“I didn’t think you were supposed to put hot cupcakes in the cooler like that.” Amber pointed at the door with a drunken finger.
“Normally, I wouldn’t, but these aren’t normal times. I need them to cool so I can frost them and put them in my belly.”
Amber’s laughter filled the bakery, and I took another bite of the bread. “Well, at least you’re excited about eating them. Usually, you eat a cupcake like it’s a death sentence.”
“Only to my hips, apparently,” I answered. “At least according to Maxwell.” Before she could say anything, I decided to go for gold. “I was thinking about something and wondering what you’d say about it.”
“If it’s about sleeping with Brady, then my answer is yes,” she said, leaning on the table and finishing her bread.
I shoved her playfully in the shoulder. “It’s not about sleeping with Brady!” I said with laughter in my voice. “It is about him, though.”
“Damn. Here I thought all the booze helped you see how perfect he is for you.”
“First of all, Brady Pearson is not perfect for me. He’s the exact opposite of me.”
Amber’s finger trailed through the flour on the bench for a few seconds before she spoke. “That’s not true, but you’re the only one who doesn’t see it. You and Brady aren’t that different. You just don’t want to admit it. You don’t like change, even when you say you want things to change.”
“I do not!” I exclaimed angrily, my foot stomping on the bakery floor. “Wait. I do too!” I said, tipping my head to the side. “What was the question again? Oh! I do like change. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, but never mind now.”
I turned my back to her and finished the bread, then checked the cooler to see if the cupcakes were ready for icing. They weren’t. Dammit. Patience, Haylee. You are usually more patient than you have been over the last six months. What is wrong with you? It probably had something to do with the fact that I was tired, sex-starved, and unhappy in my personal life, or rather my lack thereof.
“I’m sorry, Hay-Hay,” Amber said, coming over and putting her arms around my shoulders. “Sometimes, I don’t think before I speak.”
I sighed and shook my head slightly. “We both know I don’t like change, and we both know why.”
“I do, and I shouldn’t have said that. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Just bakery stuff,” I said on a shrug. “I was thinking I screwed up with Brady offering him the inventory position instead of the full-time baker.”
“He didn’t seem upset to me when I talked to him. He was excited that you were putting more trust in him with the business.”
“It was the wrong kind of trust, though. I realize that now. Brady’s so good at what he does, and I could really benefit from him being at the bench with me full-time.”
“You don’t have to ask me about the back of the house hiring, Hay-Hay. We agreed that we hire for our own ends without requiring approval from the other person.”
“We did, but this would require me hiring a new kitchen manager, at least part-time. I know Taylor is looking for more hours, but I can’t offer the position to her without you okaying it.”
“If that’s what you want to do, then I say go for it. Taylor would be great at it. Increasing her hours also means she’ll stick around, so that makes it a win-win-win.”
“No, that makes it a win-win,” I said, counting on my fingers in case I was too drunk to remember how many wins there were.
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “A win for Brady, a win for Taylor, and a win for you for getting to work with Brady full-time. Win-win-win,” she said, threw me a wink, and clapped giddily like she just solved world hunger.
Nine
I was late for a very important date. Okay, not a date, but I was still late. The team was going to have my ass in a sling if I even thought about stopping to talk to anyone. I didn’t care.
“Haylee,” I called, jogging up to the woman meandering down the sidewalk. When I got closer, I realized she wasn’t meandering. She was listing.
“I’m not going to poke your loaf, Brady,” she answered without turning around.
Poke my loaf?
“For once, you’ve left me speechless, cupcake.”
“All evidence to the contrary,” she slurred, her tongue sounding too big for her mouth. Was she sick?
I grasped her shoulder and held her in place. “Are you okay, Haylee?”
Her eyes rolled around in her head when she tried to focus on me, and I bit back laughter. She wasn’t sick. She was drunk.
“Have you been tippling, cupcake?”
The punch to my gut took me by surprise. “I told you not to call me cupcake! And you claim that you know how to listen.” She started stomping up the street, but the booze in her system made it more of a stumble than a stomp.
I put my arm around her shoulder and propped her up against me. “Do you have plans for the night?” I asked while I directed her toward the lakeshore.
“Big plans,” she said, holding up a bag that I hadn’t noticed tucked against her side. It was brown paper and most definitely held alcohol. “I’m going to drink this whole bottle of strawberry wine by myself. You can’t have any.”
With a brow in the air, I had to ask. “How many bottles have you already had?”
“I think one,” she answered. “No, I shared that one with Amber. Wait, that was vodka.”
“You’ve already had half a bottle of vodka?”
“It was a small bottle,” she said giggling. “There were also those two bearded goats and the vodka cupcakes I made. I’m kind of a lightweight, regardless of what my hips say.”
My eyes traveled to her tantalizing hips in her tight jean shorts, and I immediately regretted it. I could feel myself growing hard, and since I was wearing a wetsuit under my clothes, a hard-on wasn’t something that could stick around.
“I would tell you what your hips say to me, but I’m pretty sure you’d slap me. I do have a surprise for you, and when we’re done, we can share that bottle of wine. You shouldn’t drink it alone. You might not make it home.”
“Keep your surprise in your pants, Brady,” she said, using air quotes with one hand while grasping the bottle tightly to her chest, “and I’m not sharing my wine.”
Stopping in front of the shore of Lake Pendle, I tugged the bottle of wine from her grasp. It wasn’t a struggle, but she almost tipped over trying to hold onto it. “The surprise isn’t in my pants, though, you’d probably like that if you gave it half a chance.”
“Probably,” she said, that giggle filling the air again. A part of me wished I was recording her right now so I could prove to sober Haylee that drunk Haylee thought my manhood was worth taking half a chance on.
“Sit here,” I said, directing her to an empty patch of sand amidst all the other onlookers. “The surprise will be out there,” I explained, pointing to the water. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Give me back my wine,” she slurred, her arms wrapped around her knees.