Page 23 of Cupcake
“In my bag. I thought it would be smart if you were home before you started drinking again.”
“Shows what you know. Hand it over.”
“What are you going to do? Swig it straight from the bottle?” he asked with one brow in the air.
“Absolutely.” I made the gimme fingers until he pulled it from his bag and handed it over.
“Fine, but you might get a reputation if people see you staggering down Main Street drinking from a bottle.”
“Can’t be any worse than the reputation I already got,” I muttered, my words still slurring. I brought the bottle to my lips and took a long pull of it, handing it back to him and wiping my lips on my arm. “Ahh.”
“What the hell. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” He slugged back a hit of the wine, and the sweetness made him cough and choke until he got his breath back.
I grabbed the bottle from him. “Can’t hold your liquor, Pearson?”
“That’s the girliest thing I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and I work in a place that makes cupcakes.”
I drank from it longer this time, smacking my lips when I finished. “All the more for me,” I slurred, my steps uneven and crisscrossed.
“Somebody has to be sober in a few hours when it’s time to start baking, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be you,” Brady muttered, taking my elbow to help me walk in a straight line.
He dutifully helped me up the stairs to my apartment, took the key, unlocked the door, and helped me to the couch. I fell hard onto the cushion and brought the bottle to my lips again.
“I’ll be fine at four a.m. Unlike some people, I’m not a pansy-ass who can’t work with a hangover.”
“I can work with a hangover,” he insisted. “I just prefer not to. Sit. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re not the boss of me!” I yelled. “I’m your boss, remember?”
“Only when we’re downstairs. Up here, I can boss you around, too.”
“I don’t think that’s how this works!”
IGRINNED, ENJOYINGthis new side of Haylee. She was all kinds of funny drunk, which told me she would be funny sober, too, if she’d let her guard down. I bet Amber got to see her humorous side all the time. I was a little bit jealous that I didn’t.
While she was busy swigging her sweet wine, I wandered through her tiny kitchen and finally found a frozen pizza in the freezer. I put it in the oven to bake and noticed the calendar on the side of the fridge. The page for July was missing, unless I slept through the whole month, but I didn’t think so. When the coffee machine finished spitting out a cup of liquid gold, I carried it back into the living room, swapping the bottle of wine for the cup of coffee.
“I think you should ask for a refund on your calendar. It’s missing the month of July,” I pointed out, setting the bottle of wine out of sight.
“That’s because Amber ripped it up. She said I had to stop focusing on my birthday,” Haylee explained as she dutifully sipped the coffee. “She’s a real buzzkill to a girl’s goals in life. You know what? You’re a real buzzkill with this coffee bit, too. If Amber were here, she’d let me have the wine.”
“I’ve decided that Amber isn’t always the best influence.”
“Duh,” she said, her eyes rolling around in her head, and she had to work hard to make them stop. “We’ve been friends since we were four. That was the day she convinced me that old Mrs. Daniels wouldn’t care if we picked her flowers to give to Amber’s mom.”
“She cared?” I asked, laughter in my voice.
“Oh, she cared. Amber and I have been thick as thieves ever since.”
The timer went off on the oven, and I stood, pointing at her. “Stay put and finish the coffee.”
“Stay put and finish the coffee,” she mimicked. “You’re still not the boss of me.”
Some men might feel emasculated with the constant reminders that she was the boss, but I wasn’t one of those men. I preferred working for a woman. They most often were more willing to stop and think about other’s suggestions before insisting something be done their way. At least in my experience. Besides, Haylee was a lot easier on the eyes than my last boss, who had been six feet and nearly three hundred pounds.
After I stowed the rest of the wine in the fridge, I strode back into the living room, carrying the pizza and two plates. “Ta-da!”
Haylee lifted a brow at me and then started to clap slowly. “Wow. The baker managed to bake a frozen pizza.” She pushed herself up off the couch. “Standing ovation.”
