Sugar and Spice

by Roxy Wynn

  “Nonsense, I just own the building, the two of you turned it into something special. Just keep making those delicious smells, and you stay as long as you want.”

  After filling Sarah in on the meeting, she looked relieved.

  “So that’s it?” She asked.

  “Yup. The sale that tall she-beast was all giddy about was never happening in the first place. Martha’s little crotch goblins aren’t selling the building. We have nothing to worry about.”

  Back in our office at the end of another record breaking day, we were counting out tips for the bakers.

  “That’s awesome news, Chrissy. With the way business is going, we’ll be able to retire soon.” All the money coming in looked good, but with my celebrity romance over, it couldn’t last.

  “I don’t know that I would put all my eggs in one basket,” I said. “Jeff and I are done. People are going to lose interest. I expect all of this craziness to slow down, eventually.”

  I glanced out the office door at the two new hires who were checking the cookies they had pulled from the oven. They touched the tops gently, each trying to figure out if I would give it my seal of approval. From where I was sitting, I could see the top of the cookie was too light. “Give it another minute,” I yelled from my seat.

  She shrugged, contemplating my words. “I don’t know. We have enough wedding cakes booked to take us clear into next year thanks to Mrs. Calloway. If the day-to-day sales start to dry up, at the very least we’ll have enough of a portfolio to turn Ruby’s into a really fancy wedding cake shop.”

  While I was busy panicking over my first big wedding cake, Mrs. Calloway was putting together a business of her own. Matchmaking between foreigners with money and American citizens was apparently big business.

  Our lovely bride Priscilla was a Russian pop star with dreams of becoming an American, and Mr. Smith was an agent looking for the next big thing. With Calloway’s help they faked a whirlwind romance and were now ready to record an album together.

  Luckily for us, the security guard at the venue didn’t mention a peep to Calloway about the paparazzi, and she decided to use us exclusively for her clients weddings.

  Isn’t love grand?

  When I saw the bakers pull the cookies from the oven the second time, I left the office to inspect them. They looked perfectly golden around the edges while the top remained gooey and pliable. Bless their hearts, the cookies were perfect.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for the batch of burnt croissants peeking out of the trash. I chastised myself. For the first time in my bakery life, I had lost my mojo. It wasn’t just burnt croissants either. Every time I touched flour and sugar, something bad happened.

  Thank goodness I had a kitchen crew to do the real baking.

  Sarah was right though, this was what we had always wanted. Our bakery was thriving. We had hundreds of customers showing up and cleaning out our bakery case every day. I had more wedding cake orders than I knew what to do with.

  Ruby’s had finally arrived on the scene and was making a killing.

  So why did I still feel like shit?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jax

  I’ve never liked the paparazzi, but after everything that happened, I was determined to start using them instead of letting them use me.

  I stepped out of the limo, back in Los Angeles, to the wrap party for Dark Night. The flashes from the cameras, as usual, nearly blinded me. As I walked down the red carpet, people called my name from all angles. Some were fans, some were costars coming to say hello, but most of them were from the paparazzi trying to get the best shot.

  Fuckers.

  As per my contract, I stopped and engaged with a few that I knew personally so I didn’t get reprimanded by my agent. But the second I saw my opening, I hightailed it into the venue.

  The Distillery was a high end club located right in the heart of Beverly Hills. It opened a little over a year ago and had been the inspiration behind our brewpub concept. While the Distillery served sixty dollar burgers and high end bourbons, we had planned a much more affordable menu.

  I made my way over to their mahogany bar top and ordered an old-fashioned from a hipster with a handlebar mustache. Taking my first sip, I turned and leaned against the bar.

  How long do I have to stay before I can go back to the hotel?

  I hadn’t even had the glass to my lips a second time before Alex sauntered over. She was wearing a flashy gold dress that clung to her body like Saran Wrap. She always knew how to dress for maximum press coverage.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. Since the fiasco back in Mont Clare, I had severed ties with Alex. I pulled out of Bayview Investments and moved the remainder of my things out of the shared house in L.A. I hadn’t spent time there in several years, but the time felt right to get everything out and move on.

  Unfortunately for Alex, without my name and financial backing, the bank declined to work with her to acquire the building. When I had a heart to heart with her father to apologize for letting him, he laughed. “Son, I don’t blame you at all. I would have done the same thing. She’s a spoiled brat, always has been, and always will be.”

  Damn, I loved that man.

  “Come on Jax, you knew I would be here,” Alex answered. She ordered a gin and leaned on the bar top next to me, no doubt hoping someone would take a photograph of the two of us together. Her dress was cut so low, her tits were practically on display, and she posed herself to give the maximum exposure to those around her.

  “And besides, I wanted to congratulate you on the end of your show. What do you have planned now?” Her words were friendly, but her tone dripped with contempt.

  “To be honest, I have no clue.” I had no plans on sharing any part of my life with Alex ever again.

  “Really? I heard you were up for a part in the new Gabriel movie. He won an Oscar last year, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes. The truth was, I had been offered the part but still hadn’t accepted. It would require three months in Italy, and I couldn’t bring myself to accept without at least trying to talk to Chrissy again.

