Love and Cupcakes

by Susan Bishop Crispell

  “Trying to make me have a heart attack,” Hutton said, his breath ragged, “isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

  “It might,” Graham said.

  “You gonna tell me about your dad?”

  “Not much to tell. He showed up, told me I was wasting my time with Jack. I told him he could go.”

  Hutton leaned lower over the handlebars, face red and dripping sweat. “No, ‘Sorry for being a dick. Here’s a million dollars to make up for it.’?”

  “Not even a penny. Though he was in a suit, so I’m guessing he’s done pretty well for himself.”

  They rounded the halfway point and swung back into town to finish the circuit. The streets were busier now, the sidewalks full of men in suits with their jackets slung over their arms and girls in sundresses enjoying the few minutes of sunshine they’d get that day. They dropped their speed again as they maneuvered through the few blocks with streetlights. Once they’d broken though the business district and wound their way through side streets that smelled like fresh-cut grass, they fell into a rhythm again.

  “Did he really say that about Jack?” Hutton asked as he pushed up next to Graham.

  Graham guzzled water from his bottle, letting it slick his throat that had gone dry. Cutting his eyes to his friend, he tried to gauge Hutton’s mood. “Right in front of her. I can tell she doesn’t want to let it bother her, but it does. Shit, he’s back for five minutes and he’s already ruining things.”

  “She didn’t tell me that part.”

  “I’m guessing that’s because she knew what you’d say. And neither of us want to hear it.”

  Hutton huffed out a breath. “Listen, man, I don’t want to fight with you about her,” he said.

  “Me either.”

  “Truce?”

  “Yeah,” Graham agreed.

  But it might not be one he could keep.

  seventeen

  A harsh rumbling pushed through the haze of sleep. Jack peeked at the clock and cursed as her phone danced on the bedside table. “You’d better be missing an appendage,” she said when she picked up.

  The sound of an alarm blaring through the receiver jarred her awake. She was out of bed before Graham answered her.

  “I’m not. But the oven’s on fire,” he said.

  The panic in his voice set off a trail of goose bumps on her arms and neck. She said his name, just a breath of a word.

  “Actually it’s the cupcakes in the oven, but you get the picture. Big flames. Fire extinguisher. Smoke. Lots of smoke.”

  “Is the fire out?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  Her hands shook. “Yes to which one, Graham? Are you okay?” she demanded.

  “Yeah, Jesus. Sorry. The shop is fine. I’m fine. Flustered as hell, but fine.” He puffed out an audible breath. The wracking coughing fit that followed contradicted his assurances.

  “Please tell me you’re not stupid enough to still be inside?”

  “Damn oven,” he muttered after getting his breath back.

  Jack pulled her jeans on and grabbed the first shirt she put her hands on. It was well worn and wrinkled. She put it on inside out. “Wait for me out front. I’ll be there in ten.”

  The quiet, quaintness of downtown was marred by the two police cruisers and lone fire truck that sat, lights flashing, in the middle of Pearl Street. The jumble of red and blue splashed onto the buildings and asphalt like a kaleidoscope. With every revolution, a new intricate pattern formed only to disappear again.

  Jack figured it must not be too bad since the sirens weren’t on.

  She parked across the street and joined the cluster of men sitting on the front curb. Rotund and burley, they looked half drunk. Their droopy eyes and heavy limbs perked up when she approached.

  “Morning, Jaclyn,” they said as a group.

  “Morning, guys. Morning, Lou,” she said to the senior officer in charge. She scanned the front of the building, looking for a reason why three cops and four firemen were hanging around when Graham had said everything was fine. The front door of Crumbs stood wide open, exhaling a stream of dense smoke. The ceiling fans inside whirled on high. Fresh air was sucked in and contaminated. But the veil of white seemed to be penetrable. “Everything okay?”

  “Seems so. We were just telling Graham that if he wanted to see you in the middle of the night there are better ways of doing it than setting the place on fire.”

  “Not funny,” Graham said. He smiled, but kept his eyes trained on the asphalt at his feet.

  “Gotta hand it to the man. You do look mighty pretty all rumpled from sleep. I mighta done the same, if I was him.”

  “That may be, Lou. But as I saw your wife not two days ago picking up cupcakes for your twenty-fifth anniversary, I think maybe you should go home and pass those compliments on to her.” She patted his cheek when he winked at her. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “Guess we’ll be on our way then,” he said. He twirled his finger in the air signaling the others to get in their vehicles and head back to their respective stations.

  Jack sank to the curb next to Graham. She rested her forearms on her knees and held her breath as the breeze carried the charred air farther out of the building. The morning was cool and a shiver crawled up her exposed arms. In her rush, she hadn’t grabbed a jacket. She linked her arm through his as much for support as warmth.

  He was sweaty. Exuding heat as if he had been the one on fire, not the oven. She leaned in closer. Rested her muddled head on his shoulder. His breath was warm on her hair when he sighed. His arm slipped around her, locking her in place against his side.

  “What the hell happened, Graham?” she asked. Her voice was soft with concern. She cleared her throat and forced herself away from him. His hand grazed her back, leaving a trail of heat that consumed the chill in her bones.

