Chapter 2
MISTRIAL
Jack
I’m about to call off the baked-goods excursion in the name of testicle safety when the guy at the front of the line sneaks inside without waiting for someone to exit.
The door doesn’t fully close behind him, his puffer jacket sticking out over the threshold.
Something I’m sure the owner—who’s probably paying astronomical prices to heat the place—wouldn’t be too pleased about. But I am. The blast of heat is the first welcome bit of ambiance this town has given me.
If I hadn’t listened to that pesky little voice inside my head that keeps telling me not to take on more clients, I’d be basking in California sunshine and having sushi and sake lunch meetings.
Okay. Maybe not basking. I don’t remember ever having basked before.
But I’d be working, and that’s as basking as I get.
And the new client would be a great challenge.
He’s a good actor. Has loads of potential.
And his current agent was the one who reached out wanting to offer him up.
Unusual in my line of business, but his agent is relatively new and doesn’t think she has the resources and connections to do her client justice. Got to respect that.
“Oh. My. God.” Amanda elbows me hard in the ribs. “Look.” She points toward the other side of the door, where the wall of customers in front of us had been blocking the view.
“Is that a dog?”
It’s a rhetorical question—anyone can see the lump of fur is indeed a dog—but I’m confused as to why it’s lying in a snowbank directly in front of a bakery entrance and no one in line before us mentioned it. “Is it dead?”
Just then, the large animal lifts its head, looks at me, and, as if finding me just as unappealing as I find this small-town Christmas-time excursion, flops back down onto its snow pillow.
Amanda rolls her eyes. “I was talking about that.” She jabs her finger again, this time clearly pointing at a foldable chalkboard sign sitting behind the dog. “Isn’t that the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?”
Fearing another jab, I move out of elbow range—and closer to the warm air escaping the bakery—and read the handwritten menu, festooned with doodled ornaments and candy canes.
Hot Cocoa & Chill: Decadent chocolate cakes wrapped around marshmallow fluff and tiny chocolate bits. Pairs well with a snuggle and absolutely nothing else on.
Stuff My Stocking: Gingerbread cakes filled with silky eggnog cream and a cinnamon kick. This one finishes fast. Better go for round two.
Jingle My Berries: Spiced vanilla cake with cranberry-orange cream cheese filling. Tangy, tingly, and totally unexpected—like a holiday hookup with an ex.
Dasher’s Midnight Ride: Espresso-dark chocolate cake + mocha cream with a peppermint finish. Stays up late. Rides hard. Leaves you breathless.
Kiss Me Under the Whoopie: White chocolate cakes hugging raspberry mascarpone cream. One bite and you’ll be puckered up and emotionally compromised.
Fireside Fling: Toasted s’mores whoopie with graham cracker cake and gooey marshmallow-chocolate swirl. Just the right amount of sticky.
Unwrap Me Slowly: Chocolate cake with hazelnut crème, dipped in gold luster dust. Looks classy. Tastes filthy.
The sign and menu are pure Christmas: quaint, clever, and hilariously perverse. Much like the bakery’s name.
The branding is on point.
And if I wasn’t exhausted, grumpy, and—as my whoopie pie-loving client claims—lonely, I’d agree with her that it’s amazing.
But I am all of those things. So I do not agree.
Instead, rubbing my sore ribs, I lean back against the painted shingle siding, inhale the warm air that smells like sugar, vanilla, and something dangerously nostalgic, and embrace my inner petulant child.
“If you think a baker who’s mistaken a perverted sense of humor for originality is amazing, then yeah. Sure. It’s amazing.” I nearly give myself a migraine from the force of my eye roll. “Though I find it hard to believe that you, an international award-winning actress, can be so easily charmed.”
For the first time since we arrived, Amanda’s smile slips.
“It’s because I’ve seen so much of that supposed ‘Hollywood magic’”—she air quotes, though with her mittens it looks like puppet theater—“that I can appreciate something real when I see it.” She attempts to cross her arms but fails thanks to the coat.
With a huff, she gestures toward the stray dog.
“Hideaway Harbor is charming. And you’d agree if you weren’t being such a Scrooge. ”
Feeling a little guilty for raining on her small-town parade—but not guilty enough to get over myself—I drop my head against the siding and close my eyes. “You say charming,” I grumble. “I say aggressively festive.”
“Is that so?” The voice cuts in—cool, unimpressed, and in direct opposition to the warm wave of air that follows it.
I open my eyes just as the bakery door swings wide, and she steps out.
Dark hair pulled into a barely-contained bun.
A smudge of cocoa on one cheek like war paint.
