Have Your Cake Read online

  ‘“All that stuff” is custom-made,’ she said. ‘It needs to be custom-made again.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘Three hours.’

  Dillon shifted in his seat. ‘Will it really take three hours or is it only allowed to take three hours?’

  Abigail smiled. ‘You’re quick.’ She paused. ‘So how fast were you going?’

  Dillon closed his eyes and dropped his head against the headrest. ‘Too fast.’

  ‘Mobile phone, pretty woman?’

  Eyes still closed, he pressed his lips together in a grimace. ‘Neither.’

  ‘What, then?’

  He didn’t answer.

  Abigail took the opportunity to look at him unobserved. She guessed he was approximately her age, late thirties at most. He had a heart-shaped face and a few day’s growth shadowing his jaw and cheeks. His lashes were long, his nose was broad, and his wide, thin mouth was presently pressed into an unhappy crease. He would be handsome if he wasn’t so haggard. He wore fatigue the way others wore make-up. Abigail frowned. Now that she was looking for signs of exhaustion, she found them easily. Shadows under the eyes, dry skin and heavy limbs. His lips were cracked and his eyes were bloodshot.

  ‘Did you fall asleep at the wheel?’ she asked quietly.

  Her voice startled him. Rocked him awake. ‘No. No, but I feel sick.’

  ‘You want a garbage bag?’

  He roused himself, pushed himself up a little straighter in the seat. ‘Maybe later. Can I just pay you?’

  ‘You mean pay me off? No.’

  They rode the rest of the way in silence.

  Abigail stepped from the taxi without offering to pay. She twisted the plastic bag closed and hoisted it over her shoulder, then waited on the footpath for Dillon to hand over some cash and join her. He moved slowly. The adrenaline appeared to have leeched out of him and left him depleted, like a used balloon. He dragged his jacket back on like there were weights sewn into the lining.

  Shabby. A beautiful suit jacket, designer jeans and a gorgeous watch, but shabby. His hair was long enough to have its own ideas, his shoelace was undone, and he looked so exhausted he might curl up on a low wall and sleep. She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he blinked her into focus.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mope on your own time. You owe me this, move your feet.’

  He followed her through the narrow passage that led to Neal’s Yard, one of the most colourful places in London. All manner of buildings reached towards the concrete-coloured sky, their windows and doors a bold rainbow of colour that nudged Abigail’s mood in the right direction. She stepped around a couple posing for a picture, the rainbow at their backs, and breathed in the wonderful smell of fresh pastry from the Beatha Bakery.

  Later. A reward for this day. For what she was about to do and about to accomplish.

  She set the bag down in front of Boucake, her pride and joy, her home away from home, and began to search for her keys. The closed sign was up as she’d asked, and the door blind was down. Light peeked over the window display room divider. Brittany would be in the back, hopefully up to her elbows in fresh fondant and buttercream frosting.

  Abigail’s fingers closed around her enormous key chain at the same time that a man appeared at her side; a much neater, straighter man than the one who should have been there. He slapped his hand against the electric orange doorframe and cursed.

  Abigail bent forward to catch his eye. ‘Hello. Urgent?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m Abigail, I own this place. Do you have an urgent order?’

  The man’s expression changed at once. He withdrew his hand. ‘I’m sorry I hit your door.’

  She smiled easily. ‘I do like this door.’

  ‘It’s my anniversary on Monday.’

  Boucake had a two-day minimum for custom orders and it was Saturday, which explained the door slap.

  ‘Well, lucky you, you’re my customer of the day. Get out your phone.’ She pushed the door key into the lock, then she gave him her number. ‘Text me your order. Check on the website for flavours and styles. Screenshot what you want if it’s easier. I’ll make it Monday morning, that okay?’

  The man did a little bounce, which was kind of cute. ‘That would be amazing. My name’s Danny.’

  ‘Danny, I’m going to knock ten per cent off for the inconvenience, and thanks so much for stopping by.’

  Danny left happier than he might have done had the shop been open.

