by Jerry Cole
“Oh yeah, Luke, would you mind bringing out some more of the steak for Jack to try hot? And the two pasta sides and the broccolini?” Anya smiled at the guy apologetically. “I think that’s going to be our menu, but I want his blessing before I order everything.”
“Of course.” The guy nodded and vanished back into what looked to be the kitchen.
“Wow. And I thought I looked like crap.” Jack grabbed the pitcher of water from the middle of the table and poured more for himself.
Anya swatted his arm. “Be nice! He said he was working really late at another event last night and apologized.”
“Hmm. I’m just wondering where the heck the rest of his staff is. He should have some other folks around to handle a simple tasting, surely?”
Anya shrugged. “The food is still amazing. Maybe once we pay the rest of our deposit, he can hire more people and get some sleep.”
The door opened again, and Luke returned with a plate loaded with the requested foods and set it in front of Jack, then stepped back. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”
“Oh, this should be plenty,” Jack assured him. “I’m glad I didn’t actually try to eat anything for breakfast.”
Luke nodded and moved away again.
Jack dug in, finding an appetite he didn’t have earlier as the salt and fat tried to do battle with his hangover. The food was good cold and picked over, but hot and fresh it was excellent, and he understood immediately why Anya and Eve were so hell-bent on having this company cater, even in light of the problems. The broccolini alone was worthy of a standing ovation. They were roasted and had a light squeeze of lemon and a dusting of parmesan cheese.
“Okay, yeah, I’m impressed,” Jack murmured around a mouthful of food. “This is fantastic.”
“See?! Honestly if they just deliver the food and leave us to handle everything else, I’ll be happy. I don’t want to have to use disposables and generate that much garbage, but at the same time, I’m not gonna be mad as long as I get this food.” Eve swiped a bite of his shrimp pasta.
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that, but yeah, I might keep a warehouse bin of disposable stuff just in case…” Anya looked uncertainly at the door to the kitchen. “He seems like such a nice guy. It’s a shame he’s going through this on his own.”
Jack nodded, still shoving food into his mouth.
“Anyway, I guess we have your full approval now?”
“Absolutely. And you settled the wine list and cake flavors last night. Is your dad still working on a cocktail?”
“He made a huge vat of test punch a few weeks ago. It was really bubbly and fruity without being too sweet, so I think we’re going with that. He’s calling it the Enya.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Of course.”
Eve swatted his arm with full force. “Be nice. He’s a sweet old man. And he’s paying for all of the booze.”
Jack just snorted and finished his food. Luke returned a few minutes later, looking edgy.
“Luke! Okay, we’re ready to finalize the menu and sign all the paperwork! Jack loved everything.” Anya smiled at the shorter man.
“Great! Good to hear.” The tension in his face eased noticeably until he looked at Jack. “Er, though I should ask… have you done a wedding cake before?”
Jack shrugged. “I’ve done a small one, and the one I baked for competition. Not one this big before, but I’m pretty confident I can pull it off. Why?”
“Just… if you can let me know whether you need fridge space for it and how you plan to do the setup… I’d appreciate it. Many people choose to order a smaller decorative cake and then use sheet cakes to ensure they have enough for guests… that might be easier…”
“I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. I’ll email you whatever information you need.” Jack tried not to bristle at the implication that he didn’t know what he was doing, and tried to remember that, from the standpoint of someone who worked catering, he probably did look like a rank amateur. Especially if this guy didn’t follow baking competitions.
Luke nodded, still looking hesitant, but he didn’t argue further. “In that case, I’ll return with the paperwork in a second.” He walked off into another part of the building, probably where his office was located.
Jack tried not to glare at the guy’s retreating back. He was both incredibly annoyed and, weirdly, mildly turned on. It had been over a decade since anyone actually implied he was incompetent to his face. Usually, if anyone had doubts about his ability to do something, they kept it to themselves, even if they didn’t know he had been in the special forces. He huffed and tried to keep his ego in check. He didn’t even examine why a guy questioning him was enough to get him half-hard.
Anya glanced at Jack. “Getting a bit defensive there, weren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you? His tone practically screamed ‘I don’t think you know what you’re doing, buddy.’ But I’m sure he has probably had issues like that before.”
Eve snorted. “Well at Niki’s wedding, the woman who made the cake just dropped it off in pieces and didn’t bother to assemble it. We had 5 tiers of cake just sitting around, and nobody knew what the fuck to do with it. The catering manager had to dowel and assemble the fucking thing, and she looked livid.”
“My parents said someone left a half dozen cheesecakes sitting out in a wedding in August, and they were the ones who grabbed the cakes and shoved them in a fridge before everyone got food poisoning.” Anya nodded.
“I’m trying to not be offended since I am aware of how I probably look to an outsider. That said… still kind of annoyed.”
Eve was about to retort when Luke returned with the paperwork, and Jack stayed quiet while everything was sorted out. After they finished and walked out, Anya insisted on heading to a coffee shop next door for a fix, and Jack didn’t argue. Within a few minutes, he put the slight from the caterer out of his mind. The guy was stressed, exhausted, and trying to make his friends’ wedding perfect, and it wasn’t worth the angst.