  “Hollywood gossip, Alex,” I said, taking the last sip of my drink. “But that doesn’t concern you anymore.”

  “Of course,” she said with a smirk. “I’m just catching up with an old friend. Making conversation. I’m sure whatever you do, you’ll excel at. Good luck, Jax.” I gave her a curt nod just as her date, Jake, my old director friend came over and put his arm around her.

  Word on the street was, Jake had been offered a new series for cable that would net him a pretty penny. Enough pennies, in fact, to keep up with the expensive taste of a woman like Alex. He gave me a nod and escorted her into the party.

  Good luck with that train wreck, Jake.

  I did one more scan of the room before deciding to head back to the hotel. The place was filled with all the same boring people having all the same boring conversations I had heard for the last six years. Getting away from it for a while sounded very appealing.

  Mentally, I was exhausted. I hadn’t felt like partying, or doing much of anything since Chrissy. More than anything else, I just wanted to be home in bed where I could mourn our relationship without the cameras around.

  Texting my driver, I told him to meet me out front in ten. I knew I would have to do one last round with the press before escaping.

  Just like my entrance, people from all directions were shouting my name, trying to get my attention. I decided to spend the wait talking with a group of teenage girls. They all wore Drake t-shirts, and held up posters of my face. How could I not? As soon as they saw me coming, their screams turned to giggles and smiles. I would much rather talk to fans than a gossip columnist anyway.

  “Hi ladies,” I said. “Can I sign some autographs?”

  They practically screamed in unison when I approached them.

  “Oh my God, oh my God! Drake is literally right here!” One of them yelled. “Can we get a selfie, Mr. Ja
xon?”

  I smiled. “Of course ladies, anything for my fans.” They squealed again in unison. I posed next to each one, smiling my evil Drake smile, and hamming it up for their cell phone pictures that would no doubt be splashed all over Facebook tomorrow.

  It was a girl with braces towards the back of the group that asked I had been dreading all night. “Where is your girlfriend?” She looked behind me on the red carpet, searching.

  “Chrissy? She’s back in Mont Clare.” My heart hurt at the mere mention of her name. I hoped the girls didn’t notice the tightness in my voice. “We aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

  The girls sighed in unison, pretending to be upset. No doubt they were excited about me being back on the market. As if Chrissy was the only thing holding me back from dating one of them.

  “Did she hurt you?” One of the girls asked. She was a heavy set girl with winged eyeliner and glitter all over her eyelids. There was no way she was a day over seventeen.

  “Hurt me?” For a moment I almost said no. No, she didn’t hurt me, but that would have been a huge lie. So instead, I told the truth.

  “I’m hurting, but it’s one hundred percent my fault. I screwed up and being in the public eye is hard. I love her very much and would do anything to get her back.”

  The girls swooned, and my ride was here, so I said good bye, and headed to the limo. Just before the driver opened the door, a reporter caught my attention. She was younger, and a little overwhelmed to be a part of the crowd. She was holding out a microphone towards me while trying not to get trampled by the chaos.

  “Mr. Jaxon, where is your date tonight?”

  “Chrissy is back in Mont Clare running her bakery, Ruby’s.”

  “That’s too bad she couldn’t make it. Do you plan on going back to Louisiana or will she be coming to L.A.?”

  “To be honest, we aren’t together anymore, but I wish her the best of luck. Running her bakery is tough work, but she’s the best at what she does and I wish her well.” I was trying my best to make a clean break without anymore questions, but this reporter got me one last time.

  “So are you telling us you’re back on the market?”

  I hated that phrase. I wasn’t a prize pig, I was just a guy on a T.V. show. “Um, yeah I guess, but I have no plans to date for a long time. I loved Chrissy, and this one is going to take a while to heal. Maybe forever.” Before she had a chance to ask anything else, I slammed the door in her face and tuned everything out.

  The driver didn’t speak and thankfully left me in silence as he drove me back to the hotel.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chrissy

  “Listen, no more burned croissants, okay? Timers exist for a reason,” I said before walking out of the kitchen. I hated feeling like a jerk and being one of those chefs who freak out all the time. But what the hell? Croissants should never die a death by fire in my bakery oven. Especially with how much love goes into folding all those buttery layers.

  You’re just as bad as they are, I chided myself.

  Glancing around the corner, Ruby’s was packed again. So many people were buying anything they could get their grubby little hands on. I imagine I could probably unload the burnt croissants to some innocent tourist and pass them off as the new trend.

  I couldn’t figure out why they were we so busy. What exactly happened between last night and this morning? The phone had been ringing off the hook all day, and the cafe line was down the block.

  Twice since open, we had to close for an hour to refill the pastry case. Luckily, I made the decision early on to stock up on frozen cookie dough balls. In the event of a buyout emergency, fresh cookies were never more than eight minutes away.

  Thank god for two hundred quart Hobarts and cookie depositors.

  Sarah came back into the kitchen and eyed me. She knew when I was grumpy, and today had been particularly bad. I had over mixed my muffin batter and screamed at the bakers. When she caught some of them conspiring against me in the dry goods closet, she took pity and sent everyone on break.