A cranberry apron dusted in flour. Slip-resistant Crocs to match adorned with Christmas charms. And despite the holiday hue of her apron and the low-fi holiday music drifting out behind her, the woman herself looks anything but merry.
“Thank you for sharing your”—she gives me a slow, unimpressed once-over—“unique perspective on the town’s holiday décor.” Her voice is honeyed with just enough bite to qualify as legally passive-aggressive.
She steps fully onto the stoop, bakery box balanced on one palm, and offers what looks like a piece of cake to the stray dog—who perks up instantly, tail wagging like she just offered him a winning lottery ticket.
She tosses the treat. He catches it. Swallows. Trots away.
Then she turns to Amanda, and everything about her face softens.
“You must be Amanda Willis.”
“I—yes.” Amanda blinks, clearly caught off guard.
“Heard you’d be in town. The mayor wrote an article about it in The Almanac.” She tips her head, giving me a better view of the beauty mark under her right eye. “Something about you lighting the Christmas tree tomorrow night in front of Town Hall?”
I’ve seen plenty of attractive women in LA. Dated more than a few. Celebrities, models, women with carefully tousled hair and strategically placed beauty marks.
So it makes no damn sense that my throat goes dry and my leather gloves creak from how tightly I’m clenching my fists from my sudden, irrational urge to act like that stray and beg this woman for a treat.
Amanda beams. “Yes. That’s right.”
“Welcome to Hideaway Harbor.” She holds out the bakery box. “Two of each of my holiday whoopie pies.”
I watch like a man observing a particularly tense chess match. Amanda’s eyes flick to me occasionally, but the baker? She makes it clear I’ve been cut from the scene.
As someone who’s spent his career carefully curated and painfully aware of how every move plays in the court of public opinion, I’m not used to being ignored. Or called out.
Especially not by a wild-haired pastry assassin who smells like peppermint and poor impulse control.
Which explains the strange heat crawling up my neck when my gaze drops—unhelpfully—to the open collar of her chef’s coat.
Right to the delicate slope of her collarbone.
“Wow.” Amanda, lips forming an O at the box’s contents, accepts it reverently. “Thank you.”
I snap out of it, reaching for my wallet. “Let me pay you for—”
“No need.” She lifts a hand, eyes still on Amanda. “I just thought it’d be wise to come out and meet you before you got swarmed.” She thumbs toward the bakery window, where at least six faces are now smooshed against the glass.
“Your customers?” I blame the tone on jet lag. And possibly starvation. But it gets me what I want—her attention.
And oof. That look.
“Yes.” Her brow arches like she’s trying to illustrate how beneath her she finds me.
My frozen testicles begin to thaw.
“I’m Audrey Nouel, the owner and patissière of Making Whoopie”—she gestures to the holly-wrapped sign beside the door—“and a big fan of aggressively festive holiday décor.” She turns back to Amanda. “Also a big fan of yours. Loved you in Lift Off to Love.”
Of course her name is Audrey. She’s Audrey Hepburn incarnate.
And I’ve always had a thing for classics.
“Thanks.” Amanda sounds sincere, but I can tell her focus has shifted entirely to the treasure trove in her hands. “Whoa.”
The smile that lights up Audrey’s face in response makes my chest feel like I’ve taken a sip of really good whiskey after closing a seven-figure deal.
She bats her lashes—fake-innocent. “My next suggestion for your visit would be to find someone who actually appreciates the town’s charm.”
I flinch, the barb landing.
“But if that fails...” She shrugs, chin tilting toward the shop next door. “Grabbing a coffee from Love at First Sip is the next best thing.” And with that, she steps back inside.
Not a glance in my direction. Just the door shutting firmly behind her.
My next shiver starts below the belt.
“Ooh.” Amanda, completely unfazed, lifts a glittering whoopie pie from the pale blue box. “This one has glitter.”
Audrey
No man that smug, buttoned-up, and judgmental has any right being that good-looking. Especially not while standing in front of my shop, radiating disdain and disapproval like a space heater set to condescend.
I should’ve ignored him. Or snapped. Or handed him a whoopie pie and smiled while I told him to go to hell.
Instead, I got distracted. Lost my moment.
No picture with Amanda. No proof of my brush with fame.
And now I’m back inside Making Whoopie, facing down a bakery full of nosy locals who promised not to bombard the celebrity outside once I promised them gossip and a free pastry.
And while I may regret my too-strong reaction to the Burberry Grinch, I regret not staying outside a little longer to cool off even more. Because the second I step inside, I’m met by a press pool of whoopie pie enthusiasts turned amateur tabloid reporters.