Chapter Three
The wedding approached faster than Jack ever would have imagined was possible. After the guest count was confirmed at 250 people (far more than Anya and Eve had initially estimated), Jack had realized his best bet was making a four-tiered cake and two backup sheet cakes. He grudgingly emailed Luke to tell him and informed him of the massive dimensions of the cake. Luke, to his credit, thanked him and stated there would be room in the fridge. He didn’t gloat, though Jack could picture a small smirk on the guy’s face.
The rest of the next few months flew by in a panic. He did multiple test runs of the cakes, to the point that his office was begging him to stop because they were all sick of cake and gaining weight. He eventually settled on his plans and did the initial baking, then froze the cakes. He got everything decorated the day before and breathed a long sigh of relief that his portion of the chaos, at least, was over. It was the best work he’d ever done. Most of it was done in ivory frosting with vivid orange and red flowers, and he’d picked out an elaborate design on the top tier in gold leaf. Anya and Eve both cried when they saw it.
His best man speech was written, the cakes were ready, and his suit was cleaned and pressed. They hadn’t opted for tuxedos, for which he was grateful. There were three men and five women in the wedding party, but one of the women would be wearing a suit. The other four women were in red lace dresses. Anya and Eve were both wearing ivory lace wedding dresses, though Anya’s was full-length and Eve’s was more of a tea length.
Once the cake was delivered to Anya’s parents’ industrial refrigerators and his worst stress was over, he was driving around town grabbing flowers and picking people up and doing final checks. It felt like a tornado he was caught in, not a wedding. Anya and Eve looked calm and radiant throughout, even as the rehearsal dinner became a circus full of dogs and children and the different caterer who had been hired for the rehearsal looked close to tears or homicide.
Honestly, he never ex
pected anything else.
The next morning dawned bright, clear, cold, and windy. He swung by the barber first thing in the morning to ensure he looked as coiffed as possible since that was Anya’s one request. He had been known to let his beard get into scraggly bush territory, and she had put her foot down that he had to at least get it professionally trimmed, which seemed fair. The rest of his morning was spent double-checking that he had the right dowels for the cake and then assisting in getting the last of the decorations for the centerpieces collected.
They headed for the venue around noon, clothes in their cars, ready as they would ever be.
***
Luke, by contrast, and perhaps not unsurprisingly, was not having a good day.
He had done everything he possibly could have to prepare for this event, and the food was ready, everything was delivered, and the pieces were all in place. The only thing he didn’t have and couldn’t control were his staff, and that was where everything had gone to shit.
He had put fifteen people on the roster for this wedding, but given the state of everything, he wasn’t entirely shocked when only ten showed. He was hoping that the others were running late and got started on everything as best he could. He had assigned everyone their jobs and was in the process of setting up tables on his own when his phone rang. He was startled when he heard Anita’s voice on the other end, crying. She was usually one of his most dependable employees, but she explained that she just couldn’t do the job anymore. It was too stressful, and they were too frequently understaffed. She and her close friend Sara were done. They weren’t coming anymore. He begged and pleaded with them to at least work this wedding and not leave him hanging, but it fell on deaf ears.
Luke could hear ringing in his ears as he hung up the call. The small part of his brain that still had some executive function was trying to give him a list of what he needed to start to do, but it wasn’t managing to override the exhaustion and panic that were swamping him. He felt his vision getting blurry, and stumbled back into the kitchen to try and catch his breath and collect himself and figure out who he could call in on such short notice. The kitchens were covered, and he and Nate could handle the buffet on their own, though it wouldn’t be fun. The bigger issue was the setup, take down, and bartending.
He sat down on the concrete floor and put his head between his knees.
Luke wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but sometime later he heard footsteps and looked up to see the one person he really did not want to be dealing with at that moment looking down at him. Jack’s expression was a look of pure concern. He was still in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, not changed for the ceremony, but he looked somehow more handsome than he had at the tasting months ago. Luke swallowed hard.
“Hey… I just came back here to grab the cakes and set them up… are you okay?”
Luke tried to school his face into something calm and professional, but he just couldn’t manage it, and his misery must have shown on his face.
“Hey, hey it’s okay. Calm down and tell me what’s wrong. I can help.” Jack quickly crouched down and began to rub the other man’s shoulders. He was probably wondering if he was witnessing the start of a full-blown panic attack.
Luke took a shaky breath and nodded, then looked up a bit. “I had two employees call me and quit this morning. I’m short-staffed as it is and this… I’m just… I need this paycheck. We were barely staying afloat as it was and now this.” His voice was so quiet, Jack almost couldn’t hear him.
“Fuck. Okay, well, what do you need help with right now? Is the food ready?”
“The food is in the warming ovens, and it’s cooked, and Nate is getting the buffet set up, but the tables and chairs and all that stuff need to be set up, and I’m trying to do it alone…”
“I’ll help. And I’ll call some of Anya’s and my friends from the gym to get here early. We can get this done. Do you need a bartender?”
“I have one… but… I prefer to have two or three for a crowd this large. I could move Nate over there between doing the buffet.”
