Love and Cupcakes

by Susan Bishop Crispell

  Nick, on the other hand, seemed game for anything. He reacted with as much fervor to the traditional as he did to the more unique ones—licking his fingers and grinning like a lunatic after each bite.

  As Jack predicted, their likes far outweighed the flat-out nos. She helped them sift through the list, debating the merits of each, until they had it narrowed down to six.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to make the final decision,” Grace said.

  “Why don’t you finalize the menu with Aria first? That way, we can pick the ones that’ll complement the other flavors best,” Jack suggested.

  “You’re amazing,” Grace said as she stood to leave. “Tell Graham he better come out and talk to us next time or I’m going to start a rumor that he’s insanely jealous of Nick.”

  After the door closed behind them, Jack shook her head and walked into the back. The radio was off. She expected Graham to be most of the way through another batch of cups, but the ingredients still sat on the counter, untouched.

  “Why is it that all your ex-girlfriends still adore you?” she asked.

  Graham shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

  “Is that really part of it? Like all the girls who aren’t your soul mate physically can’t be mad at you because it’s not your fault?”

  “I don’t know, Jack.” His voice was soft, resigned. “Maybe. I never really paid attention.”

  “If that was the case though, wouldn’t your mama be okay with your dad leaving?”

  “That was different. He’d made a promise to her. Had a kid with her. And he chose someone else over us. That’s hard to forgive.”

  “Yeah, but you’d think at least one of your exes would still hold a grudge for breaking her heart. Yet they all still swoon when they see you.”

  “They do not,” he said, staring at the bowl of batter he was whisking. “And I haven’t broken any hearts.”

  “None that you know of,” she mumbled.

  She couldn’t blame him for the way she felt. He’d done nothing to lead her on. Nothing except be himself.

  ***

  Graham looked up when Harper walked into the back, and realized the light was fading from the front room. He vaguely remembered Jack locking up and leaving. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  “What was up with Jack this afternoon?” Harper asked. The pink in her hair had faded some, and it was now closer to the color of cotton candy. She twisted a thick strand of it around her fingers and stuffed it back into the rubber band that held the rest off of her face. A black tattoo of a script M peeked out from behind her ear.

  “You noticed, too?” he asked.

  She leaned on the table next to him, smelling faintly of chocolate. “At first I thought she was still mad at me, but she didn’t say ‘boo’ to you, either, so I figured I’m off the hook for this one.”

  “So you two are making nice?”

  “It’s a work in progress.”

  “I’m glad you’re trying.” He checked the cupcakes in the oven. Even though the timer still said they had four minutes left, they were already a dark gold. He pulled the trays out and set them on the table, out of her reach. It didn’t seem to matter how hot they were, fresh-from-the-oven cupcakes seemed to be Harper’s weakness. And somehow she always knew when they were about to come out.

  Harper eyed the tray, but kept her hands to herself. “Me, too,” she agreed after a moment.

  “Jack was fine during the consult with Grace. They even talked to each other, and they laughed. That never happened while we were dating. It was hard to get them in the same room back then.”

  “Your ex came in today and you didn’t think that was important to mention earlier?” She kicked her foot out and missed connecting with his ass by an inch.

  Graham shrugged. “What? She was here with her fiancé to pick out their wedding cake. It had nothing to do with me,” he argued.

  “How long did you two date?”

  He didn’t bother to look at her. Instead he tested the tops of a couple of cupcakes. His finger sunk in slightly, but the cake didn’t give way. “A while.” He flipped the cupcakes one at a time and started moving them from the pan to the cooling rack.

  “Graham.”

  “A couple years,” he said. Deciding she’d pester him until he told her what she wanted to know, he continued, “We met after I started school and dated through most of it.”

  “What’s she up to now? Besides getting hitched?” Harper asked. She moved a few steps closer as they talked.

  “I don’t know. It’s not like I sat out there talking to her.”

