1. Chapter One #3
Adam had the weirdest feeling that the man was staring at him and not at the entire group of ladies and flowers and pink. Absurdly, it felt like the rest of the world melted away as their eyes met and held. Adam’s breath caught in his throat.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world did not, in fact, disappear. Adam was still heading for Charlene, and he felt the moment that he stumbled, losing his balance.
After that, well… It was like it happened in slow motion.
Adam had always regretted that there wasn’t a magic that would let him slow time down for real so he had time to react.
But no, it only felt slow as his gaze snapped forward and he windmilled his arms, desperately trying to regain his balance.
He caught himself on the edge of the table holding the cake, and all might have been well…
had the table not collapsed, taking Adam and the cake with it.
Two hours later, Adam was still rather wet, and he was still finding patches of cake, icing, and destroyed decorations in awkward places.
He tried not to squirm at the stickiness.
On the plus side, he was back at Divine Confections; were it not for the freak torrential downpour, he would probably still be getting yelled at by Charlene.
Well, to be scrupulously fair to her, she hadn’t been yelling solely at Adam. She’d yelled at him, the staff, the cake, the table, and anything else she could think of. Some of it had just been non-verbal screeching.
Her cake had been ruined beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Adam was the one who’d tripped and landed on said cake.
It was even true that she’d gotten a few globs of cake and icing on her dress—but Adam had gone practically face-first into the cake, and it had been hard to feel as much sympathy for her as he probably should have.
She’d been really shrill, alright? It wasn’t until he’d slunk back to the van that he’d even realized he was bleeding.
Apparently, going face-first into a cake that was decorated with spun-sugar roses was a terrible idea—who knew?
He probably wouldn’t have made it to the van anytime soon were it not for the out-of-the-blue rain.
Adam could have sworn the storm appeared between one blink and the next, but it must have clouded over while he was waiting for the cake cutting.
The patio was enclosed, so they should have been fine, only it had rained so fiercely and at such a slanted angle that everyone had gotten wet.
Thankfully, in the chaos of all that shrieking and scurrying, Adam had been able to escape. Getting soaked on the way to the van had seemed a small price to pay, and the rain had helped with getting some of the cake and icing off.
“I’m so sorry,” he told Maggie for what was probably the ten-thousandth time since she’d appeared in the kitchen, seen his utterly ruined state, and listened to his pitiful explanation of what had happened.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t actually the first time a disaster had occurred because of Adam, but it was definitely the most spectacular.
He’d never fallen into a cake at a Divine Confections event before.
He wondered if the photographers had gotten any photos.
It was probably not the way that Charlene had wanted to commemorate her shower.
Maggie hadn’t yelled. She didn’t, generally.
She was fifty-six, her red hair just starting to gray at the temples, and he’d always thought that she was what a mom was supposed to be like.
Her red squirrel familiar perched on her shoulder and chittered at Adam, but she didn’t seem to be scolding.
Maggie knew he didn’t mean to be clumsy, although she’d instituted her rules for a reason.
At least with a witch-run establishment, he didn’t have to fill out a DWC1 injured worker form.
It had happened so frequently in normal-people-run establishments that Adam had realized he couldn’t keep working for them.
A witch shouldn’t draw attention to himself.
“I was just trying to help,” he said, shoulders slumping.
She squeezed his arm gently with fingers that looked noticeably more relaxed and straight than they’d been before she’d visited the medical witch. That was something, at least.
“I know you were, honey. It’s alright.”
Morosely, Adam pointed out, “I’m sure Charlene is going to call and yell.”
“I’ll deal with her,” Maggie assured him.
Adam was pathetically grateful. He didn’t think he could handle dealing with the woman after what had happened.
Simon was grinning. “Tell us again how the hottest man to ever hot caught your attention?”
Adam groaned, once again regretting that he’d been so frazzled when he got back that the whole story had spilled out.
“Don’t remind me! I tripped face-first into a cake while he was watching. The only saving grace in this whole debacle is that I’ll never see him again.”
Adam’s clumsiness meant that he’d been in a great many embarrassing situations over the years, but this one had, well… it had taken the cake.