Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
kennedy
My glass went from half full to half empty to bone dry in the span of a few days.
First my standing mixer broke. Not just broke but died.
Sir Mix-a-Lot—yes, I named it—made a grinding noise that sounded like a demon being exorcised and then gave up entirely, leaving me elbow-deep in brioche dough that I had to finish by hand, which took forever and ruined my nails.
Then my favorite couple got voted off Dancing with the Stars. While it shouldn’t matter, it felt like a personal attack because their tango got nines from every judge.
After that, a customer called to tell me they’d gotten the date of their event wrong and they actually need everything by tomorrow rather than next week. So I spent the entire night hunched over, baking and decorating like an underpaid Elf in Santa’s workshop.
And because the universe wasn’t done kicking me while I was down, I ran out of sugar halfway through. I didn’t have time to go to MetroMart to buy more in bulk, so I had to pay for emergency delivery at triple the price.
So yeah. The glass isn’t just empty. It’s been smashed on the floor and I’m walking around barefoot without a shoe in sight.
And now? Now I’m diagnosing a twenty-something boy (who’s too old to still be wearing his frat letters) as colorblind.
“Are you sure?” he prompts for the third time. “Because she’ll be really upset if I show up with the wrong thing. She’s always harping on me for not listening, so…”
It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. A man who doesn’t listen? Shocking.
“I promise this cake is blue and purple, just like she ordered.”
Clients often send mood boards or inspiration for what they want, but his girlfriend provided me the Pantone codes of her birthday party invitation, so I know damn well the colors are right.
He purses his lips. “But it looks grayish.”
“Right,” I drawl, tamping down on my impatience. I really need a bubble bath followed by an eleven-hour nap. “But if you’re color blind, the blue and purple will be hard to distinguish. Because your eyes can’t perceive the red tone accurately. That’s why it may look different to you.”
He opens his mouth to argue, so I quickly add, “But if your girlfriend doesn’t love it, have her reach out to me.”
His shoulders relax, as if having the pressure put on me, rather than him, is enough to assuage his fears. Taking that as a good sign, I slowly shut the lid on the cake box and hold it out like a sacrificial lamb at an offering.
If only I had a pastry kitchen so I wouldn’t have to give customers my address and deal with asinine conversations like this.
As much as I don’t want to clean up after all the work I’ve done, if I don’t do it now, the bowls and spoons in my sink will pile up like they’re trying to summit Everest, so I get to work.
I’m dancing along to the S.I.X album, elbow deep in suds (unfortunately from dish soap and not a bath bomb) when my phone rings and Cameron’s name flashes across the screen.
For a moment I only stare at it. Why would he be calling me?
Finally, with a sigh, I dry my hands on a dishtowel that reads Cake it Till You Make It and swipe to answer. “Hello?”
“Hey,” the deep, gravelly voice on the other end of the phone says. “It’s Cameron. Cameron Davies.”
I bite back the urge to ask if he always introduces himself like he’s James Bond and instead say, “Yes, I know. I have your number saved since we tend to end up in group chats together.”
The line goes silent for a second, then he clears his throat. “Right. I’m outside your door.”
I whip around, wisps of hair floating around my face. “Why?”
“Am I at your door?”
“No, why doesn’t the government finally admit what’s so classified about Area 51?” I deadpan. “Yes, why are you at my door?”
“Can you just let me in?” he grumbles.
It’s tempting to snark back with “Oh, now you want to come in?” But I fight the urge and trudge to the door instead, my fuzzy socks providing no resistance against the wood floor.
When I throw it open, I find the Bobcats’ goalie standing on my welcome mat like he’s got a bone to pick with the world.
If he wants to argue about who’s having a worse week, I have no doubt we can go toe to toe.
“What’s up?” I ask, matching his stance, hip cocked and brows drawn together.
He narrows his eyes, although I’m not sure if it’s because he’s judging the phrase printed on my shirt—I bake because punching people is frowned upon—or the flour covering said shirt that makes me look like a Pablo Escobar groupie.
I stare back, daring him to comment.
After a beat, he sighs and roughs a hand through his hair. “Can I come in?”
I should just say no. Or yes. Or anything that doesn’t involve poking the bear, but, alas, my brain isn’t wired that way. So I give him an exaggerated once-over. “Are you secretly a vampire? If I say no, does that mean you can’t physically walk through the doorway?”
