Page 41 of One More Yule Log
“Wow. That’s three in a week.” She nudged him with her elbow.
“It is. I have a toothbrush over there.” Hell, what he didn’t tell Alice was that he had a drawer of clothes over there, a little space for his coat in the closet downstairs, and when he’d made his coffee last time he spent the night, he’d found his favorite creamer in the fridge.
It felt as if he and Ben had been dating for a year. It had barely been what? Two weeks? He knew Ben still had a lot of holiday stuff at work, despite being off, and he had a huge load of cookie orders, but they were really making time for each other, and for Liv.
“I also have a cake lesson with Liv.”
“She’s doing good, huh?”
“She’s a natural. She’s one of those kids that’s smart and talented and pretty and well-off—you expect her to be a spoiled brat, and then you find out she’s a good girl. Sweet, decent, good.”
“A superstar.” Alice drew out the word, and he thought he was supposed to know that from some kind of movie or TV, but he was woefully undereducated on Alice’s era of media.
“Yep. There. We need a few more skewers, I think.”
“A few. Can’t we just build it on a porcupine?”
“Is there one of those in the Grinch?” The problem was the top had to tilt and a ball had to dangle off the tip. That was what was unbalancing everything.
“I wish. It’s fixin’ to go, boss.”
“Okay, Let me—” Boom. The cake went down, cracking apart in Alice’s hands. “Whoops.”
Alice winced. “Damn. Okay. Let’s rethink this…”
“Yeah. Get on the horn with Darcy at the car dealership and see of they’ll take that layered Whoville cake instead. We have plenty of rounds in the same flavor.”
Alice snorted. “Oh, sure, make me sculpt a million little Whos out of modeling chocolate…”
“Yep. A million Whos in a circle singing. Anything but this nightmare.”
“Got it.” She left the puddle of cake where it lay. Cake pops. They would have cake pops as a special today. No problem. He would just mix in more buttercream and cover them with green chocolate and red sprinkles.
Fuck a doodle goddamn do.
“Ah, cake, you are a fickle mistress.” He got the mess in a huge bowl and hunted his spare buttercream. “Merry Christmas.”
Alice gave him the thumbs-up from the phone stand by the front counter, so he started planning the three-tier Whoville cake in his head. Not a bad morning, even if things took a detour.
Thank God that the dealership didn’t really care, so long as it was big, bright, and special. And Dr. Seuss. He hummed a few bars of that silly opening song from the Grinch cartoon.
“Disaster number one diverted. What now?”
“Cake pops. Sell the hell of them.”
“Oh, you know I will.” She popped the top on the canister of modeling chocolate. “In fact, Mrs. Dever has a party tonight with a small custom cake. I’ll upsell her a couple dozen.”
“That’s the spirit. Waste not, want not.” He would take half a dozen to Liv.
He grinned. If he made a penis-shaped one, he’d take it to Ben. Privately. God knew, he could make a lifelike approximation of Ben’s now. He’d explored it thoroughly.
“Whatever you’re thinking, work is no place for it,” Alice teased.
“Right. Cake pops.”
“You know it, buster. Only baked goods.” The shop door jingled. “Duty calls.”
“Yep. Remember, a million chocolate Whos.”
