21. A Sweet Tooth
21
A SWEET TOOTH
Gage
On Friday afternoon, there’s barely a second to ask if everything’s okay when Elodie and Amanda arrive at my place. My grandma offered to make chocolate chip cookies with them, then take them to the movies later since we’ll be busy at Special Edition all night.
Eliza’s waiting at the door, both for Amanda and to give Elodie the gift. The second Amanda’s inside, pressing a contraband bar of chocolate into Eliza’s pocket—which I’m pretty sure they’re going to use in Grandma’s cookies, along with the secret ingredient of coconut—Eliza hands Elodie a gift bag. “Good luck tonight. This is for you.”
Elodie peeks inside, then smiles and sniffs. “Grapefruit soap. I love it. And way better than a chocolate soap someone once gave me.”
Eliza’s nose crinkles. “Eww. Chocolate is for eating, not cleaning.”
“Exactly. But grapefruit? That’s for eating and cleaning,” Elodie adds, and she sounds like Mary Poppins, magical and bright, and I shouldn’t love that. Really, I shouldn’t. She’s not a delightful, fictional nanny. She’s a very real woman with very real needs—one who I am really in business with now.
And I can’t get in the way of her paying her bills and loans and putting Amanda through school.
Before we take off, Elodie tugs my grandma aside at the door. “Amanda’s a vegetarian. She doesn’t eat any meat at all. But she’s obsessed with cheese.”
“Well, so am I,” Grams says. “We’ll get along fine.”
We leave my house, heading for her car where she sets the soap bar in the back seat. As she drives, she’s peppy along the way, chatting about a slight increase in traffic at Elodie’s Chocolates today with some of the social buzz about the pop-up. She mentions that the woman who owns the perfume shop next door said her business has gone up too, and isn’t that great?
But Elodie’s almost too animated. Too Mary Poppins.
When there’s a break in her chatter, I say, “Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Are we good?”
She laughs, answering rhetorically with, “Why would we not be good? Now, I’ve got the playlists ready, and I need to do some chocolate prep, and I wrote out a list of?—”
“Elodie, are you pissed at me?”
She slows at a light on Van Ness, tossing me a blank glance. “No. I don’t even know why you think I would be.”
“Because—”
But I stop myself. I don’t want to be presumptuous. I don’t want to be that guy who acts like he expects a woman to be out of her mind when he says we can’t do this. When we both said we can’t do this.
“Because that’s great,” I backtrack, then talk business the rest of the way.
* * *
Several hours later, I’m amped up from the nonstop lines, the chatter, and the vibe of a packed house. A tiny house, sure. But a packed one nonetheless, with crowds spilling into the courtyard, including Loretta who brought a pack of women friends who all left big tips.
It’s just after nine, and I’m mixing a Blushing Mimosa—orange juice, pineapple juice, grenadine, and champagne—and Elodie is plating some of the chocolate-covered cherries along with the raspberry chocolates.
“We’re almost out of the popping raspberries,” she whispers out of the side of her mouth, concern in her tone. “I don’t want to have to close early. We said we’d be open till ten.”
“Good problem to have,” I say as I fill a flute with the juice mixture, then top it with champagne.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” she whispers, her brow knitting.
“But the lines, Elodie. Look at the lines,” I whisper, nodding toward the crowd snaking outside the shop. “And they’re all posting. They are doing the work for us.”
“And if we run out, they’ll post that we ran out,” she counters, and there’s real worry in her voice.
I should reassure her. I’m supposed to be her fiancé. “I’ve got extra champagne in the supply closet. We’ll just serve drinks then.” There. That ought to do the trick.
“You have extra?”
“Brought it earlier. I’m a softball coach, remember?”
“Well, I hope you don’t bring champagne for the girls.”
“Gatorade. But point being…I’ve got this.”
I take the mimosas to a table in the corner, thanking them, then returning to the counter. Next up is Celeste. We have enough for her, and that’s what matters. “Good evening, Celeste. How are you?”
