by Sara Whitney
Her gaze moved across the room and landed on the wildly gesticulating Josie.
“My, my,” she said. “I’m seeing things more clearly now.” With a mean little laugh, she brushed past him to fuss with her cake, which was already in place on the counter. Being in her orbit again spiked his anxiety even higher, and out of habit, he reached into his pocket but came up empty. Damn. He hadn’t needed his earbuds to block out his surroundings since he’d left Dora’s, and he really could’ve used them right now to crank the music and pretend he was anywhere but here.
From a few feet away, Josie grinned and waved, then pointed to the open spot on the counter next to Dora’s creation. He exhaled a thin stream of air and forced himself to step on the set and worked quickly to unpack his cake and position it precisely as he wanted it to appear on camera.
He took grim satisfaction that the sleek sophistication of his cream, mint, and gold leaf geometric creation would overshadow Dora’s fussy display of baby’s breath and icing flowers. And he knew Dora knew it too; her lips flattened so much that they disappeared when she glanced his way.
“Still looking for a replacement decorator, I see.”
“How did you…?” Her voice trailed off as she narrowed her eyes and studied his face, searching for the insult. Oh, it was definitely there, and the audience would spot the difference in her cake and his. Without deigning to respond, she squeaked away in her sensible shoes while he savored getting in the last word without having to say anything at all.
He looked at his four-tier creation one more time. No flaws. All perfection. To his right, the slot for the fifth cake remained unoccupied. The big clock on the wall told him there was six minutes to go before the segment was set to be filmed, so that bakery was cutting it awfully close.
He’d just stepped away from his masterpiece when Josie bustled up, breathless and beaming in her flowy brown pants and white shirt.
“Oh em gee, amazing news! Denise and her cake got stuck in traffic across town, and they need somebody else to feature, so I talked them into using you!”
The rest of her words were lost in the rush of blood to his head. Something about showcasing a new bakery and amazing opportunities for growth. She twinkled up at him, more thrilled than he’d ever seen her, as his skin tightened in terror.
“So you’ll be on with Donnie Parker,” she was saying. “He’ll ask you about your favorite flavors and decorating techniques. Talk about the business location and the open house. It’ll be just like when you helped me write your bio.”
“That was me talking to you though.” His voice creaked like a rusty hinge, but she waved away his concerns.
“Nah, you can give these answers in your sleep. I mean, it’s either you or Dora, and I’ll be damned if I let that bigot get a moment of extra airtime.” She called to the guy she’d been hugging. “Donnie will be gentle. Right, Yousef?”
The man stuck out his hand with a big, phony smile. “Yousef Bahar. Thanks for stepping up. You’re a lifesaver.”
With a clap on Erik’s back, the suit spun around and disappeared behind the corner of the set, leaving him alone with Josie again. She tugged on the hem of his chef’s coat and smoothed a wisp of hair back into his bun, beaming at him the whole time. “You look great. The coat, the hair, the scruff. You’re going to be amazing. I’ve always said that you’re as big a selling point as your cakes.”
That’s when he realized she had no idea what this was doing to him. No fucking idea. He could actually feel the blood freezing in his veins, and all she could do was talk about marketing opportunities. He opened his mouth, but his throat was too tight for him to speak.
“Just think how many people will hear about your new bakery. This is gonna be huge.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and stretched up to kiss him, and even in his state of abject horror, he melted briefly at the press of her lips, soft and pliant against his. He couldn’t help it; his body was hers to command. But when she pulled away, the terror crashed in again.
She had to know how impossible this was. How awful he’d be on camera. Why was she doing this? His growing panic finally freed up his vocal cords.
“Jos, no way can I—”
“Here you are! Erik, right?” A plastic-looking man with rock-hard silver hair and enormous chompers approached with his hand extended. “Donnie Parker. We’ll be live for three minutes, and I’ll keep things open-ended so you can guide the conversation.”
“Actually,” Josie interjected, “he might do better with some direction. It’s his first time on camera. Here.” She whipped a notepad out of her purse and scrawled a few words. “New business location, where he trained, decorating inspiration, favorite flavors. Anything else, babe?”
She flicked her eyes Erik’s way, practically bouncing on her heels in excitement, but his joints were locked up and he couldn’t move his head to nod or shout at her that this was an awful fucking idea. With a wink in his direction, she tore out the sheet and handed it to Donnie as a crew member clipped a microphone to his jacket and herded him toward the set.
“This is it!” Josie called after him. “Your business is gonna explode!”
“Ten seconds!” the man behind the camera called.
Erik squinted into the bright lights, searching for Josie amid the jumble of people meandering around in front of the set. Instead, his eyes locked on Dora, watching from the sidelines with an evil, anticipatory smile on her lips. She knew how bad this was going to be. He desperately pulled his gaze away until he found the red of Josie’s hair, directly in his line of sight next to the main camera. She offered him her widest smile, a thumbs-up, and a mouthed, I love you. And in that moment, a tiny part of him hated her.
