Thirteen
MORGAN
Tuesday afternoon, Zach and I meet after work to go cake tasting. We have appointments at three different bakeries, starting with my cousin Honey. Technically she owns a coffee shop, but she also makes all the baked goods sold there, and she's an incredible baker.
I don't know why my mom doesn't just go with her. Everything Honey makes, whether it's by hand or through magic, is amazing. She doesn't decorate them as fancy as the TV shows about cake decorating, but I know my mom wants simple, not fussy. And as the bride, she gets more of a say than Gary, as far as I'm concerned.
Zach meets me at the door to the cafe, which is closed for the day. He looks overly serious as he nods a greeting to me.
I nod back and don't let myself meet his gaze.
"How are you?" he asks stiffly.
Tired. Sore from the workout I got Saturday night. Annoyed I have to spend the next three hours with him instead of going home to take a bath with one of Sirona's muscle-soothing potions mixed in.
And confused as hell about why Zach's mom's spirit dropped the bombshell of who she is, but disappeared before we could talk without him around.
"Fine. You?"
"Fine." From his tone, he sounds about as thrilled to be here as I am.
Honey approaches through the darkened shop, a wide smile on her face. She's as sweet as her name implies, and perpetually cheerful. Sometimes it's hard not to hate that about her.
She opens the door and ushers us in. We follow her through the swinging door to the kitchen, where a long stainless steel table is topped with three small cakes.
"Sorry about the audition," I say, standing against the table.
Zach comes up next to me, leaving ample distance between us.
Honey's gaze moves between the two of us a few times, then back to me. "No problem," she says. "Aunt Angela wants the absolute best. She should have that. I'm not offended if you choose someone else."
Of course she isn't. Nothing ruffles Honey's feathers. I'm not even sure she has feathers to ruffle.
My feathers, on the other hand, are in a permanent state of ruffle.
"I've got three samples for you to try, and whatever you don't eat, I'll box up and you can take for your mom to try."
"Remind me why they aren't doing this themselves anyway?" Zach mumbles.
I'm about as disgruntled about this task as he seems. "My mom is too busy to handle it herself." Translation: I have no life outside work so I have plenty of time. She's more important than me .
"Well, I'm sure you'll have lots of fun with this. Who wouldn't want to have all this cake for dinner?"
Me. I'm not a huge cake person. Give me a pie or cookies any day, but I can take or leave cake. Which makes me a terrible person for this job.
Also, I'd kill for a cheeseburger from Honey's little sister, Chessie's, diner.
Honey gestures to the cake in front of Zach. It's covered in smooth chocolate. I think it's called nash. Something like that.
"Here is a chocolate cake with a raspberry mousse filling. It's topped with chocolate ganache, and I can decorate it any way your mom wants." She produces a long knife and cuts through the center of the cake.
After cutting it into eight pieces, she serves a slice to each of us, then hands us each a fork.
"See what you think."
I take a bite with cake, mousse, and ganache all in one. Let it sit on my tongue.
Tastes like chocolate cake. It's fine, but not as good as a chocolate chip cookie.
Honey's smile falters. "You don't like it."
Shit. "No, it's not that. It's really good. I'm just not much of a cake person. Mom should've had Bronwen do this task."
Honey looks at Zach. Who must've forgotten to shave this morning, because his jaw and cheeks are covered in scruff. And it's sexy as hell.
Dammit.
"It's really good. Definitely a contender."
Something in his tone rings false.
Trying the other two cakes goes much the same way, Zach with forced enthusiasm and me honestly saying everything tastes fine. If it were my wedding—not that that's happening anytime in the near future—I'd be happy with any of these cakes .
Honey insists on hugging me good-bye as we leave and I do my best not to be too stiff as I hug her back.
Zach and I stand on the sidewalk, each pointedly not looking at the other. His scruff is so damn sexy, if I look at his face for too long, I'm liable to do something asinine like suggest we skip the other two bakeries and go right to my house to have sex.
It's gonna be yet another night with my BOP.
"The next bakery is in Cherry Grove." I stare at my feet, which aren't happy about being in shoes. But there are health codes about wearing shoes in food establishments, so here we are.
He clears his throat. "Do you want to ride with me? It doesn't make sense to drive separately."