His eyes may be hard, but the corner of his lips twitches, giving him away. Success.
Sighing, I take a step back and wave my arm. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Which, sure, looks a bit more like a war zone, with a cookbook leaning precariously on top of the toaster, a frosting-covered knife on a cutting board, and a spiral-bound notebook open to a page labeled test #3 – better, still ugly??? in smeared ink.
The chaos doesn’t stop there. Nope. It flows into the living room, too.
Random knickknacks decorate nearly every available surface, sharing space with recipe cards, one Ugg slipper (because I can’t find the other one), and a dog-eared copy of a book with a shirtless boxer on the front (a recommendation from Maya).
Cameron takes the space in with quiet curiosity.
He may look aloof, but his eyes—an annoyingly gorgeous shade of forest green—scan the room like he’s cataloging every detail, and there isn’t an ounce of judgment there.
I’d recognize it if there was, considering I get a glimpse every time one of my sisters visits.
Even if I clean and organize, they still think my space is too much—too messy, too small, too cluttered, too colorful.
Since he’s clearly in no rush to explain why he’s here, I walk into the kitchen and lift the lid of a nearby container.
I pick up one of the reject cookies for tomorrow’s order (the one that looks more like a uterus than a purse, the pink frosting only making it worse) and take a bite.
The delicious combination of sugar, butter, and vanilla floods my mouth in perfect harmony, but the moment of satisfaction is cut short by the giant man still standing in the entryway.
“We should date,” he says, his attention still drifting around the apartment.
The cookie goes down the wrong pipe, and I cough like I’m a middle-aged man who chain-smoked his way through life.
Cameron rushes forward, head whipping from side to side. “Shit. Are you okay? I can do the Heimlich, but it’d probably break your ribs. Do—”
“I’m fine,” I cough, smacking my chest with the heel of my hand. “I just—swallowed wrong.”
“Oh.” His expression shifts, confusion giving way to a flat look. “So the dramatic choking was because I said we should date.”
I give him a slow nod, because no shit, Sherlock. “I thought you didn’t do girlfriends.”
His lips tighten into a grimace. “I don’t.”
When he doesn’t expand on that answer, I shake my head and walk over to the sink.
I need a glass of water to wash down the cookie, but also to buy myself time because what the actual fuck is going on?
A few days ago, I invited this man up here to do the horizontal tango, and he turned me down.
Yet now he wants to date? But doesn’t do girlfriends?
“I don’t actually want you to be my girlfriend,” he finally admits.
And they say women are confusing? This man is giving me whiplash. “Oh. Well, thanks for clarifying. That helps a lot.”
“I want us to be in a fake relationship.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he continues, “My ex isn’t going to leave me alone unless she thinks I’m with someone else.
And I need my friends to stop worrying that I’m a ticking time bomb, ready to implode at any goddamn second.
If we date, that’ll get them off my back. ”
For a long moment, I simply stare at him, at a loss for words. At a fucking loss in general.
Then something inside me snaps. Maybe it’s Patricia from the bank crushing my dream with a single conversation.
Or maybe it’s the sheer panic that comes with being close to landing a career-defining opportunity that could elevate my business, except I have no idea how I’ll pull it off because I have one oven, no mixer, and zero emotional bandwidth left to figure it out.
Or maybe it’s him. The guy who no less than a week ago politely turned me down, yet is now back, though not because he wants to renege on his previous rejection and save a portion of my ego.
No, no, no. He wants to pretend to date me.
I’m too tired to hold every fraying piece of my life together any longer.
With a little too much force, I set my glass down, causing water to slosh over the rim. “Cameron,” I practically growl, “I’ve had a really bad week. And not like ‘oh no, a pigeon shit on me’ kind of week. Like a ‘someone dropped me in a pig pen after a thunderstorm’ kind of week.
“I was up all night long making a hundred tiny fucking shoes out of sugar and royal icing because I’m desperately trying to build a business that’s held together with hope and credit card debt.
Sir Mix-a-Lot is dead.” My nose stings as I admit that out loud.
“I’m running on zero sleep and pure spite.
You made it very clear you weren’t interested last week, and that’s fine.
I’m a big girl. I own a vibrator. No huge loss on my end.
But now you want me to what? Gaze adoringly at you in public?
Hold your hand? Laugh at your jokes that probably aren’t funny because I’ve never heard you tell one? ”