Page 3 of Spicy or Sweet
She types in my passcode: 1225—Christmas Day—and her tongue pokes out in concentration as she downloads the app and sets up my profile. I leave her to it, enjoying the almost-silence. The soft sounds of Sunny’s tiny snores are better than any white noise machine, and I swear I’m drifting off when Rora sits up and declares my profile finished.
“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s not like you’re itching for a marriage proposal,” she says.
I take the phone, trying not to jostle Sunny, but she’s a nosy little thing, and wakes up immediately, squinting at the phone light.
“Wow, sweet girl. I think we actually managed five whole minutes of sleep there,” Rora says with an eye roll. Sunny babbles, seemingly wide awake. Babies.
Rora’s done a good job with my profile. I can’t deny that. She’s chosen a good mix of candid and casual pictures, and a few professional shots—courtesy of her. My bio and interests are vague, but not bare, and the prompts she selected all make it clear that I’m on the app for one thing and one thing only.
“How’d you get so good at this? You’ve never used a dating app.”
“There’s a British reality show about critiquing dating profiles, and I swear every airline has it available on the in-flight entertainment. I must have watched about three hundred episodes.”
That’s the last thing I expect her to say. I snort, swiping to the bottom of my profile. “Do I just hit the button?”
“Apparently. I set the location to eighty miles, so it should cover from here to Jackson,” Rora says.
I shift the squirming baby in my arms so she’s lying on her tummy across my lap, then set the phone on the couch between me and Rora before hitting the “let’s go!” button.
All three of us peer at the spinning pink circle on the screen as it takes its sweet time looking for possible matches. I open my mouth to joke that there must not be anyone around, when a profile pops up on the screen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Shay Harland’s smug smile shines on my phone. Well, maybe not smug. She actually has a nice smile, but I need it not to be on my screen.
“Holy shit, what are the odds?” Rora’s clearly fighting a laugh.
“I had no idea she was into women. She doesn’t give that vibe.”
“She totally gives that vibe, Noelle. You just refuse to talk to her. You know, she’s really not that—” She stops talking, pressing her lips together when I glare at her.
“How do I say no?”
“I assume you swipe on the big red X on the screen.”
I ignore her sarcastic tone, leaning closer to my phone, finger poised to say no fucking thank you. But Sunny gets there first. She brandishes her tiny little fist toward the screen… and hits the flashing green check mark.
2
SHAY
I’ve been doing this for long enough to know better than to shake a bottle of food color without triple-checking the cap. Yet here I am, splattered with red like an extra in a slasher movie. This couldn’t have happened on a worse day.
“Shit,” I curse, looking for somewhere to drop the dripping bottle without causing more carnage. It’s no easy feat: almost thirty years as a baker, and I still work like a tornado. I like to do a big cleanup at the end of the day, the repetition of it helping me switch off. Which is fine, until I’m in a rush in the middle of my workday and can’t find an empty spot.
Eventually, I just drop the bottle in the sink and wince as color splatters up the sides. I quickly strip off my apron and wash my hands before hurrying to my supply shelves in search of a new bottle of cherry red.
I scan the shelves: maroon, burgundy, coral. Every damn shade of pink. But no cherry red. I leave the kitchen to check out front, in the café portion of my patisserie. When it’s quiet, Gracie, who covers the café side of things, sometimes mixes up frosting behind the counter for me.
She’s wiping down the inside of the window as I check her stash. No cherry red. It’s a popular color in Wintermore, and Igo through it like water. Only in a Christmas-obsessed town like this would an eleven-year-old request a Santa-themed cake for her birthday in September.
None of the other reds I have will do, and there’s nothing I can mix to get the perfect shade to match the rest of the cake. A quick glance at my phone confirms that I won’t have enough time to get to the kitchen supply store in Jackson before it closes, and this cake is being picked up first thing tomorrow morning.
In other words, I’m screwed. Unless… I peer through the gleaming window, my gaze landing on the bakery across the street. The Enchanted Bakery is bustling with customers.
The family of the owner, Noelle Whitten, is Christmas royalty in this town. There’s no way she doesn’t keep cherry red on hand. Unfortunately, for reasons I’ve yet to figure out, Noelle despises me. I’ve tried to mend whatever bridge I’ve apparently burned, and I always try to talk to her when we cross paths, but nothing seems to change her feelings toward me. And only me. As far as I can tell, Noelle is a ray of sunshine to everyone else in Wintermore.
“Gracie, would you mind going over to The Enchanted Bakery and asking if they have a bottle of cherry red food color we can borrow? I can replace it in a couple of days.”
