Page 1 of Leo and His Love Bunny

Chapter 1

Nora

Today was supposed to be the biggest day of my life, but I don’t think it could possibly get any worse.

I look once more, absolute horror in my chest, at the cupcakes that my assistant has brought out to me. Stephanie means well, but... I speak the obvious. “They look like...breasts.”

I close my eyes. And try to take a deep breath, but my lungs are having spasms that only allow me to suck in a quarter cubic centimeter of air at a time, and I reach out to the counter to steady myself.

The radio station is outside, in the counter and eating area, doing a live-action broadcast. They are expecting me to walk through those doors with a tray of the “special cupcakes” that we made just for today. They are supposed to be the best cupcakes I’ve ever made, and while I’m sure that these taste good, the rose-colored top that Stephanie added to my flesh-colored icing absolutely looks like a nipple.

I am going to die.

I have to walk out there, and I have to have something to show for it.

“Did you decorate themall?” I ask, trying to make my voice sound normal, but it trembles like a guitar string that’s been plucked by Godzilla.

“You told me to,” Stephanie says, biting her lip and looking like she’s afraid I’m going to flip out on her.

She’s worked with me for six months, ever since my shop opened, and I haven’t flipped out once, even though we’ve gone through some really difficult things.

Difficult, like ordinary difficult, not difficult like cupcakes that look like breasts difficult. This is a new level of difficultythat I’ve never experienced before, that no one I know has ever experienced before, and I have no idea of what I should do.

Buy tickets to Barbados?

I might consider that, if I had enough money in my account.

But paying the radio station drained everything, and I had pinned all of my hopes on making enough money from the business the radio station would bring in to pay my bills this month, since I had spent my bill-paying money on the radio station.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Matt says, coming over and putting an arm around my shoulder. Matt is a retired chef who worked at a fancy restaurant in New York City. He’d come back home to Whisker Hollow in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia for retirement, and it hadn’t taken much persuasion to get him to work part-time in my shop. He takes my recipes and follows them to a T, keeps the kitchen immaculate, and has Stephanie walking a tight line, and I know I am blessed to have him on my team.

Now his fatherly arm around my shoulders makes me feel a little better about the colossal failure I am about to face.

“You are sensitive about this because this is your shop and you have a lot riding on it. Most people are going to look at the cupcakes and just see a pretty cupcake, nothing more.”

He worked in New York City. He’s seen everything. If he says those cupcakes don’t really look like breasts, then he is probably right. I am overreacting.

“So you don’t think that they really look like breasts?” I ask, just to confirm, biting my lip and looking up at him, and I know I can’t keep the hope out of my eyes.

“I didn’t say that,” he starts, and again,I want to die.

“Nora. Relax. They do look like breasts, but no one’s going to notice.”

“Nora, you need to go out. Now!” Stephanie says, peeking out the swinging door. “They’re looking for you!”

I want to say “I can’t” since I feel like there is no way I can face the radio station with these breast cupcakes in my hands, and there is also no way I can walk out empty-handed. Everyone in Whisker Hollow is listening right now, and even I can’t fail that big. But “I can’t” are two words that I have never been allowed to have in my vocabulary. Today will not be the first day. I will face this and hope that Matt is right—no one is going to notice. I’m just super sensitive right now. I have a lot riding on it and I’m just looking extra hard, way more critically than anyone else would ever look at them. Icando this.

“All right.” I take a deep breath. I know, with absolute certainty, that this is not a life-or-death situation. There are people starving in African countries, Christians being martyred all over the world, neighborhoods where it isn’t safe to step out of your front door, and people dying of cancer, particularly children.

All of those are much worse than cupcakes that (mightpossibly) look like breasts. So I can’t quite bring myself to pray about this, even though I know that God cares about my cupcakes and my business.

But while this feels like a huge catastrophe for me, it could be worse. They could be cupcakes with breast cancer.

I cringe at the thought.

“Hurry!” Stephanie says, her brows up, her eyes pleading with me to do something, anything, other than just standing here frozen.

“They’re already made. We can’t waste all of the ingredients. We don’t have enough time nor enough ingredients in the shop to make enough completely new cupcakes to feed the crowds that we’re going to have.” I love his confidence and take comfort in it. We’re going to have huge crowds. Huge. “Take what you’vegot, and make the best of it,” Matt says, his words sounding wise and sage, even if I feel like there should be a better solution.

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