  Abigail turned to invite her hostage inside, but she was alone. Her mouth opened and her shoulders dropped. He may have been the reason for this whole mess and acting a little worse for wear, but she’d needed him. Now she might not—

  She saw him, stumbling out of Arran’s convenience store, squinting against the muted light of midday. He was holding a small plastic bag to his chest and drinking from a Powerade bottle the same blue as the windows next door. He paused, looked around, spotted her, then lurched in her direction.

  She pushed the shop door open then crossed her arms.

  ‘Go easy,’ he muttered. ‘I was just in a car accident, I need this.’

  She stepped back so he could pass. ‘We have a first aid kit in the back, you can use whatever you need.’

  She followed him inside, locked them in, then strode around the counter. She didn’t bother with her usual spiel, he wasn’t a customer after all. Instead she left him staring at the vases on the glass shelves lining the pinstriped walls, and the white silk curtains that bunched in the centre of the ceiling, and stepped through to the back.

  Her apprentice was exactly where Abigail had hoped she’d be: bent double over the industrial-sized planetary mixer. Brittany was in her early twenties and in a few short months they had found a rhythm in working together. When her wild black curls weren’t bundled into a hairnet, they tumbled down to her impossibly narrow hips. She wore overalls at least two sizes too big for her over a tight shirt that barely covered her ribs, and at least two dozen thin rubber bracelets on each wrist. She wasn’t what Abigail had pictured when she’d advertised for help, but Brittany had proven an invaluable counterbalance to Abigail’s propensity to stress. Because nothing got Brittany worked up.

  Except puppies. Puppies tended to cost Abigail at least ten minutes of Brittany’s productivity anytime one passed the shop.

  Brittany turned and her enormous dark eyes widened. ‘Hey! What hurts?’

  ‘Our deadline hurts. I think it’s concussed.’

  ‘We better keep it awake then.’ Without prompting, Brittany got her up to speed. ‘We had enough extras for two of the three bouquets. The cupcakes are ready and this here is enough frosting for the rest. We’ve run out of the flute centrepiece stands, but I was about to break apart some of the displays.’

  Abigail held up the garbage bag. ‘I’ve got them.’

  ‘Cool.’ Brittany opened her arms wide. ‘Need a cuddle?’

  Abigail’s lips twitched. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay, but while we’re checking in; seriously, my boss was just in a car accident and I’m pretty shaken up about it, you know? I could really do with a cuddle.’

  Abigail laughed and put the bulging bag between them. ‘Cuddle yourself.’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’ Brittany ducked her head and did a little shuffle, an exaggerated step forward. ‘Hug it out, A.’

  They weren’t going to move on from this moment until Brittany got what she wanted—she was incorrigible—so Abigail dropped the bag to her side and opened one arm in resignation. The tiny five-foot-three woman, elevated to at least five-foot-five in her platform Doc Martins, danced forward with a triumphant whoop, and slapped her arms around Abigail’s waist.

  She swayed them both side to side, pretended to purr, then wrenched suddenly away. ‘Dude, we’re closed.’ She glanced at Abigail. ‘You didn’t lock the door behind you?’

  Abigail turned, saw Dillon in the doorway to the kitchen, then hurried to exp
lain. ‘I did. This is Dillon, he’s going to be helping us this afternoon. Dillon, Brittany. As they say, many hands.’ She left the adage unfinished and lifted the bag onto the workbench. It was wide enough that four people could lay comfortably across it, and at least twelve-feet long. The far corner was crowded with cupcakes Brittany had pulled from the shop display and over five dozen naked cupcakes ready to be adorned.

  Brittany stepped around Abigail and extended her hand. Dillon took it and they shook.

  ‘You hit her, didn’t you?’ Brittany asked, grinning. ‘You hit her and she bullied you into making it up to her.’

  ‘Which I will,’ Dillon said.

  Brittany clapped her hands together and pushed them against her chin. ‘This is awesome.’

  ‘Got any aspirin?’

  ‘Ha! Yes.’ She twirled on her heel and raced off to collect some.

  Abigail turned to him. There was some more colour in his face now, no doubt in part from the sugar hit he’d drank in record time. ‘Okay, time to work. You’ll want to take that jacket off, this will be messy.’

