Chapter 16
THEA
Before I can fully spiral that yet another family member knows our secret, Addy and Dawn, Owen’s other aunt and wedding planner extraordinaire, rush over to our table. Addy’s face is contorted in horror, a look she rarely lets anyone besides me see, and my heart kicks up.
“What’s going on?” I ask, jumping from my seat. I meet her halfway while Dawn continues on to the table.
Addy lets out a little hiccup-y sob. “I emailed all the vendors yesterday to confirm, and the baker wrote back that she can’t make the cake anymore. She broke her arm! What are the chances?”
She throws her arms up in the air, letting them slap back down on her legs with a thwack that echoes through the room.
“It’s okay, this is fine,” I say, digging my phone out of my back pocket. “They can’t be the only baker in town. We can find someone else. I’ll start making a list.”
“It’s pointless,” Addy says, swiping a hand at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I reached out to every baker between Asheville and Tennessee, and this was the only person who was available on such short notice.”
“There has to be something,” I mumble as I search random key words.
Addy lets out a shuddering breath, before whispering just loud enough for me to hear, “How am I supposed to fit into this family for the rest of my life when I can’t even make a wedding that meets their standards?”
I grab her face between my hands, wiping away the remaining tears with my thumbs. “Stop. This is one day, and if they judge you for it not being perfect, then fuck them.”
Addy releases a shuddering breath. “But I don’t want to fuck them.”
The two of us stare at each other for a couple of seconds as the words fully process, then break into a fit of giggles. Addy’s eyes are still watery as she drops her forehead to my shoulder.
“That didn’t come out right.” She hiccups, half sob, half laugh. “I just want them to like me.”
Addy prides herself on being put together. On being the one all the foster families looked at as easy. She doesn’t see that she’s so lovable beyond the perfection, but a stressful wedding week is not the time to unpack her trauma.
I lift her head from my shoulder and kiss the top of it. “I’ll sort this out. You are going to walk down the aisle in five days, marry the love of your life, and then you’re going to eat the best fucking cake of your life. I promise.”
Addy’s eyes fill with tears again as she nods, and I let out a slow exhale. Dawn comes over, taking Addy’s hand in hers and towing her over to the table. She sits her down, and we take the seats on either side of her.
“Addy, you don’t need to worry about confirming things with the vendors. That’s my job as your wedding planner.”
Addy’s face goes a bit panicked. I can tell from Dawn’s expression that she’s trying to take some of the pressure off, but Addy hears she overstepped.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I just wanted to help since you’re doing all of this for free.”
She grasps Addy’s hand. “It’s my honor to help with my nephew’s wedding. I want you to enjoy your time here, not be buried under your to-do list all week.”
Addy releases a long breath and smiles her most agreeable smile.
“What about me?” I ask. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Dawn eyes me speculatively. “Can you bake?”
Addy lets out her little snort, then claps her hands over her mouth in horror. “Sorry. Tia’s not much of a cook.”
I smack her arm. “I could with the right guidance.”
She levels me with a get real look. “And you’re going to learn how to be an expert baker in a couple days? Last time you tried to bake cookies, your entire apartment complex had to evacuate.”
I stick my tongue out at her.
Dawn and Diana share a look across the table that I recognize all too well. It’s the same exchange Addy and I have had a hundred times when we were conspiring. Dawn slips her phone out, typing something and sliding it onto the table, face up. It lights up a second later, and she beams.
Dawn turns back to me with a smile that I can only call devious. “If you had someone in the kitchen guiding you, could you do it?”
“I mean, I don’t know,” I say, but then I look at Addy’s face, her once perfect makeup ruined by her tears, and I know I could figure out how to build a rocket to the moon if it would bring back her smile. “Yes, I can.”
She wiggles her eyebrows at Diana. “This could be perfect.”
Diana tilts her head side to side. “Maybe, but he hasn’t done it as much recently. He’s been keeping his focus on work, like he should, so he may not be up for it.”
“But if he was? The cake would be delicious. Plus,” Dawn says, glancing to me, “two birds, one stone.”
“Anyone going to fill us in?” I ask. “We aren’t just decoration, you know.”
Addy digs her elbow into my side and whispers, “They’ll tell us when they’re ready.”
But I don’t have my sister’s patience, and if I need to hound bakers to get them to squeeze in another cake, I should get a jump on that now.
Dawn chuckles. “I’m surprised you didn’t guess. Owen will make it.”
