Page 4 of Bake You Mine
two
Aubrey hadto squeeze in a school pickup before getting the details behind Gary’s latest scheme. It should be more than enough time to get her shit together.
But hey, if Liam kept acting like a jackass, all the better. That stupid crush of hers would clear up like a rash.
She pulled up a half inch until she was bumper to bumper with the car ahead of her. At this time of day, cars looped out of the Port Fortune Middle School parking lot onto Ford’s Parkway, the main drag through the city.
When she’d met Liam, she’d been fresh off a divorce, her self-esteem at an all-time low. Petit Chou had been open for roughly six months when Liam burst back into Port Fortune. In the three years since he’d opened Elevation, Liam had become an outlet—a way for her anxious brain to focus those romantic feelings she didn’t have the energy to deal with. Her divorce had wrecked her self-confidence. Now, it’d been so long since she’d dated, the idea of downloading a dating app made her want to take a blow torch to her phone. Besides running a business and being a single mom, who had time to date?
She was quiet, if polite, to Liam. Occasionally, they’d engagein chef shit-talking like they had this morning. But generally, they were wave at the mailbox level acquaintances. He’d probably gotten the vibe that she didn’t care for him, and she couldn’t blame him. It was too late to walk that back. Which was probably for the best, as keeping him at arm’s length was easier than tripping over her tongue every time they talked.
She spotted Daphne in the crowd and opened the van’s door. Her twelve-year-old daughter hopped into the back seat. Daphne shared Aubrey’s dark hair, but that was where the similarities ended. She got her poor eyesight, height, and extroverted personality from her father.
“Hey, Daph, how was your day?”
Daphne flung her things onto the seat next to her. “Meh.”
“Meh? Who are you, Lisa Simpson?” Aubrey stretched back and patted Daphne’s leg.
Daphne sighed as she buckled herself in. “Last-minute homework assignment. I hate those.”
“You normally don’t mind homework.”
“Not when I thought I wouldn’t have any tonight!” Usually an even-tempered kid, Daphne was frustrated more easily since she’d moved up a grade shortly after the start of the school year. In seventh grade, she’d been bored; now, she was challenged. It would take more than a few weeks for her to settle in. Middle school was a nightmare as it was.
“I have something that might make you smile. A chocolate raspberry petite gateau.” Aubrey passed back a signature pink Petit Chou cake box with a wooden fork tucked into the top.
Daphne murmured thanks as she began to fuss with one of the folds on the box. “Did Dad talk to you about Myrtle Beach?”
Aubrey tried to keep her conversations with Chris, her ex-husband, strictly text-based. It wasn’t that she was hung up on the doofus. Keeping their communication to text messages was also handy for proving that he failed to fulfill hisobligations.
“What about it?” She looked both ways and pulled out of the middle school parking lot onto Ford’s Parkway.
“He and Kayla rented a house there for Thanksgiving with her family. They want me to come.”
Kayla, the woman Chris had cheated on her with. At the time, Aubrey hated her. Now, she couldn’t help but be thankful since Chris wasn’t her problem anymore—except when he tried to press boundaries with their kid, which had started happening more frequently.
“I have you for Thanksgiving this year.”
Daphne let out a happy grunt as she bit into the gateau. “Yeah, I know. That’s why Dad needed to talk to you.”
Aubrey clenched and unclenched her jaw. She hated that Chris had dragged their kid into this. “What do you want, kiddo?”
She paused while she chewed. “I want to have Thanksgiving with you and Grandpapa. I already told Dad that, but he didn’t listen.”
Aubrey never once talked poorly to Daphne about her father. Now that she was older, her daughter came to her own conclusions, which saddened her, as Chris had once been a wonderful father.
“We have a while until we’ve got to worry about Thanksgiving, eh?”
Daphne nudged her glasses up her nose. “Mom, when are you going to meet someone new? You and Dad have been divorced for eons.”
She’d only dated a few times since the divorce, so her daughter was right on that front.
“You know I’m Mrs. Petit Chou. I don’t have time for anyone else in my life.”
It was a lie she held near and dear to her heart.
In the rearview mirror, she caught her kid giving her a skeptical glance.