—“Was she nice?”
—“Did she hug you?”
—“What was her favorite pie?”
—“Did she thank you?”
They lean in, a dozen heads bobbing in anticipation.
I spot Hudson at the back, rubbing his stomach like he just got elbowed.
Mia—phone now miraculously reclaimed from Hudson—is practically vibrating next to the window display. “Well?”
“We stayed put, just like you asked,” Alice reminds me, arms crossed but eyes twinkling.
I inhale a deep, sugar-scented breath. Fake it till you bake it.
Making my way behind the counter, I rub my arms to shake off the lingering winter chill from standing outside sans coat. “Amanda Willis is absolutely lovely.” I grab a tray of my experimental flavored pies.
“She looks lovely,” Eileen murmurs, still gazing longingly out the window.
“She is lovely,” I confirm, rounding the counter again and luring them toward the exit like one might a retriever with a biscuit. “Polite. Friendly. Effortlessly gracious.” And genuinely enthusiastic about her free box of whoopie pies—which, frankly, is how I judge a person’s character.
If Amanda Willis is even half as charming with the rest of the town as she was with me, Hideaway Harbor is going to stampede its way to that tree lighting tomorrow night.
My brain’s already racing.
Can I bake enough extras to do a last-minute pop-up at the event?
Do I have enough boxes? Labels? Twine? Sprinkles?
Can I make the time?
I’m already running low on sleep thanks to last night’s window display marathon and this morning’s monster bake for the holiday flavor reveal.
But if I do pull it off—and if I somehow manage to get a picture of Amanda holding one of my whoopie pies? That’s gold.
I know from my past job at the Ritz that a good post with the right hashtags could turn my respectable one thousand followers into something closer to... relevant.
Relevant enough to comfortably afford an assistant. If I could admit to myself that I need one.
“Did she say where she was going next?” Eileen asks, still holding her whoopie pie like it’s a microphone.
I ignore the question and redirect.
“That’s a new flavor combination I’ve been working on.” I nod at the treat in her hand as the others swarm in and pluck theirs from the tray. “Spiced-vanilla cake with orange-cranberry buttercream and edible pine needle sprinkles.”
Mia takes a huge bite and moans audibly.
Hudson turns a disturbing shade of red at the sound.
Alice moves her bite to the side of her cheek, chipmunk-style. “Divine as always, Audrey.”
Feeling unreasonably pleased, I decide right then that the new flavor will be exclusive to tomorrow night’s tree lighting. The tree lighting I will make time for.
My mind's already spinning with potential hashtags I don’t have time to create.
“I directed Amanda to Love at First Sip,” I announce loudly when no one shows any interest in heading for the door. “Said she wanted a coffee.”
Eileen gasps—hands to heart, eyes wide. “Her coffee order!”
Alice groans. “Oh no.”
“Yes!” Eileen spins toward her like a woman reborn. “Her coffee order will tell me everything I need to know about what kind of woman she likes.”
Mia laughs. “I bet she orders an oat milk latte with fake sugar.”
“Nah, something off-menu.” Hudson strokes his stubbled jaw with one hand and waves his bag of pies with the other. “I bet my Jingle My Berries whoopie pie that she orders a green tea matcha chai with kombucha or something equally Californian and confusing.”
Eileen pushes through the crowd like a woman on a caffeinated mission. “Only one way to find out!”
The bell over the door chimes like a starting pistol.
Bets forgotten, the herd mobilizes—coats zipping, boots stomping, a flurry of goodbyes flung in the air as the peanut gallery evacuates in pursuit of coffee-based matchmaking intel.
And when the last one exits, I’m left with the customers I haven’t served and a line that’s finally moving again.
In no time, the shop is full, the pies are selling, and the chaos feels... good.
Like possibility.
Like momentum.
Like maybe, just maybe, Making Whoopie is about to have its moment.
But as I fill new orders and replenish the display cases with trays of pies from the racks, my mind reels with all that I need to get together if I intend to make that moment happen. More pies. Social media posts. More pies. Signage. More. Pies.
I hand another customer their box and smile through the stress.
I’ll figure it out. I always do.
Still, when a blond woman moves past the front window, reminding me of Amanda, a pang hits low and sharp.
I should’ve taken that photo when she was right there.
Not for clout. Not even for the algorithm. Not even for my mother.
Just for me.
But I didn’t. Because I got flustered.
By a lawyer. A grinch. And a man my mother would absolutely adore with or without the law degree.
The very opposite of what I’m looking for. What I moved here for.
If I was ready to admit it.
Which I’m not. At all.