“I’ll get a guy I work with out here. He bartends for spare cash sometimes.”
Luke nodded, overwhelmed and still trying to get his ears to stop ringing and his breath to slow down. “I’ll pay him whatever he asks.”
“Whatever you normally pay is fine, I’m sure.” Jack carefully rubbed Luke’s back, ready to pull back at the first sign of panic. “You’re gonna be okay, I promise.”
“Thank you. I really… thank you.” Luke finally started to feel like he could take a full breath again without hyperventilating. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. This is just bad luck. We can sort it out, and the crowd you’ll have tonight is chill. Anya and Eve aren’t friends with anyone who would hold this kind of thing against you.” Jack seemed to want to say something else, but he hesitated, and then seemed to decide against it. He instead grabbed his phone and began a group text to the people he knew had, at one point, worked food service jobs and would be most sympathetic to the problem. He asked them not to tell Anya and Eve since this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing they needed to hear about two hours before the ceremony.
Within twenty minutes, a small herd of Jack’s friends were attacking the table settings and the centerpieces, while Jack and Luke handled the bar and helped Nate with the buffet. Jack’s coworker, Eric, appeared right before the ceremony began, dressed for bartending and assuring Luke that he was glad for the extra cash. His wife had just had their second baby, and a short stint in NICU had resulted in an enormous bill that would take months to pay off, even on an engineer’s salary. The crowds at weddings usually tipped well.
They got everything ready in a remarkably short amount of time; well before Anya and Eve had made their appearances. Luke watched Jack’s various friends systematically attacking the tasks he had listed, and a thought scratched at the back of his mind that these people were all very… efficient. And they moved a certain way that reminded him of some of the guys he had dated while bumming around San Diego in his early twenties. Anya had a similar wariness to her that he had picked up on in their first few meetings, and now, seeing around ten of her friends together setting up chairs and ordering each other around with jokes and occasional profanity, he was reasonably certain that his first inkling had been correct, that a lot of them were former military. It wasn’t something that really mattered in the grand scheme of things, of course, he thought as he assembled the table for the cheese plates, but it was interesting.
“Is the table for the cake ready?” Jack asked from behind him, and Luke almost jumped out of his skin. He spun around, trying to recover his dignity.
“Yeah, yeah, all it’s missing are the lights, and I’ll put those on once you’ve put the cake together,” he replied, blushing once again. “The dowels and everything are in the box under the table.”
Jack grinned. “Great, I’ll go grab it out of the fridge.”
Luke nodded and watched him hurry into the back room, then realized that allowing the guy to carry the cake sections out by himself was a recipe for disaster, and hurried after him. If he had maybe been distracted by the man’s astounding ass, that was his secret to take to the grave.
He hurried after Jack and his phenomenal ass to the back, to the large fridge where they had stashed the cake. Jack was already grabbing the enormous, heavy bottom cake, and Luke held the door for him wordlessly.
“Worried I’m going to drop it and throw cake all over the entire place?”
“No! No, just… I know how heavy those things are,” Luke mumbled, and hurried ahead to get the next door.
As soon as the bottom cake was set safely on the cake table, Jack set about adding the doweling and supports for the next layers. Luke watched with a combination of envy and appreciation as the large, brawny, man’s man deftly assembled the bottom platform. They repeated the motions with the next two layers, leaving the other sheet cakes in the fridge until everything was ready for cutti
ng.
More guests were arriving now, and Luke scurried-off to finish setting out the cheese trays and checking on the chefs in the kitchen. He was certain his staff would have everything under control, but anxiety and a need to get away from Jack and his charming half-smile sent him running.
Chapter Four
Cake assembled to his satisfaction, Jack took one last glance at the kitchen doors, then headed to the side room where the men of the wedding were changing. He had expected some snark from Luke about the cake, but the man had been almost silent the entire time. He seemed ready to vibrate out of his skin any time Jack looked at him, though he did catch Luke staring at his ass at least once.
He should have been more irritated about the chaos with the setup, he supposed. He should have been gloating that Luke was the one unprepared and not him, but that didn’t seem fair to a guy who was barely keeping things together as it was. The equipment he and his people were using all looked ancient or cheap, but they’d dressed it all up and added flourishes until you couldn’t tell. The linens were spotless, the silverware was sparkling, and the plates on the buffet didn’t have so much as a water spot.
“Got everything sorted out there?” one of the other men in the wedding party asked, fixing his tie in the mirror. His name was something Russian, and he was one of Anya’s cousins, but damn if Jack could recall it. He had been hitting on Jack a bit at the various pre-wedding events, but Jack found him boorish at best, and snarky at worst. He had very pale hair and very blue eyes, but his nose was weirdly sharp and his eyebrows looked like they had been plucked too savagely.
“Yeah, all setup and ready. Luke found a few more employees to help with serving and clean-up, but they were caught in traffic. Should be here soon.”
The other man shook his head. “Anya should have picked a better company. I swear… asking guests to help…”
Jack bristled. “Look, he had two people quit unexpectedly. That isn’t his fault. We got it handled, he’s discounting their bill, it’s fine.”