Do I want to be trapped in a confined space with him again? Absolutely not. "Sure, whatever."
We walk toward the small municipal parking lot across the street and I follow him to a very nice SUV.
"I wouldn't have pegged you as an SUV man," I say as I put on my seatbelt.
“You mentioned that when I drove you home from the engagement party.” He looks over at me as he presses the button to start the engine. "It's electric."
I have only the vaguest memory of that. "Wouldn't have pegged you as a conservationist either."
He puts the car in reverse and backs up. "We only get one planet. It's already heading bad places. I might as well do my small part to help that."
Mother Nature and Gaia would appreciate that. They are, understandably, also big conservationists. But I don't bother telling him.
I also refuse to be impressed by it.
He's got the stereo on low, a large display for the satellite radio in the dashboard. And, unsurprisingly, he's got it on a Celestial Alchemy channel. They're playing "Black Hole Heart."
"I wrote this." I point at the radio display. I have no idea why I said it.
He glances over at me, then back to the road. And damn if that scruffy jaw doesn't make my clit throb.
"I had no idea you write for them."
"I mean, I told you a few weeks ago."
"Well, yeah, I mean before that." He taps his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music. "I figured they wrote all their own music."
"They write all the instrument parts. I just do lyrics and sometimes a main melody. I'm not very musical." On a good day, I can possibly carry a tune.
"If you write song lyrics, you're musical."
"Agree to disagree."
One corner of his mouth twitches, like he wants to smile. "Are you sure? That would mean we agree on something. I'm not sure we can handle that."
That startles a laugh out of me, and he gives in to the smile.
Damn, he's beautiful.
"We've agreed on other things," I say without thinking. Because of course I mean sex. And he knows it.
The tension between us skyrockets. The air in the car feels electric. It's wonderful and awful at the same time. Why can't it be anyone other than him?
Shaking his head, he clears his throat. Like that will make it all disappear.
"I'm not much of a cake person," I say to break the dense silence, even though I already said it at Honey’s. "My mom really should have made time for this."
He takes a turn off the county highway and onto the main street running through Cherry Grove. "Honestly, me either. I'd rather have pie or a cookie any day. "
I will not read anything into this. Lots of people prefer pie to cake. It doesn't mean anything that we agree on this point too.
Except my annoying mouth opens and says, "Exactly. Guess we found one more thing to agree on."
He pulls into a parking space on the street, two storefronts down from Sugar Maple Sweets. After putting the car in park and cutting the engine, he turns to look at me. His brown eyes are dark and I have to tell myself it's because it's getting dark out, not because he's turned on.
"We should be careful or we might discover we have things in common." His voice is gentle, almost teasing.
"Can't have that." I can't look away from him. He's holding me captive with those deep eyes.
His hand lifts between us and using only his index finger, he smooths a strand of white hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear with the rest of my hair. My whole face breaks out in glittery tingles and my cheeks are flaming.
His finger lingers on my ear, tracing the shape of it before he removes his touch. I can barely breathe.
"We're a couple minutes late. We should go in." My voice sounds husky, like it belongs to someone else.
He nods, and finally turns away to open his door. Breaking the spell between us.
Spell. That's right, that's all this is. Bronwen put a stupid spell on us. Her magic can't make us fall in love against our will. All it can do is make us more likely to act on feelings that are already there. That's got to be what's driving me. Otherwise, I would never let someone touch me who I dislike so much.
And I still dislike him a lot. I really do.
Sugar Maple is run by a Native couple who've won national awards for their wedding cakes. If my mom wants a cake that's decorated all fancy like on a TV show, this is the place .
The wife greets us when we step inside. Her husband is at the register, ringing up a customer. "Hello. Welcome to Sugar Maple Bakery. I'm Mary, and I'm so happy to have you here."
Zach and I introduce ourselves and sit down at the table she indicates. It's a cute, quaint little shop with lots of Native-themed artwork displayed.
She must catch me looking at a painting of a dreamcatcher done in rainbow colors. "All the artwork is for sale. We're a mini-gallery for local artists."
I nod in acknowledgment. "It's all awesome. I definitely need to come back when I'm in the right headspace and buy something. But right now I'm in cake mode." I'm never in cake mode, but Mary doesn't need to know that.
