“Savannah!” Zach protested, scowling at her. He turned his attention toward the Tupperware cake carrier in Lucca’s hands and smirked. “Have you taken up baking in your spare time?”
“It’s Italian creme cake,” Lucca said. “Mom made it.”
Zach’s smirk died. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. She’s donating it to the cakewalk. I’m going to win it.”
“The hell you say. That’s the cake Maggie made for our wedding reception, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” His mother had been thrilled when Zach and Savannah accepted her offer to make the traditional Romano family fare when the two married almost a year ago. “You made a pig of yourself on it, as I recall.”
“It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.” Zach eyed the cake holder in Lucca’s hands and gave a determined nod. I’m going to win this one.”
Lucca shot his brother a smile full of challenge. “Don’t bet on it.”
Five minutes later, he sauntered into the kindergarten classroom carrying the cake holder with appropriate reverence and spoke his first words to Hope Montgomery in weeks. “Hello, Hope. Great sweater you’re wearing. At what point will this cake be the prize?”
She wore black slacks and a fire-engine red sweater that hugged her curves and looked as soft as down. She stared at him as if he were a bug she didn’t recognize. “Excuse me?”
“You look great in red, and I want to win this cake. How do I play?”
“The cakewalk begins in twenty minutes. It’ll be two tickets and you can buy them at the tables set up in the front of the school.”
“Excellent.” Lucca glanced around the room that had been cleared of furniture except for two long tables laden with baked goods lining the walls. On the tile floor, hot pink tape formed numbered squares placed in an oval. “So, what is the game? How do you play?”
“It’s like musical chairs without chairs. Participants walk around in a circle as the music plays. When it stops, they center on a number. The volunteer running the game will draw a number out of my basket, and the person who is standing on that number gets to choose a cake.”
Lucca frowned. “So it’s all chance? No skill required?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s no good.” He scowled at the eight-foot tables piled high with cakes and cupcakes, looking for a better solution. Maybe he could leave Nana’s cake inside its carrier and stack some cupcakes on top of it. Hide it in plain sight so that no one would notice it. His gaze settled on the table’s centerpiece. “That’s fancy. It’ll be the first to go.”
“It’s our grand prize cake. We’re having a special round for it.”
“How does that work?”
She explained how the Fun Night committee had sold special tickets for the round, scheduled to be the final one of the night. While she spoke, Lucca found himself becoming distracted. She really was pretty, and that sweater she wore, while appropriately kindergarten-teacher modest, did wonderful things for her figure.
She finished by saying, “… twenty-five dollars each. We sold out on the first day.”
Lucca did the math. “Six hundred twenty-five dollars for one cake? Not bad. What if—”
He was interrupted by his sister, who sailed into the room and asked, “Hope? How do I go about winning my Nana’s cake?”
Hope glanced from Gabi to Lucca and then to Zach, who had followed Gabi into the kindergarten room. Jack Davenport, Colt Rafferty, and Gabe Callahan trailed in after Zach.
Colt said, “You sold out of tickets for Sarah’s cake before I could nab one, but rumor has it that Maggie made that same cake she made for Zach’s wedding?”
Lucca scowled at his siblings. “Loudmouths.”
Hope folded her arms and studied the others. “How many of you want in on this?”
They all raised their hands.
“I repeat,” Lucca said. “Loudmouths.”
Zach suggested, “Change the game for Maggie’s cake, Hope. Make it musical chairs. Winner takes Italian creme.”
Interest popped up on all their faces. “Contact sport,” Gabe said. “I like it.”
Hope drummed her fingers and considered it. “You people are ridiculous. Men will turn everything into competition, won’t they?”
“Excuse me,” Gabi protested. “I’m in on this. Don’t lump me in with those knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. I don’t have a manly bone in my body.”
“She speaks the truth,” Zach said. “Gabi’s the biggest girly-girl in town.”
Gabi looked down her nose and said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t think of us as ridiculous, either,” Gabe said. “We’re doing our civic duty. In fact, I suggest you up the price of the buy-in.”
Hope appeared shocked by the suggestion. “Higher than Sarah’s, you mean? Wouldn’t that hurt her feelings?”
“Nah,” Zach, Gabe, and Colt said simultaneously. Zach added, “The goal here is to raise money for the school. That’s all Sarah will care about.”
“If you’re sure,” Hope said. “What do you suggest? We double the price? Fifty dollars?”
“Make it a hundred,” Lucca suggested. “It’s a good cause.”
Hope gaped at him. “A hundred dollars? You’d pay that?”
“Sure. How about the rest of you? Any cheapskates here?”
“I’m in,” Gabe added. “I know it’s in my best interest to contribute to the school. My girls will be starting here before I know it.”
“Never too early to suck up to the kindergarten teacher, right, Callahan?” Colt observed.
Gabe grinned without apology. “Absolutely.”
“Nic said that very same thing to me not too long ago,” Hope said with a laugh. She folded her arms and considered the idea, then said, “All right. Since you guys are ready to put your money where your mouths are, so to speak, we might as well take advantage of it. So, tickets will cost one hundred dollars, plus a pledge of ten volunteer hours at the school. I suspect this might get rowdy, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it in front of the children. Italian creme musical chairs at eight p.m. Okay?”
Gabi elbowed Lucca hard. “I am so going to win.”
“In your dreams, baby sister. In your dreams.”
The school bell rang, signaling the official start of the event, and the volunteers dispersed to man their booths. Lucca served his time in the arts and crafts room, and while he wouldn’t admit it aloud, he didn’t mind painting little kids’ faces, though he wondered if little boys had always been so enamored of fangs. Once his shift ended, he wandered around the building. When he spied a science classroom filled with dozens of mounted animals, he started to enter the room to investigate when a familiar sound attracted his attention.
He’d found his way to the gym. Wouldn’t you know it?
For a long moment, he hesitated. He really should go into the science lab and take a close-up look at that stuffed bear. Instead, like a puppet on a string, he was pulled by the sound down the hallway toward the open double doors.
He stopped just outside the gym doors, his heart pounding and a cold sweat trickling down his back. A tall, lanky teenage boy was playing half-court one-on-one with Lucca’s sister, and he appeared to be holding his own.
Watching Gabi, Lucca’s thoughts drifted back to his childhood and all the times he and his siblings had played ball in the backyard. Their dad had been an athlete and a hoops fan, and once he saw that his growing sons would have his height, he’d had a concrete court poured in their backyard. Lucca couldn’t guess how many nets they’d worn out over the years. Dad used to order them in bulk.
Gabi’s voice snagged his attention when she bounced the ball to the boy and called, “Check. Next basket wins.”
The boy threw the rock back to her and said, “Okay, show me what you got.”
