"Those look freaking fantastic!" I exclaimed and I was not lying.
Kellie was at a stainless steel table in the back of my bakery (where the magic happened) and she was adorning chocolate cupcakes with mountainous swirls of mocha frosting. She'd already finished a tray and they were lightly dusted with cocoa powder and showered with orange-flavored sugar and chocolate sprinkles.
They looked awesome.
Her eyes went from her pastry bag to me.
Then the tip of her tongue that had been poking out the side of her mouth disappeared and she asked, "Do you think?"
I looked at the cupcakes then back to her. "Uh... yeah. "
She grinned at me.
We'd had a busy day and stocks were low by the time she got there after school so I set her to work alongside me seeing as business was picking up due to the after work crowd swinging by to get goodies for home. I'd just returned from refilling cookie jars (fat, yummy peanut butter with those criss cross fork indents in them and oatmeal with dried cranberries and white chocolate chips).
It was the first time Kellie had been let loose unsupervised and unaided. And by the looks of it, she'd done great.
I walked to her, gave her a sideways hug and kissed her temple before letting her go and telling her softly, "Honey, you're a natural."
"So, they're Tessa's Cakes Worthy?" she asked.
"Absolutely," I answered.
"Cool," she whispered, eyes shining bright.
I smiled at her. Then I swiped a cupcake.
Then I started to walk away, peeling back the brown paper as I told her, "I'm off. When you're done with those, take them out and unleash them on the world."
"Okay, Tess, and tell Uncle Slim I said hello," she called after me.
"Tell him yourself." I stopped at the office door, turned and looked at her. "Now he's blaming me that you're never stopping around at his place."
"Well, then tell him he doesn't pay me to be around and he doesn't have huge bowls of homemade frosting at his house," she returned.
This was true.
I grinned at her and disappeared in my tiny office, taking a bite of her as delicious as it looked cupcake.
Totally Tessa's Cakes.
Once I got over the orgasmic taste sensation of chocolate cake and whipped mocha frosting with a hint of orange, I took in my tiny office.
My life was a mess because of outside factions. My home was never a mess. And this now meant that Brock's home was never a mess.
I had to admit to one drawback, having Brock meant having two houses to clean. Brock didn't clean. In fact, Brock didn't like it when I cleaned. In the past, Brock informed me when I asked, he kept his pad clean mostly by not living in it therefore it wasn't really clean it was just that he wasn't around to see the dust accumulating. Things occasionally got cleaned when his mother popped by, this, I'd realized, was something she did that was essentially taking care of a forty-five year old man that he didn't mind but then again, he didn't care if his place was clean and he also didn't care if his mother spent her time with him cleaning. He did mind with me. He thought we had better things to do when we were together like eat, watch sports on television while cuddled together and have lots of sex. We'd had words, not heated, just words. Several of them. Unusually, I won. Then I wondered why I fought for the right to clean his house. This was not fun. But it had to be done because I was not able to live in unclean and not tidy and it had to be said, I was living with Brock it was just that we were doing it in two houses that both had to be cleaned.
But the one thing in my life that was not tidy was my office. In the beginning, when I was busting my hump to make a go of my bakery, it got out of hand and I never got it back into hand. Now, it was organized disarray. Although it looked like a cyclone hit it, I knew precisely where everything was.
I had few rules for my employees, those being excellent hygiene, smiling faces, not being afraid to show personality for personality was Tessa's Cakes and there was never an excuse to be bored.
And last, never touch anything in my office upon threat of death (or not getting to take any of the end of the night not sold cakes home).
I grabbed my purse and the minute I did I heard my phone ring in it. I dug it out of the side pocket, looked at the display and saw it said "Slim Calling."
I touched the screen and put it to my ear. "Hey honey."
"Hey darlin', change of plan."
It was Monday after Olivia phoned in the middle of the night on Saturday (or, more precisely, way early Sunday morning). The boys were back with Olivia and Brock's attorney and Hector had been informed first thing that morning that plans had not only changed but had been shifted into overdrive. I'd had to come into the bakery for a few hours on Sunday which gave Brock more alone time with his boys. But I'd met him at his place yesterday evening where we pretty much zonked out because he had about four hours of sleep and I had about two.
Tonight, it was my place and I was leaving early to go home and make dinner.
"What change of plans?"
"My house, not yours. Game's on," he informed me.
"What game?" I asked.
"Nuggets," he answered.
Hmm. This was interesting. Nuggets beat out Monday Night Football.
"And?" I asked.
"My set is better than yours," he stated.
"Your set is better than mine?"
"Babe, your TV should have been retired about six years ago."
"It's only three years old."
"Okay, then your set should have been retired about two and a half years ago."
I blinked at my desk.
Then I asked, "What?"
"You trade up every year."
I blinked at my desk again.
Then I asked, "Your truck was twenty years old but you trade up TVs every year?"
"Uh... yeah," he said like, "Uh... duh."
This was gearing up to be a milk jug discussion, I could feel it.
Therefore my decision about the future of the discussion was... whatever.
Moving on.
"I haven't stocked your fridge in awhile," I reminded him.
Another thing to note, two houses with one woman meant one woman cleaning two houses and stocking two fridges. Brock, I had learned, was not clean or tidy. Brock, I had also learned, had lived his life since divorcing Olivia (who, he informed me, was not a master chef or even close) on pizza, Chinese, fast food and takeaway Mexican.
Considering this, it was beginning to dawn that Brock's body was a minor miracle even with all that running and gym time.
"We'll order pizza," he decided.
That I could do.
"Cool," I agreed.
"And I'm tied up, gonna be half an hour later, maybe an hour," he said. "I'll text you when I'm on my way home and you can order the pizza."
