She circled the counter and picked up the business phone. Marty watched her for a moment but a surge of customers coming through the door distracted him, giving Mel some peace.
Cassie answered on the third ring. “A Likely Story, this is Cassie, how can I help you?”
The greeting came at Mel like gunfire. Cassie was upbeat and friendly, but today she sounded stressed.
“Cassie, it’s Mel at Fairy Tale Cupcakes. I got a message that you called,” she said.
“Yes! Mel, I’m in trouble and I need your help,” Cassie cried.
Mel felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and she glanced at her arm to see goose bumps pucker her skin. Weird.
“Sure, what is it?” she asked.
“I need you to cater a last-minute event for me,” Cassie said. “I’m so sorry for the short notice, but I’ve got a book signing for Elise Penworthy tomorrow night. My original caterer can’t make it, and I need someone who is amazing and talented and brilliant and, most especially, fast.”
“Elise Penworthy?” Mel asked. “Isn’t she the author who wrote a fictionalized—not—account of all of the shenanigans she witnessed during her years living in the snooty Scottsdale neighborhood called the Palms?”
“That’s the one,” Cassie said. “With the book of the same name that I published for her. The preorders alone are in the thousands, we have a sold-out ticketed event for five hundred people for tomorrow night, and the book’s been optioned for a movie. Mel, I need you!”
“Five hundred cupcakes by tomorrow night? Cass, if it was any other week, we’d be all over it,” Mel said. “But Angie and Tate are getting married next weekend and, well, there’s been some—”
Angie appeared beside her, snagged the phone out of Mel’s hand, and said, “We’ll do it.”
Mel jumped and stared at her friend. Angie’s eyes were smudged by rings of watery mascara, her face was still pale, and the end of her nose red. Mel glanced over her shoulder and saw the brothers standing there. She glanced back at Angie. Mel could hear Cassie talking on the phone but couldn’t make out the words.
“Yes, it’s Angie,” she said. “Thanks. No, we have plenty of time before the wedding. In fact, this is perfect because it will give me something to do.”
Mel nodded. Now she understood. Angie wanted to bury herself in this last-minute job so that she didn’t have to think about Blaise, or their driver, or anything else.
“All right,” Angie said. “I’ll let you work out the details with Mel. And, Cassie, can you save me a copy of the book? Thanks.”
Angie handed her the phone and Mel asked, “Are you sure? This could be an all-nighter.”
“Positive,” Angie said. “I need this. Take the order and let’s get to work.”
Five
Champagne cupcakes. Five hundred of them. And per Elise Penworthy’s specifications via Cassie, they needed to be absolute perfection. Sure, no pressure.
Mel called Joe to let him know she wouldn’t be home for dinner. Joe took the news well, arriving at the bakery kitchen with a stack of pizzas from Oregano’s Pizza Bistro and their shared cat baby, Captain Jack.
The brothers took three of the pizzas and parked themselves at a table in the front part of the bakery, which was now closed for the evening. They dragged Tate and Angie with them as the brothers refused to let either of them out of their sights until their wedding. Also, they needed reinforcements because everyone knew if Tony was left alone with the pizzas, they would vanish in one inhale. The skinniest of the DeLaura brothers, Tony also had the biggest appetite.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Joe asked Mel as he maneuvered her into her snug office with a pizza in one hand and Captain Jack in the other. Mel took Captain Jack and nuzzled him before letting him run around her office, which was really more of a glorified closet.
Joe sat in the only chair, her desk chair, and pulled her onto his lap. He reached over her to flip up the top of the pizza box and then handed her a slice—green olive and sausage, her favorite—before taking one for himself.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Still sad,” she said. “It’s like this ache in my chest that’s relentless. I can’t believe I’ll never see Blaise smile or laugh again, and I didn’t know him as well as Tate and Angie.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“That’s mostly why we took the book-signing gig. Angie said she needed something else to think about.”
Joe nodded. He swallowed and then asked, “Have you heard from Stan?”
“Not a word,” she said. “He put a detail on everyone, including Oz, who is not enjoying Officer Hayley Clark, not even a little.”
“Is she cute?” Joe asked.
Mel looked at him.
“I just meant if she was cute, it shouldn’t be such a hardship,” Joe said.
“She is cute,” Mel said. “I think that makes it worse.”
“Why?”
“His girlfriend, Lupe, has been away for a long time and the last time she was here . . .” Mel stopped talking. She didn’t like to gossip about her employees.
“They didn’t get along?” he guessed.
“It seemed tense.”
“Do you think they broke up?”
She shrugged. Oz hadn’t said anything, but whenever Mel asked him about Lupe, he got a weird look on his face.
“Poor Oz,” Joe said. “It’s hell realizing you love someone and can’t be with them.”
Mel leaned back to study his face. “It’s even worse when you think they’re out of your league.”
“But it’s magical when they finally become yours,” he said. He hugged her and Mel dropped her head onto his shoulder, smiling when she felt him plant a kiss in her hair.
If someone had told her terminally awkward and pudgy twelve-year-old self that she would one day be