  “Damn oven,” he said.

  “Yeah, I got that much. What exactly did the damn oven do?”

  “Caught on fire.” He shifted to face her. “Lou and the guys think Danny didn’t wire things properly the last time. They’re gonna have a talk with him tomorrow.”

  It sounded like a preemptive strike. They would talk to Danny—in the calm manner that was customary when trying to talk with people going senile—so she didn’t say anything she’d regret.

  “All right,” she said.

  “They said the smoke didn’t make it up to the apartment, but I sent Harp and Mason over to my place anyway. We’ll need to air the building out and replace the filters in the A/C unit, but Lou said we could go back in when the smoke clears.”

  “Okay. What’re we gonna do about the oven?”

  “Wanna go shopping with me later?” he asked.

  She raised one eyebrow in question. “Shopping?”

  “Our oven just bit the dust. Only after trying to take a chunk of me with it.” He lifted his arm to show off the red, blistering underside. “Pretty, huh?”

  She leaned across him and curled her fingers around his to inspect the burn that ran halfway up his forearm. “That one’s worse than the Wetherill’s tenth-anniversary fiasco.”

  Graham burned himself on a regular basis. Usually it was a minor inconvenience, but once or twice a year he managed to seriously hurt himself. They had taken to grading the wounds to determine how it would affect their workload. The low end of the scale was the baker’s equivalent of a paper cut, with the upper end being spontaneous combustion. They filled in the in-betweens with memorable client orders. The burn from the Wetherill job had been the size of a grapefruit. The worst in Crumbs’ history. Until now.

  “I wasn’t working on anything specific. What do we call this one?” he asked, breaking free of her grip.

  “Hansel and Gretel?” she suggested.

  “You’re sick.”

  “The oven tried to eat you. It’s fitting.”

  “Sick,” he said again.

  “But amusing.” Jack laughed when he rolled his eyes at her. “It re
ally does look bad. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “Nah. I think I’ll live.”

  “That’s good, ’cause I don’t like the alternative.”

  “Me neither,” he said.

  “You need ice.”

  Jack stood and walked inside. When Graham tried to follow her she ordered him to sit. She sighed when he obeyed.

  The acrid smell burned her lungs. Coughing, she flapped her hands back and forth in front of her face. The wall behind the oven was sooty. Black handprints graffitied the back door and jamb. The fire extinguisher lay on its side, exhausted.

  “Damn oven,” she muttered. She kicked its door on her way by. It shuddered. A metallic grinding that sent a shiver up her spine. She pulled an ice pack from the freezer and massaged it between her hands to loosen the stiff gel. She grabbed a bar towel from below the counter on her way back out.

  “Thanks,” Graham said when she handed both to him.

  Sitting next to him again, she let her thigh rest against his. He rubbed his hand along her leg and cupped his fingers under her knee. “We need to add a new fire extinguisher to your shopping list,” she said. “And probably some oven mitts, since I’m guessing ours went up in flames.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You tried to beat the fire back with it, huh?”

  “It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Looking back, the extinguisher would have been the more logical first choice. But when flames are spewing out and trying to pull you in with them you don’t always think clearly.”

  “God, I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. She let out a shaky breath as the weight of it all finally hit. “I was really hoping it would hold out until after the Twilight. Business has been better lately, but I don’t know where we’re gonna get the money, Graham.”

  “We still have a few options. But there’s nothing we can do at the moment, so take a deep breath. Scratch that; we’ve both already taken in enough smoke tonight.”

  He leaned down, brushed his lips to hers. Jack braced a hand on his chest. His heart thumped frantically under her palm though he kept the kiss light, his mouth teasing hers with the slightest amount of pressure.

  “Lou was right,” he said when he pulled away. “Totally worth getting you out of bed in the middle of the night.”

  ***

  Graham grunted when he pulled into the parking lot the next morning. He parked next to Jack. He’d managed a few hours sleep before the oven timer he’d set went off.

  He hefted the trays of cupcakes he’d made that morning from the back of his truck. The sheet he’d covered them with fluttered. One corner came out and flapped in the wind behind him. With his back to the door, he kicked the metal with the heel of his shoe.

  He kicked the door again.

  “Sorry,” she said when she opened it. “I was up front. Your mom’s here.”

  “Thanks.” He set the trays on the counter, tucking the sheet back in place. “Hey, Mama,” he called. He smiled at her shouted Hey, baby. His mom only called him “baby” under two circumstances—when he was sick or in serious trouble. He’d never been more thankful to be hurt.

  Jack glared at him and went up front. “He’s in the back,” she said and sighed. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

  He checked the gauze to make sure his burn was covered, then decided it was better to shove the whole arm behind his back.

  “Lemme see.” She held out her hand and snapped when he didn’t move.

  “It’s fine, Mama.”

  “Didn’t sound fine this morning when you called me.”

  “Yes, but then you, in your infinite motherly wisdom, told me what to do. It’s been cleaned, disinfected, medicated, and bandaged. See?” He held his arm up to show off his handiwork, but pulled back when she circled her cool fingers around his wrist.