Addy looks at me in surprise. “He bakes?”
All three women are staring at me, waiting for a response. If we’d actually dated, I’d have tasted his baking before. Vouching for him without trying it makes me nauseous, but I can’t admit I have no idea if he’s good or not without blowing everything up.
“He’s fantastic,” I say with forced enthusiasm.
Addy lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whimper. “Oh, thank god.”
The door of the ballroom swings open and Owen walks through.
“You texted me?”
“Yes,” Dawn answers, rushing to one of the other tables to grab an empty chair and dragging it over, placing it right next to me. “Have a seat.”
Owen’s eyes meet mine. I smile, a stiff, nervous thing, and he gives me a small smile back, nodding his head. I take the gesture to mean he caught up to Camila and we’re okay, but my stomach still churns.
He settles into the chair next to mine, and I try to ignore the heat from his leg a few inches away from mine. There will be no giving in to the urge to shift closer.
“What’s up?” Owen asks.
“How would you like to be the hero of the hour?” Dawn asks with a glint in her eye.
Owen looks around the table. At his mom and Dawn who have matching grins, at Camila and Ximena who keep looking back and forth between us like cats scoping out a delicious mouse.
“Okay,” he says, drawing out the word.
“We need a cake,” Diana says.
A pleased smile spreads over his face. “Oh, yeah, that’s easy. You had me scared there for a minute. For what?”
Dawn looks at him like he’s a sweet little imbecile. “For the wedding.”
His eyes double in size. “For the wedding? I’ve never made a wedding cake before.”
She shrugs. “A cake’s a cake.”
“No, a cake’s not a cake. First, a wedding cake is giant and layered, not to mention all the embellishments. I have no idea how to do that.”
A memory surges of us at Camila’s wedding.
Owen dragging me off the dance floor when they started passing out cake.
Me complaining that it was my favorite song and I didn’t want to miss it, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
He sat me down and demanded I close my eyes, slipping the fork between my parted lips.
“What do you taste?” he asked.
The flavors settled on my tongue, warm and familiar. “Is that booze?”
He chuckled. “Butterscotch Bourbon. Thought you might like it.”
I’d opened my eyes, finding him closer than expected. The lights from the chandelier reflected in his eyes, and I was struck by the thought that this cake is what his kiss would taste like. Deep and comforting, like wrapping up in a blanket in front of a fire on a cool night.
I thought he was just hungry, but with this new information, I can see the passion for baking in the way he savored his first bite, like he was trying to identify each ingredient.
Dawn shakes her finger. “Don’t BS me, boy. You know it’s impossible when talking to family. I remember the cake you made for Camila’s birthday a few summers ago.”
Owen runs his hands up into his hair. “But this is bigger. I can’t do this by myself.”
A slow smile curves Dawn’s lips, like she’s a spider giving directions to a fly. Take the shortcut through this web. Trust me. You’ll be fine.
“Well,” she says, “isn’t it convenient, then, that Thea was just asking what she could do to help.”
My mouth drops open. “I don’t know if I’m the best person for this.”
It was one thing when it was some random cousin, but being trapped in the kitchen with Owen for hours is the exact opposite of distance.
I shift in my seat. “Y’all have five thousand family members. There must be someone with more baking experience than me. Camila?”
She shakes her head, patting her belly. “I struggle around strong smells. No way I could handle it.”
Dawn nods to Owen, who looks at me with a grimace. “It wouldn’t just be a day. With something this big, we’d need to do a bit every day.”
Dawn cuts in. “Exactly. No one else will be consistently available. Besides Addy and Harrison, but we can’t have them baking their own wedding cake, now, can we?”
“There’s no one else?” Addy asks, and everyone around the table shakes their heads.
I look over at Owen, who gives me a little shrug. Looks like we’re baking a cake.
Why does an apron make a hot guy even hotter? Owen’s mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl he’s tucked under his arm, the muscles in his biceps flexing with each rotation of the spoon. He’s more delicious than anything he’ll whip up in this kitchen.
“Thea?”
I jump at Owen’s voice, realizing he’s been talking to me while my brain overlaid it with 1980s porno music.
“You can do it?” he asks in a tone that makes it clear it isn’t the first time. “Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones?”
This little experiment has two goals. First, make a test cake so Addy feels comfortable with us making the one for the actual day, and second, to figure out if I’m useless in the kitchen. With how distracted I’ve been by Owen, I’m afraid I’m proving the latter true.