It’s fucked.
My jaw clenches.
What happens when baking goes wrong? Is this how friendships end?
Cody whistles. “Wow, we just birthed Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein’s monster,” I automatically reply. “Frankenstein was the scientist.”
My shoulders stiffen, as I stare at the ruined cake.
Why didn’t I get this right?
I’ve ruined it.
I don’t have anything to take back to Robyn.
I promised her that I would. She has been working so hard. She’s in the study right now, while I have taken time off from my job.
D’Angelo has made sure that I have excellent medical cover. He allows me paid time off for every appointment.
He’s in practice with Shay, working his arse off, after already suffering through some shit therapy thing.
Mental skills coaching…?
If therapists resign when you tell them the truth, what is the point of them?
I knew that I was too much for anyone. My darkness is my own.
Yet I wanted to treat my family. Now, I’ll have broken my promise.
I don’t do that.
Cody’s expression falls when he notices my slumped shoulders.
“See, experimenting? But you learn from your mistakes.” Cody nudges my shoulder. “What did we…?”
“We set the oven temperature too high.” The words burn my throat.
Cody’s smile gentles. “You mean I did, right? Well, I’m impressed. I created something freaky. That takes skill.”
I side-eye him. “Skill?”
Cody grins, and his cheeks dimple. “You know what takes even more skill…? Inventing something new.”
Cody ducks away from me, banging open drawers and dragging out a large plate with TRUST ME, I’M A DOCTOR, followed by a winking emoji face on it.
I don’t understand Michael’s dry, dark humor.
Or emojis.
Cody copies the winking face, however, before upending the sunken cake onto the plate.
I yell out in horror, as Cody gleefully smashes the cake into broken pieces.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
Cody blows his hair out of his face, before wiggling his sticky fingers at me. “Magic.” He snatches up the icing and shakes it over the gooey chocolate pieces like snow. Then he lifts the plate to show me, excitedly, “Tada!”
I stare at the chocolate balls. “What am I looking at?”
Cody dances the plate under my nose, swinging his hips like the performance will somehow make the chunks of cake look any better. “How about a naming ceremony? What about E & S’s Sugar-Coated Balls?”
“No.”
“Iced in Overtime? Big Cocoa Energy? Fudge Happens?”
“Eat.” I push Cody back to the stools at the counter.
Cody happily settles himself on the stool, placing the plate down and picking up a sticky chocolate ball.
A Fudge Happens.
I sit next to Cody, glancing out of the cottage’s window.
The beach outside is remote with sea stacks that rise from the swelling waves. Sunlight ripples across the sea.
My attention is drawn back to Cody by his deep moan.
“I should have called it Happy Ending Balls.” He licks a smear of icing off his lips. “Thanks for sharing that recipe, Dee. I messed it up, but these bites are yummy. I mean, they look like a mess but they taste delicious. Like me most of the time.”
I peer at the plate, dubiously.
“Stop looking like they’re going to explode. They’re not bombs.” Cody pushes the plate closer to me. “Go on, try a Happy Ending Ball.”
“I’m not calling them that.”
I still grab one and force the sticky mess into my mouth, licking the icing off my fingers.
My eyes open.
Cody is right. It’s delicious.
The rich, decadent taste draws me back to the single slice of cake that I ate every birthday, hiding up in my bedroom, while Shay enjoyed his party downstairs.
“See?” Cody is smiling, smugly.
“But how can I share this with the others? The cake is broken.”
“Says who? Why do they need to know that this went wrong? Just tell them that you baked Happy Ending Balls—”
“Fudge Happens.”
“We can pretend that we always meant to make these Fudge Happens and… Oh, I know.” Cody springs up, dragging open a drawer.
He holds up a bottle of edible gold sparkles like it is the Holy Grail.
Then he enthusiastically shakes the sparkles over the mess on the plate.
“Sparkles fix everything. I hold to that rule with my clubbing outfits. Also, when it comes to sex toys.”
“They fix everything?” I raise a wary eyebrow.
Cody nods.
Shay told me that friends do this — talk about their lives.
He wrote short scripts for me when I was at college. He tried to help me learn how to talk to other students. He told me that with friends, connecting and conversations aren’t transactional.
I didn’t understand then why you would talk to someone if you didn’t have a goal or exchange that you wanted.
Why would you?
What was the point of small talk? No one understood my jokes, and I didn’t understand theirs.
No one cared about my life. So, why would I want to know about theirs?
D’Angelo and Cody, however, have wanted to know about me. They haven’t been afraid of what they’ve discovered. And I’m learning why I would want to know about them as well.
I’m learning a lot of new rules today.
Should I buy Robyn a sparkly dildo?
It would look pretty dipping in and out of her sweet pussy.
“Where have you gone?” Cody asks. “Must be somewhere nice.”
I flush. “Sparkles.”
“Hmm, trust me, nothing broken can’t be fixed by them.” He ducks his head.
I flinch.
Cody shouldn’t have to know how to reinvent himself after being broken like I do. How to use sparkles like I use my tattoos.
Except, he does because of his dad.