  “You’ll live.” She released him and reached up to pat his cheek. “So, this is the stupid hunk of junk?”

  “Yep and yep.” Graham kicked the oven. Hard. The metal vibrated and the door clanged open, but he hadn’t even dented the side. He looked up when Jack rushed into the room.

  Her eyes were wide, her face flushed. She stared at the oven as if expecting it to burst into flames on its own.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. He just kicked it,” Pepper said to her. “The oven had it coming.”

  “Sorry,” Graham muttered.

  Jack threw him a withering look over her shoulder as she walked out.

  “She’s worried about you.”

  He turned back to his mom. “It’s just a burn. Occupational hazard.”

  “That may be, but what would’ve happened if the fire had been worse? If the damn thing exploded and took you with it?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Fear doesn’t care about likelihood, baby.”

  Graham spent the next twenty minutes thinking about what his mom had said. Hadn’t he let fear of losing Hutton’s friendship stop him from telling Jack how he felt about her? It hadn’t mattered that they’d been through enough together that his and Hutton’s friendship could probably withstand one hell of a storm. He hadn’t been willing to test it. And that was no one’s fault but his own.

  He had just gotten the cupcakes loaded in the display case and decided to tackle cleaning the back wall when Hutton walked through the front.

  “Heard you were out of commission,” Hutton said.

  Graham squirted bleach water on the doorjamb. It ran down in gray rivers as it washed away the soot from his handprints. “You heard wrong.”

  “Apparently. How’s the arm? I was kinda expecting it to be missing from the elbow down.”

  “Flesh wound.”

  “Can it still be called a ‘flesh wound’ if there’s no flesh left?” Hutton asked.

  “Har, har.” Graham reached for another handful of paper towels. The skin pulled underneath the layers of gauze and he winced. “Believe me, there’s still some left.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Did you just come by to make fun of the stupid baker who tried to burn down his own shop?”

  “Nah. That’s just a perk. Jack asked me to help move some stuff.”

  “Thanks, man, but you’ve got better things to do today,” Graham said. “It’s my mess. I can take care of it.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Jack said from the doorway. “And you shouldn’t be doing that.” She tried to take the rags from him, so he held them above her head.

  “It’s just a damn burn, Jack.” One that stung like a bitch, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” she spat. She stalked off to bang some pots around.

  “Someone’s a little testy this morning,” Hutton said.

  “She’s been like that since I got here.”

  “Wasn’t talking about my sister.” Hutton grabbed one side of the oven and motioned for Graham to take the other.

  The stress on his arm made the burn throb. He made it a few feet before setting it down. He swore under his breath and glanced at Jack. Either she was now ignoring him or she hadn’t heard.

  “Don’t,” he said when Hutton started to say something. “Just don’t.”

  Ignoring the pain, he grabbed hold again and helped Hutton maneuver the oven out the back door.

  ***

  When Melanie walked in, Jack wondered how much worse her day could get. She plastered on a smile, wiped her grimy hands on an apron, and prepared to flatter and sweet-talk when Melanie tried to pull the Twilight job.

  “Jaclyn, I just heard and rushed right over,” Melanie squeaked. Her skin was flawless from the thin layer of powder and the perfect amount of blush high on her cheeks. Her vibrant red lips were pursed in concern. “Did the fire cause much damage?”

  Jack sighed. She brushed a stray strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist to keep from spreading more dirt onto her face. “No. Luckily the oven was suicidal, not homicidal. Other than some smoke and soot, we’r
e fine. We’re running a limited selection for a few days though.”

  “I hate to seem like I’m only interested in the fire because of the Twilight cupcakes, ’cause I’m not,” Melanie rushed to assure her. “But is everything still on track with this setback?”

  Harper hissed under her breath as she exited the stairs.

  Feeling her sister’s frustration, Jack glared at Harper and then turned back to her customer. “Everything’s fine, Melanie. We’ll get a new oven in the next few days and be all set long before your order is due,” Jack said. Where the hell we’ll find the money to do that, I don’t have a clue.

  “Fantastic. I talked to Graham’s friend Thalia on my way here, and she said she could help out if you need to—at least with the Twilight cupcakes. And she had some ideas on a few new flavors she and Graham had talked about. It might be worth you talking to her to see what she might be able to do for you.”

  “Thalia’s not really a pastry chef,” Jack said, biting back the rest of her retort that begged to put Melanie in her place.

  Melanie waved her off with a sharply manicured hand, the tips of her nails squared off and shocking white. “Oh, I know. But her food is to die for. Seriously. And then pair her with Graham. People would be talking about this race all over the South! That’s not to say that Crumbs couldn’t do just as well without Thalia. I’m sure what you have planned will be good, too.”

  Harper pressed her palms on the counter, her rings grating against the wood, and leaned closer to Melanie. Jack gripped her wrist to reel her back in, but she didn’t acknowledge it. “Don’t worry. Letting people down isn’t my sister’s style,” she said in a tone just as demeaning as Melanie’s. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve got some more cleanup to do.”

  “Harper.” The warning in Jack’s voice shut her sister up.

  “Of course. Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Melanie said, a fake smile still painted on her face.