Page 3 of Sugar Dusted Dad Bod

At this time of year, only a couple weeks to go until Christmas, I’m usually in the thick of it. Too buried under the avalanche of orders to even think about anything else except work.

Then yesterday, Cady told me she doesn’t have a tree this year and my whole brain stalled.

Now I’m lit up from within, burning with an inner fire, with aneedto get Cady that tree. I’ve already found a place selling trees 24/7 only a few blocks from here, and Cady’s place is a short walk beyond that. This is happening.

Today’s shift can’t end soon enough. I’m gonna get my assistant baker her holiday cheer, and I’m gonna make her happy, damn it.

It’s what any good boss would do. No need to look too closely at these feelings.

“You’re being weird,” Cady observes from her spot by the kitchen island, where she’s icing rows and rows of gingerbread snowmen. There’s a smudge of icing sugar on her freckled cheek, and every time I glance over and see it, my insides riot.

What the hell is wrong with me? I’m thirty six years old. I’m a grown adult male with a thriving business and a reputation as one of the best craftspeople in the city. I do my taxes on time each year, and I keep several houseplants alive.

Yet a single glance at my sweet young assistant baker is enough to take me out at the knees. This is messed up.

Has Cady always had such a cute little nose? Has her auburn hair always gleamed like that beneath the warm kitchen lights? She pulls it back in two braids for every shift, the ends tickling at her shoulders, and fuck, the demon inside me wants to grip those braids and steer her pretty mouth wherever I want it.

Evil. Awful. No Christmas tree deliveries can make up for this.

But Christ, I want my assistant baker badly.

These feelings are always there, of course, simmering away under the surface. But it’s so much easier to ignore them for the rest of the year, when we work together in daylight hours while people bustle out in the bakery store. The holiday season is the only time the two of us are trulyalone.

When we hole up together in this kitchen late at night, radio crooning and snowflakes swirling past the dark windows, it feels like we’re the last two people on Earth.

ThenI start noticing Cady’s delicate hands, and her soft, pink lips, and her big brown doe eyes. All stuff I notice at other times of the year, sure, but at least then, there are other people around. Distractions.

“I found a tree farm.” My voice sounds rough—like, say, a man who’s been lusting after his off-limits employee. “They’re open all night.”

Cady laughs, delighted, and ices a perfect carrot nose onto a snowman. Her hand is steady, and her back must ache from leaning over these trays of baked goods for hours on end, but she never complains.

“Seriously? In the city?”

“Yeah. Not far from here.”

Cady adjusts her grip on the piping bag, smiling wide as she moves onto the next snowman. “Oh, wow. I can’t believe you’re committing to this, Jasper.”

“Why not?” If I sound offended—I am. Why can’t she believe I’m following through on a promise? I may be a terrible boss in the sense that I’m constantly battling the urge to pick Cady up and kiss her, but I’m not unreliable. I’ve always been true to my word.

“It’s just crazy.” Cady’s still smiling down at the snowmen when she says, “No one ever does stuff like this for me.”

I go still.

And I’m standing by the wall ovens, where I just slid a tray of pain au chocolat to bake. The heat seeps out through the oven cracks, blasting the side of my body, but I can’t bring myself to step away. Can’t do anything except replay Cady’s words in my head, over and over and over.

No one ever does stuff like this for me.

No one ever does stuff like this for me.

Well. What the hell have I been doing for the last three years I’ve known this young woman? What’s been thepointof me?

Sure, I gave Cady a job and I pay her well and always make sure she takes her breaks and days off. I’m a good boss… with the basics. But all along, Cady’s been alone in the most important ways.

Part of me just assumed she must have a boyfriend taking care of stuff like that. Cady’s so sweet, so funny, so smart and kind, and so heart-breakingly beautiful… yeah, it seemed crazy to ever think that she might be single.

But she’s never mentioned a guy in her life. And now it’s all but confirmed.

Cady is single.

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