Then the red light on the camera turned on, and Erik did his best not to puke all over Chicago’s most beloved morning-show host in front of tens of thousands of viewers at home.
Thirty
Josie couldn’t stop grinning. Her man was out there crushing it. He frowned a little as he listened to Donnie’s questions and nodded earnestly as he spoke about his favorite flavor profiles and what decorating trends were poised to take off next season. His initial stiffness softened into a bashful charm, and when he crossed his arms over his chest and his forearms flexed, she heard the woman who’d mic’d him up heave a gusting sigh.
“So does that mean people wanting a cake tomorrow are out of luck?” Donnie beamed.
“Not at all. We’re taking orders now, and our grand opening is this Saturday from two to five.” Erik looked right to the camera, expression serious.
“Take me now, Lord,” the microphone woman breathed. Such was the power of those bright blue eyes in that ruggedly pretty face.
“Give me a break,” muttered a voice behind her as Donnie tossed the broadcast back to his cohost in the main studio.
Josie turned to see a pissed-off Dora and offered a sickeningly sweet smile in return. “Oh, I’m so sorry, did you not bring your personal marketing expert with you to make sure you got good placement on the morning show?”
“I taught him everything he knows,” the woman hissed, and Josie just laughed.
“Oh honey, we both know that’s not true.” She didn’t break out the “oh honey” very often, but Dora had richly earned it. Without waiting to see how her barb landed, Josie moved forward to greet Erik when he stepped off set.
“You were amazing!” she squealed, flinging her arms around his neck, then moving away to let the crew member reclaim the lav mic. Erik was sweaty and frowning, and she dropped her hands to his shoulders, squeezing those lovely muscles to chase away the tension there. Her mind spun as she starting thinking up new marketing strategies. “This is just the beginning. We could have you do web videos. Short little things demonstrating your different techniques. How-tos. Tours of the kitchen. Oh my God, the audience reach would be incredible.”
“Josie,” he said, reaching up to grab her hands, but she was too excited by the ideas crystallizing in her brain to stop. She pull
ed free and gestured in the air as she kept spinning plans.
“Think how great a series of videos would be to drive content for web and social, and we could—”
“Goddammit, Josie, shut up for one minute!” he roared.
The woman with the mic froze in the act of winding the cord back into its case while around them, all action in the studio paused for what felt like an eternity. Mic woman scuttled away wide-eyed, and soon enough the rest of the station employees shrugged and turned back to packing up and moving out of the kitchen studio. Josie, however, was rooted to the spot in shock.
Erik had yelled. Yelled. He’d yelled at her.
She stepped forward, but he flinched away from her, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the studio. Her heart hammered in time to the tapping of her high heels as she hurried after him. What had just gone wrong here?
She caught up with him in the hallway, where he was leaning against the wall, body rigid.
“Erik, what’s—?”
“Next time, ask.” His jaw barely moved, and each word pierced her like a knife.
“What do you mean? You were great!”
“I was terrified.”
She fell silent, processing his words, his clenched fists, his stiff shoulders. “And now you’re mad.”
“I’m fucking furious.” He yanked open his chef’s coat with a sharp tug to reveal the sweat-stained T-shirt underneath. “Do you think any part of me wanted to do that?”
“Well, n-no. Not at first,” she stammered, “but I thought you’d—”
He turned his glittering eyes on her. “Thought I’d do whatever you wanted?”
“Yes.” She answered honestly, without thinking, and hastened to add, “When it comes to marketing, yes. You said you trusted me!”
“Yes. I trusted that you knew me.”
“I do know you.”
He shook his head once, sharply. “Then you should know that I would never ever want that.”
Of course she had. Of course. But the opportunity had been right there, and dammit, she’d been absolutely certain that he could do it. Absolutely certain that he’d be amazing if she could just get him to stand in front of the camera and do it. Like with opening his own business and posing for website pictures and the millions of things she’d lovingly bullied him into for the good of the business.
She took a tentative step closer. If she could just touch him, he’d remember what a good partnership they had. But he twisted away, leaving her hand grasping at empty air. “I’m sorry, Erik. I just wanted—”
“What, exactly?” His voice cracked through the empty hallway.
“Success,” she managed to say. “For you to be a success.”
“Why?”
Why did he think? “Because I love you.”
“Bullshit.” The retort shot from his lips. “You want to be the person responsible for my success. You wanted that way before you knew me at all. Remember? ‘Because I can’?”
“No, I…” She started to correct him, but then she did remember. This had all begun as a way to prove that she was capable of launching a business from scratch. She’d shoved her way into Erik’s life to prove that she could do it. To prove it to herself and Valerie and her mother.
Erik must’ve seen the memory click into place, because he stepped closer and lowered his voice as a pair of station employees strolled down the hall, clutching coffee cups. “Exactly. You had something to prove. But I’m not your show pony, and I won’t let you use my business to inflate your self-worth.”
“What? That’s not why I did this.” When he leveled a disbelieving look at her, she forced herself to be honest. “Okay, maybe I like how it feels when a business takes off because of me. But lots of people get satisfaction from their jobs. You do.”