  “But I’ll still fire the next person who burns one of my babies,” I shouted after them. Kenneth flinched.

  Sarah grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the office. Since the record breaking sales days, we had decided to add a third chair for Tiffany and promoted her to manager.

  “Have you seen the news today?” Sarah asked.

  “No. Why are gremlins overtaking the city?” Like a child, I sulked in my chair, not caring about anything or anyone.

  “No.” She pulled out her phone and started searching. “There’s a reason so many people are in today and why we’ve had all the phone orders. Jax talked about you at his wrap party in L.A. He name dropped Ruby’s and how we are the best bakery in the world.”

  Hearing his name again, my heart skipped a beat in my chest. When she found the clip she was looking for, she cranked the volume.

  There he was, Jeffrey Jaxon, looking very dapper in his tux. He was smiling while a reporter questioned him, but the smile never reached his eyes. The man was an exceptional actor, but not talented enough to hide that pain. When they asked about me, he gave a huge plug for Ruby’s.

  Bless his heart.

  After his limo drove away, they cut to a small clip of some Drake fangirls gushing over their meeting. They chatty, as teenage girls usually are, but when it came to the subject of me, they quieted down. “He talked about his ex girlfriend the entire time. He looked so hurt, like a lost puppy,” a girl with braces said.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. “I feel sick.”

  “This is huge, Chrissy. We took a call from Japan this morning asking for a shipment of cinnamon rolls. That’s absolutely insane.”

  “Totally bonkers,” I said, staring at Tiffany’s contribution to our office decor. It was a poster of a kitten hanging on to a tree branch that said, Hang in there.

  I hoped if I concentrated hard enough, I could hold back the tears.

  “Are you sure you never want to see him again? He looks like shit, Chris.”

  “Ugh!” I pounded my fist on the desk before standing up. “I know he looks like shit. I’m glad! He almost ruined this for us. He almost killed our fucking bakery.”

  “I know. But he didn’t. He said he loved you.” Sarah was handling me with kid gloves, very different from her usual tone.

  “I know you told me.” I was losing steam. I wanted to find my new bakers and continue yelling at them instead of dealing with my feelings like a rational adult.

  “Do you love him?”

  I stared at Sarah for a moment, my heart pounding in my ears.

  “Of course I love him. Or loved him. I’m not sure how to think or feel right now.”

  “Chrissy, he fucked up, but he’s a good man. And you were so happy with him. So he made a mistake? So what? We all do, just look at the over mixed muffins…”

  “Do you really want me to go beg forgiveness from Jeffrey fucking Jaxon because business is good right now?” Turning my back to her, I closed my eyes.

  “No, I want you to go beg forgiveness because you love him and because you are miserable without him. You can’t even get through a simple recipe without screwing everything up. The Chrissy I know is a great and patient teacher, not someone who yells at the staff. That’s not you.”

  She finally got to me. I sat down on my chair again, dropped my head into my hands, and sobbed. Sarah noticed the bakers coming back from their break and closed the door so they wouldn’t see my shame.

  “It’s okay,” she said. She wrapped her arms around me and held me while I cried big, ugly tears. “I still love you. But you need to get your shit together. I don’t care about the money or the bakery, I just care about you. And he made you happy.”

  “I know,” I choked between sobs. “But what if he doesn’t want me back? What if he’s moved on?”

  “He hasn’t.” She showed me his face on her phone again. He looked like a broken man. “You saw the video. He looks like
shit and he’s still talking about you a month later. I think you know that though.”

  I wiped my eyes and tried to fix the mascara that threatened to make me look like a rabid raccoon. “How do I get him back?”

  “Just go to him. Explain how you were scared.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to put on your big girl panties and try. Seriously. If you don’t, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life.” She left me alone to contemplate my choices.

  She was right, the past month had been hell. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t bake, and everywhere I looked I was reminded of him. I couldn’t even zone out and watch mindless T.V. at night because I would always come across commercials for his show.

  God damn it, why did he have to be such a good guy?

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jax

  “When do you leave for Italy?” Melody asked. She was carrying a box with the last of her personal possessions cleaned from her trailer. For someone who spent six years here, she did not accumulate as much as the rest of it. From what I could see, all she had in her box were a few Polaroids and a scarf.

  When I opened the trailer door to let her in, she dropped the box to the ground as if it were trash, and stepped inside.

  “Not until late next week,” I said. “Hope there was nothing breakable in that box.”

  Dismissing the box, she climbed the stairs and went on. “I’m happy for you, Jax. You deserve it. Word on the street is no studio will touch me after the wrap party incident.”

  I nodded in agreement. Melody had come a long way in the weeks following the wrap party. Word on the street was she smashed a bottle of champagne over the club owner’s skull when he asked her where her panties were. Apparently, she had neglected to wear them, and some very unflattering photos made it to the internet.

  It all ended great though. Her agent forced her into rehab, and she was back to her old, clean self. They labeled it as a mental health break because of on set stress, but those of us that worked with her knew what went down.