She’s like the cold lawyer on a TV show, that’s how she is. She peers around, and I bet her robot eyes are recording everything. Her hair is slicked back in a bun as usual. She’s in a pantsuit as usual, this time in navy. And her tone is no nonsense, like it is every damn time as she asks tonelessly, “What do you recommend?”
“An Aperol Spritz or a Blushing Mimosa have been popular all night,” I say.
“Everyone serves Aperol Spritzes,” she says with a dismissive flick of her fingers, like I’ve committed the bartender equivalent of offering cupcakes in a cake jar world.
Think fast.
“I could make you a pineapple mimosa,” I suggest, but I’m officially flustered. I don’t know how to please this woman. “The other cocktail we’re offering is a blackberry mule with winter melon.” That usually wins over the fancier guests.
Her nose twitches. What the hell?
I gulp, glancing help me at Elodie, but she’s busy with other customers, smiling and holding a cute little pink tray with decadent dark chocolate bonbons and raspberry chocolate squares for a cooing pack of girls in matching black corsets, who are snapping her pic.
“Your bandana,” one says.
“Your necklace,” the next one adds.
“Your lipstick,” the final one puts in.
“Better With Pockets. Bling and Baubles. Mia and Lola,” she says, and what language is she speaking?
Celeste arches a brow their way, her machine brain recording the interaction and filing it under Elodie is better than this guy . “Or would you rather have some chocolate?” I ask her, flailing around some more. Elodie would know what to say. She’s so good on her feet. “Some people don’t like champagne cocktails and that’s okay.”
Have I been a bartender for years or am I a schoolboy, unsure what to say to a stern teacher?
Celeste studies the counter, the chocolates, and the cocktail ingredients when the corset crew leaves, and Elodie slides over to my side. “We could also pour you a glass of champagne or some sparkling water.”
She’s an angel. She must have heard the whole interaction.
Celeste doesn’t smile. But her ruler lips move for the first time. “A glass of sparkling would be fine. No chocolate though. I hate sugar,” she says with a shudder.
“I understand completely,” Elodie says with warmth in her voice. “I hate tomatoes.”
Celeste’s lips twitch.
I’d like to add I hate things but I don’t think it’d garner the same reaction so I keep my mouth shut as Elodie finds the bottle of sparkling water in the tiny fridge.
Why the hell didn’t I think of that? We do have it for those who don’t drink. Elodie hands it to me, and I pour it in a pretty flute, then give it to Celeste, who thanks me, then lifts her phone to tap the card reader.
I shake my head. “No charge.”
“I insist,” she says and the subtext is clear—she doesn’t want a tab with me.
Once she pays, she takes a sip of the water, sets down the flute at the end of the counter, and leaves, departing on her chariot of efficiency.
I breathe again, but I don’t feel settled. I have no idea what to think of that interaction. If it means anything at all. But when I look down at the counter, we’re nearly out of chocolate.
Shit.
Elodie was right. I was too focused on myself to think about her running out. I brought extra for me, but she went through the chocolates faster than expected. I hold up a finger to the next customer, then turn to Elodie, ready to fix this, stat, and I know just how to do it. “Tell Kenji to meet me outside the shop with extras…bonbons or whatever he has,” I say, since her main shop just closed a few minutes ago, and he won’t have left yet. “I’ll run down there and get some chocolate.”
“You don’t mind?” She sounds so relieved. She’s got flats on, but I bet she doesn’t want to run in them.
I nod subtly to the customers. “You’re better with people. But can you make a Blushing Mimosa?”
“Of course I can.”
I take off my apron and run the few blocks to her shop, these retired athlete legs still working. I meet Kenji outside.
“Here you go, Inked Daddy,” he says, but I have no time to wonder what that name’s all about as I say thanks then haul ass back to the shop.
I do it in minutes flat with a stash of chocolates.
I slide behind the counter in the nick of time, tying on the apron and helping handle the rest of the customers.