  He set his small plastic bag down and shrugged his jacket off. He was muscular, she hadn’t realised when he’d taken it off the first time. The sleeves of his shirt strained over his biceps and pecs. There were two points of colour from his nose bleed, otherwise he was all white and black. Except for his mood: that appeared rather grey.

  ‘Woah,’ Brittany said, reappearing in the kitchen. She waved her hand up and down in Dillon’s direction. ‘You just went from nine to five in like, two seconds. Is that blood?’ Without waiting for an answer, she rounded on Abigail. ‘Are you bleeding?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘I’m not now.’

  ‘Where?’ Brittany asked.

  ‘Her temple.’

  ‘You hit your head?’

  Abigail threw up her hands. ‘Enough! Deadline, remember?’ She pointed at Dillon. ‘You.’ She pointed at the garbage bag. ‘Please wash and dry the centrepiece stands and bouquet handles. You.’ She pointed at Brittany. ‘Get back to whatever you were doing.’

  Brittany tossed a blister pack of aspirin into Dillon’s unsuspecting hands, then hurried back to the giant mixer. She checked inside, turned the beater off and raised it out of the way. She was scraping mounds of the stuff into medium bowls by the time Abigail had lifted her apron from its hook and put it on. Abigail tucked her hair into a hairnet, then carried a spare over to her long-haired temp.

  Dillon blinked at the frilly apron with Boucake’s logo tastefully centred on the chest pocket, and pressed his lips together as if to catch a laugh.

  Abigail lifted her chin, pushed the hairnet against Dillon’s chest, then moved over to the waiting cupcakes.

  Brittany was right: there were just enough pre-mades to recreate the bridesmaid bouquets. They always made extras in case of drops or inconsistencies, with the added bonus that the shop’s products of the day shared the theme of Boucake’s most recent custom order. It kept people coming back because one day was never like the other.

  The glass display counter was no doubt looking mighty bare at the moment.

  For the next two hours, Abigail’s focus was blinkered. Brittany anchored foam balls onto the freshly washed handles and added the decorative trim, while Abigail piped new roses onto cupcake batches baked fresh that morning. Puppy-belly pink with lemon-coloured accents. Dillon assembled the transport boxes and generally did what he was told, then the stepladders were brought out and the women began fixing their re-creations onto the Styrofoam balls atop the strong plastic flutes.

  Abigail held her piping bag at the ready, this one full of rich green. Its nozzle was a clever little shape that created a leaf. ‘We’ll need your van here in twenty minutes,’ she said to Dillon, who was standing nearby with his mouth open. ‘Do you know if it’s on its way?’

  He reanimated. Blinked first at the sugared floral arrangement blossoming before his eyes, then at the would-be florist atop the ladder. He looked ridiculous in a hairnet. ‘I’ll call him. It won’t be a problem, the lot’s not far from here.’

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped into the shopfront to make the call.

  Abigail watched him go, then resumed creating leaves. Below her, Brittany’s fingers had slowed on the bride’s bouquet. She’d been placing silver cachous—sugar balls—between the buttercream petals using long tweezers, but now she was staring up at Abigail’s profile.

  ‘He’s hot,’ she said without preamble.

  ‘He’s a mess.’

  ‘He’s a hot mess. He’s just been in a car accident.’

  ‘So have I, and I don’t look like that.’

  Brittany considered this. ‘With all due respect, A, I think you could be a bull-riding junkie and still look better than the rest of us. We don’t all have your class.’

  Abigail paused to look down at her. ‘A bull-riding junkie?’

  ‘I’m just saying, he’s had a rough day. He’s wrecked his car, he’s wrecked your car, and he’s still not sure if he’s wrecked your business. He’s a mess but he’s here.’ She glanced towards the door Dillon had left ajar. ‘All I’m saying is—’

  ‘Brittany, I don’t mind if you go out with the guy who broke my car.’ She continued to pipe.

  ‘That’s generous, but I meant you. You should date him. He keeps staring at you. I reckon if I wasn’t here he would’ve made some kind of move by now. Maybe hauled you onto the counter, rolled you around in the buttercream.’ She waved her hands over the table, clearly picturing the sugar-smudged scene, and grinned.

