Page 52 of Great Pretender
“Hi, that would be the cakes for the church.”
“Church? So, I can’t have one.”
I laugh. “One whole cake, Chad?”
He looks around at the cakes. “Yeah. It looks like there are plenty. Surely, God will understand if I haveone. I’ve been working my ass off all day.”
“No, I made a chicken salad for you.”
“Salad?” He gives me a narrowed look. “You think I’m fat?”
Again, I laugh. “No, you said you liked the salad from the restaurant the other night, so I made it for you. The chicken teriyaki salad with mange tout.”
“Oh, thanks, babe, but surely we can have one of these cakes for dessert, right?”
“Chad, I need to bake a hundred.”
“How the hell did you get dragged into something like that?”
“There’s a woman Dad likes, and the rest of the story is boring.”
He walks over to the knife stand and takes one of the smaller knives. “I’ve got to try a slice.”
“No,” I say, waving the pallet knife at him. I didn’t realize it has a glop of frosting on it until it flies across and lands with a splat in Chad’s face.
My mouth drops, and I grimace when it drips from his nose onto the lapel of his Armani suit. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.
When he glances across at one of the cakes I frosted earlier and then looks back at me, I suddenly remember one summer camp several moons ago. I was fourteen, and he was sixteen. That was the last camp we went to together. He was a counselor until we started that food fight.
Another glance at the cake, and I know what’s coming.
“I have frosting on my suit, and you’re so clean in your tank and shorts,” he says in a voice that almost sounds like a chant.
“Chad, don’t you dare, or I swear you’ll end up in here baking tonight.”
“Don’t I dare what? You sound like you know what I’m gonna do.” He quirks a brow.
“Don’t I?”
One more pause and I find myself backing away one step and a time.
“Maybe.”
I was trying to get away, but I should have known better than to think I could dodge the former quarterback of the Gladiators.
He’s the Bullet. Too fast. All I see is the shift of movement as he takes a handful of cake and frosting. Then I’m covered in it.
I didn’t even get the chance to cover my face. That’s exactly where it went. An eye for an eye.
He manages to get me again when I try to retreat to the living room.
This time, it’s a bigger chunk.
I am so mad that I pick up one of the smaller cakes and throw it at him, giving a vicious shout when it slaps him straight in his face again and splats all over his hair and chest.
We both grab two more cakes, and suddenly we’re at summer camp again.