Including a young woman who’s got her phone in front of her face the whole time as she orders. Which isn’t strange. It’s pretty much par for the course. But this woman is all alone, and that stands out to me. She’s got to be someone. With tiny black braids twisted up on her head and silver eyeshadow against dark brown skin, she’s dressed in black with metal bracelets jangling up and down her wrists.
That’s when it hits me. Silver Zanetti. She must be the Dessert Devotee Felix mentioned. She’s talking to the phone camera, then she stops, lowers it and smiles at Elodie.
“Hi, bestie,” she says.
I blink. Does Elodie know her?
“Hi, Silver. Love your vids.”
“Love this shop. And I’ve been dying for your chocolate. I’m already obsessed with it, and I haven’t even tried it.”
Okaaaay.
“But no cocktails for me,” she says to me, apologetically.
“It’s all good,” I say.
Elodie moves quickly, then serves the influencer, who takes the tray to a table in the corner, sitting alone and shooting the whole time as she eats.
Elodie fiddles with her ring, and I want to reassure her, but I don’t even know what to say to her anymore after the other day, and the car, and tonight.
Except, fuck it. Sometimes, she just needs to know I believe in her. And I do.
I set a hand on her soft arm. “She’s going to love it. Your chocolate is amazing. The best in the city,” I whisper.
“Thanks,” she says softly.
When I look up, I’m staring at the face of Sebastian. His cap is off today, and his hair is thick, dark, and gelled. He gives off a peddling-life-insurance-to-little-old-ladies vibe as he smiles gregariously at the offerings. “Chocolate-covered cherries. You’ve really outdone yourself, Elodie.”
What does that mean? I want to punch him for no reason.
“Thank you. Glad you like it,” she says, clearly trying to be friendly, but there’s discomfort in her voice.
“Can’t say I’m not jelly though,” Sebastian adds, like a jovial uncle trying to appropriate youthful slang but missing the mark.
“There’s room for all of us. Everyone has a sweet tooth,” she says, trying so damn hard to play nice with her competitor.
I better aim in the same direction. “You’ve got a fantastic thing going at your shop, man,” I say, trying to defuse whatever bomb is ticking in him. “I gave some of your chocolates to the parents on the softball team, and they went crazy for them.”
He turns to me, head tilted, hair not moving, smile etched on. “Oh, you’re a softball coach as well as being a former pitcher?”
Dude looked me up? “Yes. I am,” I say, keeping it simple even as my radar beeps loud in warning.
“Gage coaches his daughter’s team,” Elodie puts in.
Sebastian arches a brow her way now. “Your…stepdaughter’s team?”
“Soon. She’ll be my stepdaughter soon,” Elodie adds.
“When’s the wedding?”
“Very, very soon,” I add, without thinking, because fuck him. “We can’t really wait much longer.”
It’s not at all what I’ve said to Felix, but I don’t care right now.
“I hope I get an invitation,” he says.
There’s no reason on heaven or earth why we’d invite this guy, but I say, “Of course you will. Now, can I get you a blackberry mule with winter melon? It’s our most elite cocktail. For VIP customers.”
Guys like him think they deserve the best.
“Perfect,” he says.
When he’s served, he sits down at a table with a man who looks like him, and they eat, drink, and rub me the wrong way.
But there’s no time to linger on him when Felix arrives near the end of the night, clearly pleased as he surveys the shop. “I had a feeling about you two. I see you met Silver,” he says, then rattles off the names of other local foodies who were here. “Keep it up for the next few months.”
When the doors close a few minutes later, and everyone’s gone, I’m spent from the night, the games, the pretend, and all the uncertainty.
I want to clean up and crash.
But I also know I need to thank Elodie for saving my ass with Celeste. When a text lands from my grandma with a photo of two tired girls conked out on a couch, I show it to her, then say, “Let me treat you to some rosemary fries.”
She looks like she wants to say no. Like maybe she figures no is the safe answer. But instead she says, “Yes. Also, those were the names of the shops where I got my bandana, my necklace, and my lipstick.”
It takes a beat for me to realize she noticed earlier that I must have been wondering. It takes only a second more for me to realize she must notice everything.