Page 38 of All Signs Point to Malibu

Wedding cakes always seemed pointless to me. No one ever eats it. The cake is just a photography prop for that pathetic smearing frosting on one another pic. Why not just hand the bride and groom cans of whipped cream and let them go at it?

Problem solved.

“This place seems a little expensive,” I say, noticing the prices on the elegantly decorated cupcakes in the display case. What the hell is gold leaf? And does it really taste good enough to warrant the twenty-six-dollar cost?

Hailey shoots me a look. “You’d prefer supermarket day-olds for your best friend’s engagement party?”

“Overpriced cake tastes better?” It’s sugar. Hard to mess up.

“Well-made desserts with quality ingredients made by a trained pastry chef and not a teen with a summer job do—yes.”

“If you say so.” I shrug. She’s covering this bill.

Hailey sighs as though I have zero class and maybe, when it comes to desserts, I do. As a professional athlete, refined sugar wasn’t on my diet. Of course over the last few years, I haven’t been as restrictive, but I still don’t think something you eat when you’re already full should cost as much as an entire meal.

But damn, if I’m not suddenly wondering what gold leaf tastes like.

We approach the counter and the owner, Yates Carmicheal—an energetic pastry chef I recognize as a judge from several baking reality TV shows—approaches with a wide smile. He wears an apron that says “Lick My Frosting.”

Respect.

“Hailey! Nice to see you! I’ll be with you both in a moment,” he says.

“Take your time,” she says.

“Client of yours, I assume?” I ask as she zeroes in on the display case.

“Yates came to me four years ago with the idea of opening a—” she lowers her voice slightly “—erotic dessert bakery.”

Explains the apron.

“And while I personally found the idea of vagina pops fascinating, I didn’t see the market embracing the concept enough to be lucrative, so I encouraged him to keep the X-rated offerings as a side hustle and open a high-end patisserie instead.” Hailey peruses the display case. “And he’s aformerclient.”

I snap my fingers. “That’s right. You have a timeline to your helpfulness.”

She turns toward me. “I get clients started on the right path and then it’s up to them,” she says with a hint of exasperation, and I can tell I’ve hit a sore spot.

Still, I can’t help myself from poking the bear further. I seriously get off on irritating her. “Translation, you abandon them for the next dollar sign.”

She looks murderous as she opens her mouth, but Yates approaches, interrupting what was sure to be a well-articulated telling off.

One I would have liked to hear.

Her business model has always intrigued me. Not that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it—or her—but after the airport disaster, I did go down a dark hole of cyber stalking...more to see who else had their life derailed by Hailey. Turned out, all I found were success stories.

Every. Single. Client.

People had only great things to say about her services. Didn’t matter the industry, her advice was somehow spot on. It was baffling. And her six-month terms are even more so. Wouldn’t it be easier to continue milking one happy client for years instead of always having to drum up new business?

Unfortunately, asking those questions will only give her the impression that I give a shit, and I absolutely do not.

“Your tasting sampler,” Yates says as he slides a tray toward us with six delicious-looking bite-sized samples of cake, each labeled. Lemon surprise, cocoa bliss, espresso love...

Gotta admit, they look great and this definitely beats selecting something from the supermarket bakery counter. “You don’t mess around,” I say to Hailey.

“What’s the point of choosing desserts if we can’t reap the benefits of tasting them first?” she says and for the first time ever, I can’t fault her logic.

She beams at Yates. “Once again, you’ve outdone yourself. How’s business?”

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