  But he’d heard their conversation. During the close to forty-five-minute meeting, he’d done nothing more than ice four cupcakes and stand, back flattened to the wall, listening. Jack was the only thing he and Grace had fought about when they dated. And when Grace had made him choose her or Jack, it hadn’t really been a choice. Even after two years with another woman, he hadn’t been able to let Jack go.

  Maybe, he realized, Jack’s theory about my exes is more accurate than I thought.

  Harper’s arm snaked under his and grabbed one of the cupcakes. “Why’d you break up?” she asked. She broke it into a couple hunks on the metal surface and ate it piece by steaming piece.

  “You’ve got to stop doing that,” he said.

  “What?” She shrugged.

  “Reading my mind. It’s obnoxious.”

  “Oh.” She plucked the last piece up and ate it before he could snatch it away. “If you’d talk more, I wouldn’t have to pry,” she said in a deadpan tone.

  Graham hesitated. Figuring there wasn’t anything he’d say that would give him away, he said, “We weren’t right for each other. I started dating her to get over someone. And Grace was her polar opposite.”

  “Which might be why it didn’t work out.”

  Graham heard the sarcastic “dumbass” tacked on at the end, even though she didn’t say it. You have no idea.

  “Did it at least help?” Harper asked when he didn’t respond. “Did it get you over the first girl?”

  “For a while,” he admitted.

  He tried to move the pans to the sink to soak; when he burned the pad of his thumb, he decided to leave them on the counter. The CD he’d been playing had stopped sometime earlier, and the player hummed in the silence.

  Harper reached for another cupcake but shirked back when he whistled at her. Clasping her hands in her lap she said, “Something weird happened the other day and it got me thinking.” Her mouth tugged to one side, making the silver bar in her eyebrow glint as it caught the light. “I can’t figure out why Jack doesn’t ever sense you. I would think it’d knock her unconscious at least once a day. But it hasn’t happened yet.”

  Graham met her stare, but didn’t respond.

  “I always thought it was just food she could smell. But this guy came in and seemed to want Jack ’cause she said he smelled her perfume instead of a cupcake. So, what I’m wondering is, do you think about the sound of her voice or the way she would feel all sweaty and naked instead of something she could smell?”

  “Jesus, Harp.” He grabbed the hot pan and let it sear into his palm. The distraction wasn’t strong enough to stop the image from forming in his mind. He dumped it into the empty sink and ran cool water over his hand for a few seconds.

  “What? Don’t tell me you don’t think of her like that. I’m pretty sure half of the male population in Sugar thinks of her that way. But I’ve seen your puppy-dog eyes. Don’t tell me you don’t want her.”

  Graham walked to the cooler and dug a bottle of water out of the back. He drained half of it in one long drink. “You might want to go pester one of those other guys who wants her so badly ’cause I am not having this conversation with you.” The water did little to cool his skin. Or his thoughts. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the cooler door, letting the cold metal seep into his shirt.

  “Um, yes you are. You two are driving me crazy, running circ
les around each other and neither one stopping long enough to realize that you’re both after the same thing,” Harper said, still shooting him her cocky half smile.

  “It’s not like that between us. She’s my business partner and my best friend’s sister. Of course I care about her. But that’s as far as it goes.”

  Her expression sobered. She moved to the sink and jerked the water on so that it poured hot and fast into the basin. “Funny. That’s almost exactly what Hutton said.”

  He imagined his friend sucker-punching him again and rubbed his jaw. His stubble made a subtle scratching sound under his palm. “Please tell me you didn’t say anything to him?”

  “Even if I did, it shouldn’t matter. As much as Hutton would like to believe it, he doesn’t get a say in who we marry.”

  That’s new. Since when does Hutton’s opinion not matter? “Got anyone specific in mind?” Graham asked.

  Harper laughed, tried to wave it away with a careless “No,” but she didn’t turn around fast enough and Graham saw the hurt flash in her blue eyes.