“Yeah, but I don’t need to prove anything. You though?” He looked pointedly at her leopard-print heels and Gucci bag. “You put on a costume every day. You’re obsessed with broadcasting success to the outside world, and today you pushed that shit on me.”
“At least I’m not too scared to go after what I want.”
His face reddened at the cheap shot, and she regretted it immediately. But he’d made her believe that he loved her, fashion sense and all. Instead, he thought she was obsessed.
“I never said I don’t have my own shit to work through,” he said tiredly. “For fuck’s sake, I know how hard it is to let go of the past, but at least I’m trying. You? You’re spending your life chasing the wrong kind of approval, and it’s never going to make you happy.”
Did he not think she was happy? “You’re wrong. I’m happy with you.” Her panicked heart slammed against her rib cage.
For the first time since they’d left the studio, he looked at her with the soft expression he saved only for her. But it disappeared a moment later, replaced by the unreadable aloofness she remembered from their first interactions.
“I wish you were happy,” he said finally. “Just like I wish you could build your sense of self from inside and not outside. But I’m not sure you can.”
He might as well have slapped her. She wrapped her arms around her waist and pitched herself forward as she processed his words. Erik was her champion, the person who believed in her. He knew the secret hurts in her heart, and now he was telling her that she was broken.
She struggled to pull enough air into her lungs to speak. “Maybe at first I wanted to help you to prove a point. But even if that’s how it started out with you and me, with your bakery, it’s different now.”
She was begging him to believe in her, but he just shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Is it?” He pressed his lips together before speaking again. “What if I told you I want to take a step back, cancel the grand opening. Just focus on wedding cakes. Stay small. Rent a portion of my kitchen to another baker to share expenses.”
“You wouldn’t,” she breathed, drifting close enough that his good vanilla-and-Erik smell went straight to her head.
“If I did, would I lose you?”
“As a client? Yes,” she said immediately. “I can’t let you waste all that potential.”
His face hardened. “I’m not your client.”
She opened her mouth to assure him that of course not, he was her boyfriend and she wasn’t going away. But something about what she’d just said scratched at her memories.
Potential. Wasted.
Her mother had said that to her at their horrible lunch, had accused Josie of wasting her potential. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth as she revisited everything that had happened over the past twenty minutes. She’d pushed Erik to be something he wasn’t so she could claim the glory. She’d done to him what Pamela had spent a lifetime doing to her. Commodifying him. Using him to boost her own image.
Cold horror trickled down her spine, and she glanced over to find that he’d pulled the elastic from his hair and let it fall forward to hide his features. She was pushing him away. She was losing him.
“You need all this”—he waved a hand in the direction of the studio but didn’t turn toward her—“to feel good about yourself, but I don’t want it.” His whole body sagged against the wall, like this fight was leeching his essence, the thing that made him so big and vital and precious to her.
“So I guess that means you don’t want me.” Her voice was tiny and scared. She was tiny and scared.
He looked at her with no trace of warmth on his face, and ribbons of pain unfurled in her heart. Every cell in her body cried out for him to deny it, to tell her that of course he wanted her, needed her, chose her. But his gaze dropped to the floor, and his shoulders lifted on a massive inhale.
“I never asked for any of this.” He lifted his head, but he fixed his eyes on a point beyond her shoulder. “I never wanted to want you.”
She gasped. She actually gasped as those baldly stated words stung her skin and sank into her blood and her marrow. This man had convinced her it was safe to pack away her defensive armor, and
now she had nothing to protect herself from the fatal blow he’d just landed.
“Then I guess we’re done here,” she managed to say. “I-I hope you get whatever it is that you do want.”
But he’d already retreated into his own world, the one he’d been in the night they met, and his expressionless face hurt her almost as much as his cutting words had. She choked back a sob and spun on her heel to leave the building before she dissolved entirely.
Unfortunately, the moisture started to leak from her eyes once she reached the end of the hallway, and there was goddamn Dora, lurking around the corner, clearly having caught enough of their argument just now to account for that smirk on her face.
“Well. I guess we’ll see how well he does without someone there to pull his puppet strings.”
Josie blotted the tears with her wrist, gratified that she had the strength to fight at least this unworthy opponent.
“Please. He doesn’t need me to crush you in the baking department, you hateful cow.”
And with that, she sniffed back her tears, straightened her spine, and got the hell out of there to mourn the implosion of her relationship in private.
Thirty-One
“Hey. Hey!”
Erik’s head snapped down at the sharp words to find Gina draped in paper banners and peering at him in concern.
“Sorry,” he muttered, pressing pause on yet another replay of his fight with Josie three days earlier. He grabbed one of the strings of brightly colored pennants and stretched it along the top of the plate glass window in the dining area, wrapping it around a nail to hold it in place.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gina handed him another strand.
He wasn’t, and they both knew it. Instead of answering her question, he said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Of course.” She plopped into a café chair to pick apart the tangle of the remaining banners, draping them over the shoulder of her denim overalls as she separated each one. “When you called me last night, you sounded so…”