Page 34 of Leo and His Love Bunny

“You lost the paper airplane contest?” Cal asks incredulously. He knows my history.

“I did. You know what I did wrong?” I ask as I unzip my bag. The smell of the locker room, sweat with slight mildew mixed with the tangy smell of Clorox, makes me feel at home.

“What?” Cal asks, knowing how good I am at paper airplanes.

“We didn’t just aim. She actually landed hers. I never have. I can get it to go where I want it to, but I can’t get it to stay there. I definitely found a whole new angle I need to work on, and I can’t believe I’ve never seen that.”

“Interesting.” Cal pauses after he slams his locker closed. “I think I’d like to meet this Nora person. I’ve never met anyone who is better at paper airplanes than you are.”

“She’s something,” I say, turning away and busying myself with the lock on the locker. We could go to the team facilities. We have all-season access. But this is closer. We can walk here, so we both have permanent lockers.

“We can stop at her cupcake shop after we’re done with our workout.”

“I can’t put sugar in my stomach after I work out,” Cal says. “But I’ll go with you. I definitely want to meet her. I’ve...never seen you lie, but I know what a text like that usually means.”

“I’m not your usual,” I say casually, throwing my clean clothes in my locker and snapping it shut.

Cal is ready to go, and we walk out of the locker room. I am eager to introduce Cal to Nora. I know he’s going to love her. I just hope I can play it casual and not let her know that she’s pretty much all I’ve thought about since I stepped out of her apartment last night other than the fifteen seconds I had to spend thinking about anteaters.

I wonder how she feels about them.

Chapter 15

Nora

I’ve pretty much convinced myself I was dreaming.

After all, Leo Lipinski? I’m working with him? Well, not working with him, but providing cupcakes for his speaking engagements?

It’s like a dream-come-true job. I couldn’t have thought this up myself even if I had tried to figure out the best thing that could ever happen to me.

“So you’re increasing our pay?” Stephanie asks after I explain to her about what is going on.

“I hope so,” I say sincerely and from my heart. I would love to pay them three times as much as what I do. They certainly are worth it. Both of them have been loyal to me, and even though it’s pretty much Stephanie’s fault that I got into this mess, the fact that she’s given me the opportunity to make a lot more money and to increase my business is not lost on me, even though I wish that it had come in a different way. I hate making nipples.

She smiles. I know I don’t have to pay her more in order for her to put everything she has into this. She’s one of those employees that doesn’t just show up but actually cares about her work. Those kinds of employees are few and far between.

And I managed to score two of them. Like I said, I do wish I could pay them three times as much as what I do. And when I can afford to, I will.

“If things go well, I’ll be increasing both of your pay. For sure. But I don’t want to get the cart ahead of the horse and start making a bunch of changes before we figure out whether or not this is going to continue to be profitable, you know?” I’ll give them bonuses regardless, but I don’t say that now. I’d ratherunder promise and over deliver, even though I know it would make them happy. I have to bite my tongue in order to not say anything.

“How soon are we going to know how many cupcakes we’re going to need for next weekend?” Matt asks, always focusing on the logistics and what needs to be done.

“Leo should have that information for me today. He said he was going to make some phone calls, and I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.”

I don’t want to press Leo too hard. After all, this is a huge favor he’s doing for me, and I just want to be grateful. But at the same time, Matt wants to do the best job he can, and he is responsible for ordering all the ingredients, so he wants to make sure we have enough on hand. We already had to make an emergency run to the store this week because of selling far more than what we figured, even though we had purchased extra because of the live-action broadcast of the radio station.

“I better get out front. It’s time to start.” I smile at both of them. “This has been crazy, but I’m really excited about the direction we’re going.”

They smile back, and I can see that both of them are excited too. Maybe I’ll even hire a third person. Or more. If the orders keep coming in. I had checked online to see what came in overnight, and I couldn’t believe the numbers. Matt was already on it. He did that first thing in the morning when he got in, as well as making the normal number of cupcakes for the shop’s daily sales.

It’s probably about time for me to come up with some new flavors. I’m always experimenting. It’s one of the things I do best. Right now, we have a banana peanut butter cupcake on special. I didn’t try to make it in the shape of a banana, because... I just didn’t even want to go there.

I unlock the door, flip the sign over, and go back to my spot behind the counter where I put the peanut butter icing on top of the banana cupcakes. This is not my favorite combination. I’m more of a white chocolate and raspberry kind of girl, but peanut butter is irresistible to a lot of women, and I know with the banana, it will make it sound healthy, even though there is so much sugar in a cupcake that there’s no way it could be considered healthy by anyone with any kind of rational brain.

Regardless, I expect them to be popular.

And sure enough, for the first hour my shop is open, I sell five trays of our new offering. I don’t even have a sign up on the sidewalk which I do sometimes. The funny thing about it is, I have three people ask me if I have any other kind of breakfast food.

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