Page 9 of Bake You Mine
Before the door shut behind her, Liam called, “Was that a compliment?”
Her response was a middle finger as she passed by the front window.
three
Aubrey’s handstill tingled from Liam’s tight squeeze. She groaned when she remembered the comment she’d made.
The man had to be used to women fawning all over him. That’s why he’d thought he could convince her to forfeit the contest by batting those useless-on-a-dude eyelashes and flicking that dark hair over his forehead.
Okay, she’d give him points for the hair. Dark, slightly wavy, and worth running your fingers through. Maybe even the face, too. He wasn’t hot chef for nothing.
She cut down the alley behind their businesses and entered Petit Chou through the back door. Tom was humming a song fromHadestownto himself as he focused on decorating.
Petit Chou sold a wide range of desserts—French patisserie, of course, since she and Tom had met at pastry school in Paris. Still, they also offered American favorites and various selections of bread created by her long-time friend, Leroy. She liked to think of her sweet little patisserie as existing outside the box—comfortable enough to fit in a small market in Central Virginia but still exciting enough to keep the curious interested.
While Tom worked, she slipped out front. Even though theyclosed in an hour and a half, a hearty crowd lingered. Her recent “happy hour” promotion of half-priced pastries and coffee in the last two hours before closing was going well.
There were a few regulars with their laptops at the single tables squeezed in along the back right of the café. A group of moms sat in the booth in the front window, cooing over their sweet babies while they had coffee and pastries from one of the battered metal serving trays.
A white and gold coffee bar and display case curved along the right side of the cafe. She scanned the cases, finding only a couple of croissants and two mousse cakes left.
This small space was a dream come true. It was both a blessing and a curse, now that they were rapidly outgrowing it.
After checking in with Samantha and Ella, her lead front-of-house staff, she returned to the kitchen-slash-bakery space. She stood in the doorway, holding open the swinging doors. She allowed herself just a moment to daydream about how adding on the new space could work for them.
“Hey, chica, how did the meeting with our resident eccentric millionaire go?” Tom didn’t take his eyes off the cake stand. His black hair fell over one eye as he piped an intricate lace design around the edge of a three-layer chocolate cake.
The doors swung open and closed as she stepped into the space. “I’m glad you’re sitting down, because it was a lot.”
She filled a piping bag with Swiss buttercream to decorate another cake for pickup. While they worked, she filled him in on Gary’s plan.
“You’re going to be in direct competition with the one and only hot chef, huh?” Tom waggled his eyebrows.No one, not even her best friend of thirteen years, knew of her crush.
Which made it feel even more ridiculous.
“Yeah, he already thinks he’s going to win, which is funny, since he practically begged me to let him have it. Screw that.I’m not thrilled that this competition is even a thing, but if I’m going to have to participate, I’m playing to win, especially for that ten-thousand-dollar prize.”
“Wait, roll it back, ten thousand dollars?Andwith the space next door tacked onto ours? Hell, we have to win this.”
“That’s what I’m saying! We need to knock this first challenge out of the park. Let him see what it’s like not to get his way for once.”
“Yeah, I bet he doesn’t hear the word no very often.”
“Is it wrong of me to consider sabotage?”
Tom hummed an old Beastie Boys tune. “Gimme a cake box, will ya?”
Aubrey reached for a flat pink cake box and began working on the folds to assemble it. “I don’t know, maybe it’s too early to think about that.”
“Yes, perhaps instead, we should consider that shirtless selfie he posted this morning. Liam, thank youverymuch for an instant addition to my thirst trap collection.”
She did her own creeping on Liam’s social media, carefully scrolling, terrified she’d accidentally like a three-month-old post. She didn’t follow him, nor did he follow her. Sometimes, she crept over to ogle, sure, but more often than not, her creeping acted as a reminder of why her crush was best kept to herself.
He got a hundred thousand likes on a shirtless selfie, and she always got more comments on her cake posts than she ever did on those about her personal life.
“Hey, speaking of social media, I had a thought,” Tom said.
Aubrey sighed. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret this?”
