Page 60 of Hers for the Weekend

She kissed Tara desperately, hoping that maybe whatever this was between them could convince Tara to walk away from her family, toward something healthier but just as impactful.

When they woke up later that morning, Holly surreptitiously looked up how lawyers got jobs with the Innocence Project while Tara was in the shower. Surely it couldn’t hurt to make them aware of Tara’s amazing work, right? Tara might not be ready to take the leap, but if they presented themselves, she might be able to imagine new possibilities. And she could start out volunteering if that made for a more comfortable transition.

She drafted an email, only to decide that it would be highly unprofessional and pushy to send it. Suddenly there was a frantic knock on their door.

“Holly!” Cole’s voice called. “I need you!”

Cole needed her? What the hell was going on? She opened the door, and Cole’s giant frame and floppy hair fell through.

“Holly,” he moaned, gripping both of her forearms. “The cake.”

“What about the cake?” Holly asked, breathing slowly and deeply to try to get Cole to mirror her.

Cole started to cry. “It melted.”

“Jesus, how?!” Holly gasped. She knew that the giant Rosenstein’s-baked cake had been residing in the walk-in refrigerator, waiting for tomorrow to get its finishing touches.

“We left the door open a sliver by accident, and the fan overheated trying to keep the temp down, and then it exploded, and Blue says it’s going to need to be completely replaced.”

If Levi Matthews thought they needed a new walk-in, they did.

“Fuck, can y’all afford that?” Tara asked, coming out from the bathroom and toweling off her hair.

Cole was breathing hard, trying to get himself under control. “I’m going to pay for it. Sawyer and I… were making out in the walk-in and didn’t shut the door all the way. It’s my fault.”

“Oh, Cole,” Tara breathed. “And now you’re trying to figure out how to fix it.”

“Holly, you can bake. I would never ask you, with all the Rosensteins here—”

Holly interrupted him. “Miri’s family is here to celebrate her marriage. They already baked her a cake once. I’m more than happy to do it.”

“That’s too much work for one person,” Tara objected.

“Oh no, it absolutely is,” Cole agreed. “Esther’s going to help you. She bakes almost as well as her mother, and before Gavi came to work for us, they worked at Rosenstein’s, so they’re both going to pitch in. But will you please please please come lead the effort?”

Holly looked back at Tara, trying to gauge how she felt about this idea. It would put Holly in the kitchen for most of the day, and the reason Holly was here was because Tara didn’t feel like she could face this party by herself. Still, over the past few days, Holly had watched Tara become more and more comfortable being a part of the group.

“You should do it,” Tara said. “If you want to. I should probably try to spend some time with Cole, anyway. He’s getting weird about the distance between us, and who knows how long it will be before I see him again after this.”

“I am not getting weird about it,” Cole argued. “I’ve been weird about it. But I know how long it will be, which is no more than two weeks. Because that’s as much as I can handle.”

If Tara loved her, and she didn’t get to see Tara’s face every day, she would be whiny about it, too. Hell, she was maudlin about the idea of leaving Tara when she inevitably left Charleston soon, and they didn’t love each other.

She couldn’t very well tell Miriam she wouldn’t fix her wedding cake because she didn’t want to lose one of her only days left with Tara, that she was desperate to hold on to every second of their remaining time together, to hoard it like a dragon. As far as Miriam knew, they were going back to South Carolina to continue their love story, likely heading toward moving in together, and then marriage, because that’s where all Tara’s relationships went. They had all their lives ahead of them to spend romantic weekends in the woods together, in their fiction. Besides, Cole was looking at her with desperate puppy-dog eyes. She smiled as warmly as she could and said, “Of course I’ll help!”

Cole’s face lit up like, well, like a Christmas tree. Tara came up behind Holly and squeezed her shoulder, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Gavi Rosenstein was in full general mode when Holly arrived. They had laid out all the basic cake ingredients on the countertops, rolled up their sleeves, and tied a handkerchief around their short hair.

“I see the relation to Hannah,” Holly observed, and Gavi grinned.

“What a lovely compliment! We do all tend to be formidable.”

They were not kidding. Holly respected that every person in this family, or at least on this farm, seemed intensely passionate about their work. It didn’t make much sense to her, even after talking to Levi and Miriam, because she’d always been unwilling to make her work her identity, but it seemed to give them fulfillment.

She surveyed the kitchen. “Do you have a recipe, or am I on my own for that? Because I have several, although I’m famous for my coconut cake, which seems risky for a wedding. Some weirdos hate coconut.”

“I’m weirdos,” Gavi said, raising their hand. “I have recipes you can peruse, or you can use one of your own. We have a nut allergy, so avoid them. I do know that Noelle is crazy about citrus.”

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