"Does that mean someone died?" I asked.
His voice held restrained humor when he answered, "Yeah, sweetness, part of the gig of homicide is someone dying."
I turned and looked out into the bakery smelling cake smells.
When my phone rang at the bakery, this usually meant someone wanted to order a birthday cake. When Brock's rang at the Station, this usually meant someone had a cap busted in their ass.
My job was way better.
Thus I didn't mind (too much) cleaning two houses and stocking two fridges.
"Okay, baby, text me and I'll order the pizza," I said softly.
There was a moment's pause before I got a, "My sweet Tess," then I got a disconnect.
I allowed myself some time to feel the tingle Brock calling me his sweet Tess sent shimmering through me. Then I shoved the rest of the cupcake into my mouth and allowed myself some more time to feel a different kind of tingle.
Then I shoved my phone in my purse, pulled on my coat and headed out.
I hit the public area of my bakery and, as it always did and I hoped it always would, that gave me a tingle too.
Three robin's egg blue walls, one of them with a huge, stenciled pattern in lavender of hibiscus blossoms attended by hummingbirds with the back wall behind the display case painted lavender with "Tessa's Cakes" in flowery script painted in robin's egg blue surrounded by hibiscus and hummingbirds. This was positioned just a few inches from where the wall met the ceiling so people could see it clearly from the wide front windows facing the street.
I still had no idea where I got the theme, outside those colors being my favorite. Flowers and birds didn't scream bakery! But the colors were warm and beautiful, the flowers and birds delicate and striking. I'd paid a whack for the look and the customized stenciling. With my constant changes and obsession with getting it just right I'd driven the artist bonkers who created it and my logo but it had been worth it.
In fact, I'd paid a whack for everything that had to do with the look or feel of my bakery.
Upon copious consumption of wine with Martha as I planned the rest of my life post-Damian, we had both decided if I was going to go for it, I might as well go whole hog. So when I launched Tessa's Cakes, I didn't fuck around. I planned everything to the minutest detail, hired my staff with careful consideration that went beyond them arriving on time and being able to punch buttons on a cash register and I launched the entire concept. Beautiful cakes that tasted really freaking good bought from friendly personnel who didn't have vacant looks but easily apparent personalities in a bakery where you either wanted to come back or you wanted to stay awhile.
The floors were wood as was the frame of the old-fashioned display case which was filled with beautiful cakes, cupcakes and delectable-looking cookies, this topped with mismatching but very cool covered cake stands and glass cookie jars. There were battered wooden counters on either side of the display case that also held cookie jars and cake stands and there were shelves on the wall behind the case and counters with even more. Two big blackboards were on the walls on either side of the shelves with the day's ever-changing goodies scrolled artfully on them in lavender and blue chalk, hibiscus and hummingbirds decorating the corners.
There were tables out front if you wanted to hang and eat your treats, these again all wood, again all mismatched the only thing each of the chairs shared was being wide seated, sturdy and comfortable. Each table was topped with a tiny steel bucket with a poofy display of flowers and there was a much bigger bucket filled with a spray of them on one of the counters. These were rotated twice a week by a local florist who gave me a killer discount because I had a small sign that advertised they were hers.
I served coffee, tea and different flavored milk but no espresso drinks because my place was about baked goods, not coffee drinks and I wanted the hum of the place not to include the blast of steam every five seconds nor the look of it marred by a behemoth espresso machine. I also didn't want my kids spending their time sweating over making lattes; I wanted them to spend their time selling cakes.
As Brock was dealing with a dead person and this, in my mind, required cake to expunge any residual mental unpleasantness, I headed to the stacks of flat-packed boxes (piled alternate blue and lavender, all with my Tessa's Cakes logo stamped on top). I grabbed a six cupcake one, folded it, selected some treats for Brock then closed it and tied it with bakery string (again, two colors, blue on lavender, which was what I had, then there was lavender string for the blue boxes).
I held the box by the string, called my good-byes and headed outside and, after the warmth of my bakery, the arctic blast was a physical hit.
We were having a harsh winter, lots of cold, bursts of snow. It was after five, full-on dark and the air was crisp. As I disliked driving in snow, I checked the weather every morning with an obsession that was slightly scary (however, I never thought this, I only thought this after Brock told me he thought this but luckily he did it while chuckling) and today they said forty percent chance of snow flurries. Considering my snow-o-meter was finally tuned, I thought the air said more like a one hundred percent chance.
I got in my car, stowed the box and my purse and fired it up then pulled out my cell to call Martha to see if she was home for me to come by and hang for a quick glass of wine before heading to Brock's but it rang as my finger hovered to slide it on.
It said "Cob Calling".
My brows drew together.
Cob and I had exchanged phone numbers but he'd never phoned me. I'd, of course, seen him on occasion considering we'd just finished holiday season and, during it, he'd popped over to see his boys and give them presents.
And when I'd seen him I'd noted the obvious and that was that he was not looking good.
His treatments had started in earnest, his weight was dropping at an alarming rate, his eyes were sinking into his head and his skin appeared sallow. He did not complain and acted his usual self but the physical manifestations of the treatments were impossible to miss.
My heart skipped a beat; I took the call and put my phone to my ear.
"Hey Cob,"
"Sweetheart," he replied and he sounded about five times worse than he looked the last time I saw him so my heart skipped another beat.
"You okay?" I asked.
"I had..." he stopped.
"Cob?" I called. "You there?" I asked when he didn't say anything more.
"Honey, I had an accident. Jill brought me home and she and Laurie..." he paused.
"They've been doin' so much, I can't "
Damn.
I quickly cut him off with, "Where do you live?"
"I wouldn't ask, it's just "
"Cob, where do you live?"