Page 9 of Leo
“I do what I can.”
Quiet fell between us for a moment before I managed to find my footing.“Have you been able to find out something already?About who placed that order?”
“Ah.Well, I called the card company, and they told me I’d need to speak with someone up the food chain so to speak, and the chances of getting any identifying information was less than zero.If it turns out it was a fraudulent purchase, I can file a claim and get the law involved.Other than that, there’s not much I can do.”
“Damn.”I sighed.“I know I should just let it go but it could’ve been a real problem for me if another client had come in and seen the piles of cupcakes with bare asses and raised middle fingers.Though, really, I have to admit those looked really well done…”
He laughed again.“Ira helped with the middle fingers.I’m an ass man, myself.”
Is he flirting with me?This is flirting, right?Or is this just how people talk to one another when there’s not a six-year-old involved or they’re not arranging for a loved one’s funeral?I replied with the only thing I could think of.“Duly noted…”
He snorted softly.“Well.I need to get going in just a sec, but I really do want to take you to dinner.In a professional capacity,” he hurried to add.
“A professional capacity?You’re a professional dinner eater?”
“Well,” he drawled, “I have been doing it almost every day of my life for the past thirty-two years, so I’d say I’m at least a highly ranked amateur.”
“Sure,” I said instead.“Just let me know where and when, and I’ll make arrangements for Edward to stay with my friend and her husband for a few hours.”I tried to ignore the pang of guilt I felt over asking Naomi to watch Edward so I could go on a date, but it still made my stomach clench.
“Seriously?I mean, great!”Ambrose’s smile was evident in his voice.It did my ego a lot of good, hearing how excited he was, and, honestly, I felt it too—that bubble of nervous happiness at the idea of spending time with him.It’d years since I’d been on a date and the idea was anxiety-inducing but also exciting.“Um so… tonight?”
His eagerness was kind of charming.He was cute, I thought, and funny and I wanted to get to know him, which surprised me.It’d been ages since I felt any sort of pull toward another man.I waited for the pang of guilt I expected at the thought of going out on a date—or quasi-date, as the case may be.Years of telling myself to shelve any sexual or romantic desires, that indulging in them would mean I was putting myself ahead of Edward, led me to expect to feel something other than excitement at the idea of going out with Ambrose, even if it was just to get something to eat and talk for a bit.
Instead of the queasy, unsettling shame I was expecting, I only felt the barest twinge.And it was more about asking Naomi to babysit so I could go have fun.
“Maybe not tonight—I need to ask my friends if they can mind Edward, so it depends on their schedule, too.But… soon.Definitely soon.”
I could still hear the smile in his voice.“Soon is good.I like soon.”
I likeyou,I wanted to rejoin, but my face flamed at the idea of such blatant flirting.So instead, I said, “Soon then.I’ll call you this evening?”
“I’d like that.”The sound of a door chime sounded down the line and he sighed.“Welp, back to the cupcake mines.Talk to you soon.”
Soon.Shit.Is this too soon?But I nodded.“Soon.”
CHAPTER4
AMBROSE
Every ideaI’d written down for October’s bakes was crap.
Even surrounded by my favorite midcentury cookbooks, I couldn’t come up with anything interesting.Pumpkin spice this, maple caramel that… sure, thosesoundgood but they’re also kind of dull.I mean, sure, I’d be making the treats people expected to see at a bakery in autumn, but Nice Buns had a theme, damn it, and churning out a hundred trays of cream cheese frosted mini gingerbread cupcakes or dozens of pumpkin spice blondies wasn’t it.
I had some of the customer favorites already sorted: the candlestick cupcakes based on the infamous salad from the sixties, tomato soup cake slices, chocolate mayo cakes and cupcakes, spiced peach ring mini-bundts.I had a list of about a dozen ‘regulars’ I rotated through depending on sales and availability of ingredients.But I liked to have six or so specialty items every month or so; things that stood out as unusual or special.For September, I’d made sure to include some fun things like the chocolate wacky cake that had been so popular in the seventies, and the water pie (much better than it sounds, but I didn’t offer it often since the novelty factor wore off fast).October, though… October was a pain in my ass.The risk of overdoing pumpkin, maple, and, well, Halloween was huge for a bakery, but it was so tempting since it was so easy to just lean into the expectations and pop out some pumpkin petit fours and a shit-ton of sugar cookies shaped like Halloween monsters.
Groaning, I reached for one of the older cookbooks,Happy Farmer Valley First United Church Holiday Home Cookbook and Household Tips, Tricks, and Advice from the HFVFUC Ladies’ League.Compiled and published in 1918, it was a wealth of unusual-for-now recipes and some pretty wild household tips, like applying balled up cobwebs to cuts to staunch the bleeding or using ammonia in your bathwater to clear up a rash.
No wonder the average life expectancy was lower back then—people were bathing in ammonia and rolling around in bug dust.
Even with Mrs.L.A.Verle’s helpful recipe for Autumn Surprise Pie (the surprise was sauerkraut) or the Saturday Evening Young Women’s Bowling League’s advice to make your cakes more interesting (again, more sauerkraut—I was starting to worry about the ladies in Happy Farmer Valley), my thoughts kept turning to Leo Morris, bouncing between our maybe-possibly-kind-of-date, the possible flirting (maybe I was just getting my hopes up) on the phone, and his slight coolness toward me in person…
Maybe he’d warm up over dinner.
I mean, I’d definitely already warmed up to him.There was a preheating joke in there somewhere, I was sure of it.Closing the Happy Farmer Valley book and reaching forHoliday Recipes to Delight and Entertainfrom the Journal of Housekeeping Arts and Sciences (a fancy ‘women’s magazine’ from the early 1920s), a.k.a.Ol’ Reliable, I flipped to the section on summer recipes, wondering if I could drag any of them into an autumnal sort of theme here in Southern California, where leaves didn’t change unless there was a wildfire, and a cold front meant putting on sneakers instead of sandals when you went to check the mail.
Focus on work, you dork.People aren’t going to keep coming to your bakery if you start half-assing it with boring sugar cookies and plain cupcakes just because you’re insta-crushing on some guy.
Besides… maybe he’s got better things to do than hook up with you.