"I understand." She looks at Zach, then at me. "When is your wedding?" Her gaze drops to my ringless hands.
"Oh, this isn't for our wedding," Zach says quickly.
"Noooo, no, not at all."
"Definitely not the two of us."
There's an awkward pause, and I finally say, "My mom is getting married to Zach's dad. We're the attendants. And they've tasked us with picking the cake." I resist the urge to squirm. I might be attracted to Zach, but I sure as hell don't want to marry him.
I mean, I'm definitely not starting to like him, even a little.
Mary's eyes open wide as she nods in understanding. "I see. In that case, we'll send home with you any of the samples you don't finish so your parents can try them."
She, too, presents us with three types of cake to try. And they're all fine. Taste like cake, some chocolate, some white, some fruity, some not. I force more enthusiasm for her, since she's not related to me.
Zach, again, is better at faking his way through it than I am. He's just generally better at small talk too. He chats with Mary while we eat, while I stay mostly silent.
By the time we leave, she's boxed up a fourth type of cake, in case Mom and Gary prefer that. We put the boxes in Zach's back seat with the other ones and get back on the road. The final bakery is in yet another town, Starkville. Where Zach lived before his mom died.
Rainbow Treats is also owned by a couple, this one a lesbian and a nonbinary person. And they make the best cookies in southwestern Wisconsin. I would never tell Honey that, or anyone in my family. Or anyone outside my family, other than Heather and Jude, the owners. I spend a ridiculous number of evenings driving to Starkville to stock up on the salted butterscotch cookies, my second favorite, and peanut butter with bacon bits, my number one favorite. So Jude greets me with a wave.
"Good to see you, Morgan." They look behind me. "And you too, Zach."
I glance over my shoulder. "They know you?"
"Their peanut butter with bacon cookie is the best in the area. Of course they know me." He says it in a duh tone. "With no offense to your cousin."
I shrug as I pull out a chair at the table full of mini cakes. "I think we found a new thing to agree on." It's an unnerving development.
He sits down next to me. "I suppose it was bound to happen."
Jude watches us curiously. Like they can read our minds and tell we've hooked up. They give me a sly half-smile that makes my face burn.
They absolutely know.
"Let's start with my favorite, Heather's award-winning specialty wedding cake." Jude cuts into a cake frosted in off-white. They slide a piece free to reveal six thin layers, each a different color of the rainbow. "The cake can be just about any flavor you want. For a Samhain wedding, I'd suggest something like blackberry. We can also do different colors for the layers. The rainbow is just our favorite. "
"This is amazing and I'm sold." I don't even need to taste it. I can't explain why I want a rainbow cake, especially since it hardly fits the fall, Halloween, Samhain vibe Mom and Gary want. But it's beautiful.
Plus, Mom's an ally; with three bisexual daughters, she has to be if she wants us in her life. With a pansexual son he gets along with, I assume Gary is too.
"Maybe we should taste it first."
Damn Zach, being reasonable.
"This is our standard flavor, white cake with a hint of strawberry." Jude dishes out a small piece for each of us.
They're right, the strawberry is subtle, but it's delicious. It makes it just different enough from a standard white cake to be intriguing. I love it.
Which is saying a lot, considering it's still cake.
We humor Jude and try the other two, one chocolate and one white with various fillings. But nothing from any of the bakeries tops the rainbow strawberry cake.
"I think they need to go with this." I gesture to the cake. "And even though it's not seasonal, the strawberry flavor is amazing."
Zach tilts his head from side to side. "I think I agree."
As Jude boxes up the leftovers, Zach stretches his long arms, the one closest to me brushing my shoulder for a fleeting moment. It's still enough to send tingles down my arm.
There's still time to invite him over after this. It's only seven thirty. We could?—
"Here you go." Jude hands me three boxes and has two for Zach.
"What's in the extra boxes?" he asks.
"Cookies. You both like the same ones, so I gave you a dozen each. Four of the salted butterscotch, eight of the peanut butter." Jude grins as they walk us to the door. "You two have a wonderful night." They give me an obvious wink. Yep, they could totally tell.
Damn.