  ***

  March couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to be winter or spring. The sun was warm despite the harsh wind and burned through Graham’s long-sleeved tee within minutes. He breathed in the warm air. He grabbed the water bottle clipped to the top tube of his bike and then shoved it back into the plastic holder, empty.

  The wind slapped at him. The bike listed to the right. He pulled it back straight and hunched lower. Concentrating on the blacktop in front of him, the houses blurred at the edge of his vision, streaks of white, gray, brick, and blue. Lawns were a patchwork of brown and soft green. The air was sweet as honeysuckle.

  He gave into the rhythm of the bike, pushing harder so that the only thing he could hear was the pounding of his heart.

  After ten minutes, the street turns became familiar. Four blocks from his childhood home, Graham realized that was exactly where he wanted to be. He was in the driveway in under a minute.

  His mama’s car was green with pollen. He streaked a finger through it, leaving a valley of navy paint between peaks of pollen on the hood. He’d offer to wash it for her if it wouldn’t be just as buried ten minutes after he finished. He’d give it a couple weeks, then bring his truck over and do them both, he decided.

  The back door squeaked as he pushed through. The kitchen was empty except for the smell of sourdough. The only light in the room filtered in through the window over the farmhouse sink he’d installed the year before. The pale tans and browns of the tile counter absorbed the light as it hit.

  He walked to the bread box on the counter and slipped the serrated knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. If he ever came home and there wasn’t any homemade bread, he could be certain the apocalypse wouldn’t be far behind.

  He inhaled the yeasty scent of the uncut loaf and sighed.

  “I thought I heard a thief,” his mother, Pepper Hollingsworth, said. She flipped on the lights and poked a bony finger into his side.

  Graham’s hand froze, the knife halfway through the first slice. “I was going to cut you one, too.” He looked at her, grinning.

  His mom smiled back, but on her it was softer, lighter. Her face was rounder than his, her eyes a rich gold. Her honey hair was gray at the roots and growing out, making her seem even more of a hippie than she’d been when he was little and refused to cook with anything she couldn’t grow herself or buy from the farmer on the outskirts of town.

  “What? You think it’s not thieving if you share?” she teased. She patted his hand and motioned for him to continue. His mom sat at the two-person table and pushed the other chair out with her foot. It scraped against the tile floor. “So, what’s got you coming to pilfer from your mama in the middle of the day?”

  Graham shrugged. After sitting, he buttered two slices and handed one to her. Taking a bite, he closed his eyes and let everything melt away. When he opened them, his mama was watching him, her brown eyes narrowed with worry.

  “You know Harper’s home?” he asked.

  “Charlotte called. Don’t think I’ve heard her that happy since she brought that girl home from the hospital.”

  “Yeah. Jack’s not taking it as well. Not that she’s not happy, but she doesn’t do well with change.”

  “Well, at least change she can’t control,” she added.

  He got up to cut a few more slices of bread. At this rate, they’d eat the whole loaf if he didn’t put it away. Handing the slices to his mom, he didn’t have to ask her to butter them. She already had the spreader in hand. He slipped the bread box cover back in place and rinsed the knife before returning it to the knife strip. It clung to the metal with a loud thwack.

  He sat across from her. Slouching, he rested his foot on the bottom rail of her chair.

  “I want to tell her it’s going to be fine, but we’re barely able to keep the shop open as it is. Throw in Harper being in her face all the time and Thalia asking me to come work for her, and Jack’s a step away from going over the edge.”

  “You didn’t tell me Thalia offered you a job when you mentioned you’d seen her,” she scolded. Her hazel eyes locked onto his and wordlessly demanded an explanation.

  “She didn’t ask then. She called to see how the oven was, and she just kinda dropped it on me. She basically said it would be career suicide to stay with a sinking ship.”

  “I hope you told her where she could stick it.”

  Graham choked on a bite of bread. Coughing, he managed, “I did, but not quite in those terms.”

  “Did she really think you’d leave?”

