Chapter Thirty
Perfectly imperfect, just as we like them.
Roman
“-his mom!” Elodie giggles. “And she said no!”
Hmph. “I still think she was lying.”
“And then,” she cackles, “his dad said no too!”
The entirety of Ruby and Will’s bridal party laugh, and I think Frank even points at me. Will slaps my back, not trying a single bit to belay his bellows.
“I hate all of you,” I grunt. “I’m not letting any of you try the cake samples.”
Elodie and Will share a look, then snort in tandem.
“Especially not you two,” I grumble. “I might not give you any at the wedding, either.”
Will whistles, unconcerned as he digs through the mess of silk flowers on his huge dining room table, selecting several and adding them to an ever-growing pile beside him.
He’s making a boutonniere, which requires a single flower.
Single meaning one. Uno. Un. Ichi. It does not in any way at all ever require more than one flower.
Beside him, Ruby’s already finished her bouquet and is spending the rest of arts-and-crafts time gabbing and tasting cake samples as I set them in front of her.
Her bouquet is hideous. The colors are fine, since Liam and Brian only provided the best faux flowers Liam’s hundred-thousand-dollar-budget could buy within the color palette chosen for the wedding, but the construction is…
lacking. Severely . When Will offered to make some “adjustments”, she went on a blind-girl rant about feel mattering more than looks and then said she’ll be picturing him as hideous from now on in solidarity with her bouquet.
I am ninety-nine percent sure she doesn’t care a wit about the feel of her flowers any more than she does the looks, beyond not wanting them to physically hurt her when she has to hold them.
I’m one hundred percent sure that by the time the wedding rolls around, Will will have convinced her to let him make her a replacement arrangement.
I set a miniature cake in front of her, then follow the curve of the table as I deliver more tiny cakes to Brian, Amelia, Liam, Amber, and Frank.
I hesitate over Elodie, who wins one with puppy-dog eyes and a little pout, then groan when Will employs a puppy-dog-eye-pout combo too.
“You guys are pathetic,” I mutter, giving him his mini cake.
“That’s not an insult,” Will says. “Pathetic people get cake.”
I throw myself into the empty seat between him and Elodie, taking my own piece of cake off my serving tray before tucking the tray between mine and Will’s chairs, for lack of room on the table.
“This one is a vanilla bean cake with raspberry filling and a Swiss meringue buttercream,” I tell the table.
“It should be lighter than the last one, but not as light as the lemon elderflower one from earlier.” I bite into mine, then grimace as the light, fluffy flavors hit my tongue.
It’s light and fluffy, yes, but not light and fluffy .
“Absolutely not,” I declare, making a grab for Will and Ruby’s cakes. “Don’t eat that.”
Will, half his cake already shoved into his mouth, asks a muffled, “Why?," then smacks my hand away from him and his bride.
“Because it’s trash,” I answer. “Spit it out.”
“If you take this cake away from me, I will hurt you,” Ruby warns.
“Trust me,” I say. “You don’t want to eat that. I’ll bring you back some of the lemon one. That one tastes good.” I glance at Elodie. “Some might even call it my best.”
“I told you a million times, Salty, I wasn’t insulting your lemon cake!
” Elodie grouches. “It’s not my fault you’re a sensitive baby when you’re in the testing phase.
How was I supposed to know?” She refers, of course, to our first meeting, when she tore my lemon cake to shreds right in front of my eyes.
“Not to mention, calling something ‘not your best’ isn’t an insult.
It’s an observation. Which I was parroting from Ruby, who was parroting it from you .
So even if it was an insult, it was you insulting yourself! ”
I sniff. “I’m not a sensitive baby. I’m a sensitive man , and the sensitive part of me is my taste buds, which are telling me that this,” I lift the sad remains of my tester, “is garbage, and nobody here should be consuming it, least of all the bride and groom.”
Elodie shrugs as Will shoves the rest of his cake into his mouth. “They seem to disagree with you.”
My heart shatters as Ruby takes a bite of hers.
It’s too late.
I’ve poisoned them with my mediocrity.
I fall back in my chair, throwing my head to the ceiling and bemoaning past me’s lack of foresight.
Rule number one of being a chef: taste everything before you serve it.
Well, after keeping knives sharp. And prepping your ingredients.
And making sure those ingredients are quality.
So. Rule number four of being a chef: taste everything before you serve it.
Did I do that, though? No. And now, I pay for it.
I got so used to Ruby and Will as my recipe tasters, I forgot that I’m doing a job this time, and that job is for them .
I can’t just hand them whatever comes out of my kitchen and ask them to rate it.
This is their wedding cake , for goodness’ sake.
They need the best of the best options to choose from.
Recipes that have been perfected, not experimental drudge I whip up on a whim.
“This is a disaster,” I mumble. “What was I thinking?”