  ‘I’ve lost enough product for one day, thanks.’

  Brittany stood. It didn’t make much difference to her height as she’d been on a high stool, but it made Abigail pause again.

  ‘A, this is fate. You go from work to home, and back again. It’s a sad little loop.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s a mildly pathetic little loop that needs to be broken. Cue the hot mess who literally crashed into your life. I’ve been thinking about this and it’s the only way you were going to meet someone, short of hitting on one of the marrieds who come into the shop.’

  ‘Not all our male customers are married.’

  Brittany angled her head in a wordless challenge, then said, ‘If not married, then at least looking elsewhere. This place is hardly a magnet for eligible bachelors.’

  Abigail considered arguing in favour of those who bought cupcake bouquets for their relatives, but in the end didn’t bother. She stepped down from the stepladder, inched it over to the third and final centrepiece, and climbed back up.

  She had noticed Dillon’s eyes following her about the room. At first she’d thought he’d been waiting for instructions, for a way to make himself useful, but then she’d realised he’d watched her even when he’d been doing his various tasks. Chances were he was cursing the woman who’d hijacked his day. She’d been bossy and stressed, and not the least bit flirtatious.

  He’d enjoyed talking to Brittany though, who’d jabbered away about road accident statistics and some of the finer details of the business. They’d taken a break to look at Boucake photos on Abigail’s phone, and even posed for a goofy photo together on Dillon’s phone. They’d clicked.

  Abigail wasn’t altogether sure Brittany was reading the signs right. Abigail hadn’t been on the receiving end of a single one of his top-teethed smiles, whereas Brittany had been the recipient and cause of many.

  He’d livened somewhat over the last hour, although he’d ducked into the bathroom twice. To be sick, she suspected. Shock, maybe. An aversion to obligation, whatever. He was here and he wasn’t complaining, so he could take as many bathroom breaks as he needed.

  Abigail turned the centrepiece on its rotating stand, piped in two dozen leaves, then exchanged the piping bag for delicate ropes of candied beads. She fixed these between the petals and let them trail from the body of the bouquet like pieces of a grand chandel
ier.

  She turned it once, then again, then stepped down to regard her work from a distance.

  Breathtaking. Perhaps even better than the first ones.

  Abigail had had the idea to fill the hollow stands with white ribbon and irregular lengths of the candied ropes, and the effect was striking. Infinitely more elegant. Something she would have to adopt in future creations.

  ‘Looks brilliant,’ Brittany said, stepping back too. She hastened forward to wipe a smudge of frosting off the middle bouquet handle, then was back at Abigail’s side, sucking on her finger.

  Abigail raised her eyebrow.

  ‘What?’ Brittany asked. ‘We’ve finished, haven’t we?’

  Abigail laughed and put her arm around the young woman she’d be lost without. This wouldn’t have been possible without her, and probably wouldn’t have been possible without Dillon either. They’d made it. All of it in less than three hours. Having the cupcakes made for two of the bouquets had saved them loads of time, and Brittany had been so busy in the store she’d not had time to pack much away in the back, so all the right colours and adornments had been within reach. It had all worked out.

  Brittany held up her hand and Abigail high-fived it.

  Dillon stepped through the door, looking even better than he had when he’d left. His neutral expression became one of surprise when Brittany lunged towards him. She offered her hand, he high-fived it, then Brittany swivelled on her heel and punched the air with two fists.

  ‘Go team!’ she crowed.

  ‘Don’t get too cocky,’ Abigail cautioned, crossing the room to collect one of the boxes Dillon had put together. ‘We’ve got to deliver them yet.’

  She carried the box over to the nearest centrepiece. Dillon and Brittany flanked her as she flipped the lid back and checked the inside supports. The boxes were custom-made for their various creations, and Dillon had done a good job putting them together without instructions.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, stepping in front of Dillon and getting her hands in place. ‘Okay.’ She wriggled her fingers, closed them around the thickest part of the fluted stand, and gave it a little wiggle.