  “Jack does.”

  She waved her hand through the air. “That girl knows you aren’t going anywhere.”

  “No, she doesn’t. And Hutton thinks I’ll bail on her, too. It’s like everyone in this town is waiting on me to get the hell out of Dodge like he did.” He dropped the half-eaten slice on the table. He started to wipe his greasy fingers on his calves, but stopped when she turned her gaze on him.

  After handing him a napkin, she said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I ran into Gretchen Firth yesterday.”

  Graham stopped mid-bite. He hadn’t heard that name in close to ten years. As ex-girlfriends went, Gretchen was one of the better ones. When they were through, they were through. No drunk dialing, no showing up at concerts or bike races and pretending it was a coincidence. They’d gone their separate ways and he hadn’t looked back.

  “She’s back in town?”

  He could feel his mother’s X-ray vision boring into him. He stared at the water ring on the table.

  “Said she’s thinking of moving home. Married with a two-year-old and another on the way. Wants a good place to raise ’em.”

  “Wow. She always said she didn’t want kids. One of the many reasons we didn’t work out.” Graham blew out a breath. He shook his head at the irony of their lives. “That’s, well, um, good for her.”

  “She asked about you. Said she’d love to get the kids together for a play date. To which I responded, ‘Let me know when you do ’cause I’d like to meet ’em.’ Think I confused her,” she said.

  “Mama, please tell me you didn’t.” But he laughed despite himself.

  She patted his arm. “I sure did. If you’ve got kids running around, I’ve got a right to know about it.”

  “Well, I don’t. So you’re good.”

  “As good as any lonely grandma-wannabe is, I guess.” She patted his arm. “I’m not trying to push you into going for the next girl who walks by. I just want you to be happy. Don’t let what happened between me and you-know-who keep you from being happy.”

  Graham couldn’t remember the last time his mom had referred to his father by name. It was either you-know-who, that worthless man, or some other nickname she’d made up for him after he ran off with the assistant librarian.

  It was legend around Sugar that Hollingsworth men would know their soul mate from their first touch. Though his granddad had been emphatic about the sh
immering trail of light that stretched from his fingertips to bind him to his future wife of sixty-three years during their first date, part of Graham thought it was bullshit. Just a convenient excuse for his father to walk out on them to start a new life with someone else. The other part believed in it just enough to let the fear of hurting someone he loved keep him from acting on his feelings.

  He ignored the queasy feeling in his stomach. When Jack’s face started forming in his mind, he ignored that, too.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “Promise you won’t,” she pressed.

  He straightened in his chair. The back slats pressed into his shoulder blades. “I won’t.”

  “That wasn’t a—”

  “Promise, Mama.”

  He kissed her cheek, and threw their napkins in the trash.

  ***

  Graham ended up back at work after leaving his mom’s feeling slightly better. When his mind started to drift toward Jack—the sound of her laugh, the trail of freckles on her collarbone—he concentrated on the ingredients he’d set out. On autopilot, he measured, poured, and mixed until the batter was smooth and creamy.

  Portioning the batter with an ice cream scoop, he filled the paper liners with the precision of an automated assembly line. Scoop, click, drop, scoop, click, drop. He scraped up drips with his fingers and wiped them on a rag. He set the timer for twelve minutes and dumped the mixing bowl in the sink to soak.

  Graham sat on the cool metal table. It creaked under his weight. Sighing, he closed his eyes and wondered what life would be like if he and Jack were together. It would be so easy, would feel so good to lean in and brush his lips against hers. To hold her close enough that he could no longer tell that they were two distinct bodies. He could almost see the desire turn her brown eyes a shimmery gold before she gave into it.

  The bitterness of reality burned through the fantasy. If there was any truth to the Hollingsworth family legend, it didn’t matter how much he wanted her. He couldn’t be with her knowing he didn’t remember the first time they’d touched. If he started a relationship with her now, he’d be no better than his father.