Elodie pokes my cheek. “Hey,” she says. “You were thinking you’re the best chef in the city and, likely, the state, and you were thinking you wanted your loved ones to have as many options as you could possibly give them so that they’d get exactly what they want on wedding day.”
I turn my head, narrowing my eyes at her furrowed brow. Her lower lip juts out, plush under her reddening cheeks.
“You defending me to myself, Sweet?”
She huffs. “And if I am?”
My heart lifts along with my hand, pulling at my chest as I tug a piece of her golden mane. “Thank you,” I murmur. “But I don’t need defending. Professionally, I made a mistake.”
“Professionally, your clients are happy, which is all that matters.”
On a surface level, I know she’s right. On a professionally perfectionist level, though…
She sighs. “Consider this a lesson in letting things go? Per your character development curriculum.”
Hmm. I turn my attention to Will and Ruby, who are shockingly not foaming at the mouth, keeling over in disgust at my offering. How curious.
When I look at Elodie again, she’s scooted her chair closer to me and is leaning so far in my direction that her hair tickles my forearm, soft as a butterfly’s wing and tempting as a white truffle.
Vanilla and cactus flower and something distinctly Jolly Rancher have me tilting toward her, sliding a hand into her curls and resting it there in the hopes that the scent of her will linger on my fingertips.
My heart stops when she leans into the touch, inviting more instead of merely tolerating it, then thunders in my head when it restarts at double speed.
“Imperfections are what make life life ,” she says low, pale blue eyes locked on mine.
Her hands land on my thigh as she gets even closer, shooting shocks of electricity through my every nerve.
“I’m not saying we have to love them, but we don’t have to hate them either.
They’re a mark of our humanity, of the things that make us unique.
They’re a benchmark for growth, showing our milestones as we learn and get better.
And, usually, they’re a thing of beauty to the people who love us, who don’t see them as flaws at all, but as pieces of us to be cherished.
” She pauses, hesitates, bites her lip as her eyes slide from mine.
My grip on her hair tightens, demanding the attention she’s stealing away from me.
“What is it?”
Her eyes flash to mine, and a blush creeps over her cheeks, reddening her ears.
“I know that I’ve never been quiet about my feelings when it comes to your mess ups and imperfections,” she all but whispers.
“I know that I… have not been kind. And I… I’m feeling pretty ashamed of myself, looking at them from a perspective where I’m not blinded by self-centered frustration and anger.
I wish that I had taken time earlier to really look at you.
I would have seen all the beauty in your mess ups and misspeaks.
I would have… I would have gotten to how I feel now a lot quicker if I had just tried . ”
“How you feel now?” I ask, matching her tone, keeping us in this bubble of just us, quiet among the chaos.
“Appreciative,” she clarifies. “Grateful that you care, even if it’s not always in line with how I’d prefer to be cared for.
But I’m seeing now that it’s not just you being bossy and thinking you know best. It’s like with the cakes.
You want the very best for everyone you love, and you take it on yourself to make it happen.
You spend your time and your energy trying to perfect the smallest parts of our lives so that we can live happy, knowing we’ve got the best of the best. It’s…
well, it’s beautiful, Roman. You’re beautiful for it.
The amount of thought, care, and love you pour out into everything you do, even if imperfectly— because of its imperfection—is beautiful.
It’s not just that the cake is fine how it is; it’s that even what you deem flawed about you is a treasure, sweet and worth loving. ”
My throat constricts, and so does my hand.
“I wish we weren’t surrounded by our friends right now,” I whisper, rough.
“That was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me, and I’d like to answer it with a kiss, but the kind of kiss I want to give you can’t happen with my brother and sister in the room. ”
Her eyes widen, and her lips part, inviting where she does not mean to. “Stop tempting me,” I order. “Or I’ll stop caring about my siblings and our friends completely.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” she breathes, licking her lips.
I huff, kiss her cheek in an incredible feat of self-control, then push her away, scraping her chair back into its place several inches in the opposite direction from me.
“Make your bouquet, Sweet. We can finish this later.” I stand, catch Will’s eye, and immediately release it, not giving his waggling eyebrows a time to shine.
“I’m getting the chocolate option now,” I announce.
Across the table, Frank’s glee presents itself with an evil chuckle, and I smirk on my way to the kitchen for the next batch of samples. Dairy free, vegan samples—not that Frank knows that. She thinks I forgot. She thinks she’s pulling one over on us all.
Silly, silly Frank. As if my perfectly imperfect drive for perfection would ever allow such a thing.
My eyes wander, find Elodie’s soft on me, and stick. Perfectly imperfect, and appreciated for it. Maybe even, someday, loved for it.
Until then, I’ll enjoy the warmth that mere appreciation brings. I’ll let it settle into my bones, making a cozy place for love to land when it, hopefully, follows.
Until then, I’ll bask in Elodie’s soft looks, soul soaring as she embraces our friendship… and me .