“Okay,” I said. “Raise your hands again if you need a consultation for an event.” I paused, looking at the dozen or so hands in the air, and swallowed. “Keep those hands raised if you’re from out of town.” All but two kept their hands in the air. “And you all realize that we don’t do deliveries beyond twenty miles?” All the heads bobbed up and down, nodding that they understood.
“Okay, then.” I took a deep breath and moved to the front of the line to start booking the consultations. If even half of these women booked an event because of the consultations, then we would have more business this week than we’ve had in three months.
But it was the kind of business that I sure as hell didn’t want and a spotlight that I knew all too well could blind you enough to walk right off a cliff’s edge.
By eleven-thirty, we had run out of pastries. By four-thirty, we had finished our consultations for the day – on top of booking fourteen new events, we had received eight orders for “Beefcake” healthy cupcakes.
Liam and I sat at one of the circular cafe tables after locking the front door. We were exhausted. Sweaty. The cafe was filthy due to all the foot traffic. And we sat there in a complete daze, staring at each other, slack-jawed.
After a few minutes of silence, I asked. “How did this happen?”
Liam shrugged, but a smile graced his lips. “One of those bachelorettes posted that video and all hell broke loose.”
“It was a picture,” I corrected. “Not a video.”
Liam cringed and slid his phone over to me. “There’s a video, too. The picture went more viral because of the caption contest, but the video has something like 1.2 million views. She posted that you and I are ‘hotties’ who make healthy cupcakes. And that you’re an ex-Mr. Universe who delivers the cupcakes shirtless.”
I winced and buried my face in my hands. “I can’t show my face in this town again. I’ll be the laughing stock.”
It was bad enough that I left town without saying goodbye to anyone but my mom. Literally… I didn’t say goodbye to Lainey or Addy or Finn… or even Liam. I just packed a bag and left at four a.m. for the five o’clock bus to Boston. The only reason I said goodbye to Mom was because she caught me on the way out. That woman had ears like a wolf. There was no getting by her.
“To be fair,” Liam said, “I think Lainey will be the laughing stock more than you. These comments are brutal.”
I groaned and slammed my head down onto the table. Poor Lainey.
Liam’s hand fell on my good shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Don’t worry. You’re a close second.”
The difference was, Lainey was beloved by this town. Me? Not so much. All Maple Grove needed was a reason to crucify me, and they would.
“What do we do now?” I looked up at my brother who had his head buried in his phone calculator and a notebook beside him, tallying today’s earnings.
He held up his finger to me, signaling to hold on a moment. A few moments later, he looked up at me, his eyes bugging out of his head. “Holy shit,” he whispered and slid the notebook toward me.
At the bottom, a number was circled. I blinked, staring down at it. “That can’t be right,” I said, grabbing his phone and using the calculator app to redo the numbers. “That’s what we usually make in a week.”
“I know.” He raked his fingers through his hair and rested his head in his hands, a grin spreading over his face. “Do you know what this means?”
His number was correct. We made more in one day than we had in a week. I blinked and looked up at my brother, my smile slowly spreading as well. “It means we could double this by baking more. Imagine if we hadn’t sold out by eleven-thirty?”
Liam lifted out of his chair. “It means we may not lose the bakery!”
I stood as well, squeezing the back of my neck. Holy hell… could we actually do this? Could we save Mom’s bakery? I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. And as I laughed, a tear slipped down my cheek, which I abruptly wiped away with the back of my hand. Liam jumped up and down before rushing over to me and grasping me in a hug.
I swear he squeezed another tear out of me, and I hugged him back. Hard.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, stepping back. “We need to deduct expenses, too.”
“Fuck the expenses! Let’s celebrate!”
I took a deep breath. It was easy to get caught up in the excitement. The success. But the truth was, Mom’s debt was a lot. More than a lot. Unfathomable to most people—upper six figures with a second mortgage on her house sort of debt.
I sat back down at the table, pulling my own calculator app out. I added together Mom’s mortgage, the business loan, her credit card debt, as well as my own living expenses and what I estimated Liam’s to be.
Shit. All of the excitement from before plummeted. “It’s still not enough,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s still not enough.” I slid the numbers over to Liam.
“It’s enough to pay the minimum payments on everything,” Liam said.
Well, that was true. And admittedly, it was more than we had before—assuming today’s profit wasn’t just a fluke. I rubbed my brow, ignoring the low pulsing headache beginning between my eyes.
“Only if we can sustain this sort of income,” I said. “If we’re not the sort of viral one-hit wonder that dissipates quickly.”
Liam exhaled a heavy breath and swiped his hand down his face. “Well, we have to try.”
I nodded. He was right, we did. We owed it to Mom.
Liam slapped his hand onto the table. “I think we need a new logo at the very least. A Beefcakes logo and sign out front. And I’ll make us a Facebook page. Oh! And we should streamline with some sort of online ordering system—”
“What about the viral meme?” I asked, my heart heavy. It was the reason for our success, but we couldn’t just leave that image out there to continue humiliating Lainey.
His brows tightened between his eyes. “What do you mean, what about it? We capitalize on it.”
I felt my gaze harden at my brother. “You can’t be serious. We have to find a way to take it down.”
“Take it down? Are you crazy? It’s the reason people discovered us. We can’t take it down.”
“Well, we can’t just leave it up! What about Lainey?”
His smile dropped as he realized what I was worried about. “Oh, right. Lainey.” He gave me a shrug and a sheepish look. “I’m sorry, Neil. I don’t think there’s a lot we can do about it. Once a photo like that is out there, you can’t ever really erase it from the internet.”
I winced. That’s what I was afraid of. “Can we at least crop her out? Try to get a new version of the image circulating?”
Neil nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.” He glanced at his phone, then back up at me. “I want you to watch the video, though. For me.”
“Why?”
He slid his phone across the table in front of me. “Just… humor me.”
A still shot of the video was frozen on the screen as Liam leaned over to hit play. The video started, and as the girls stacked the cupcakes on my arm, I laughed and kept grinning like a fool.
“Look at you, dude,” Liam said. “You’re smiling. You’re laughing. You were actually having fun at that party… admit it.”
He wasn’t wrong. Once we got in the door and started decorating the cupcakes and teaching them how easy it was to make delicious buttercream, it was fun. But now? Knowing how hurt Lainey would be? It felt wrong to bask in it.
“Fine,” I admitted. “It was kind of fun.” It reminded me of when bodybuilding was actually sort of enjoyable for me. Before it became my life and livelihood. “But that doesn’t mean I want to be on display for the whole town to make fun of.”
“You didn’t care about being on display when you went off to compete in bodybuilding.”
“I did care, actually.” I was never comfortable being center stage. I hated the stereotypes arou
nd meatheads and how everyone assumed I was a dumb jock. I hated those contests and that so many of us were not only eating nothing but boiled chicken and eggs, but we were so dehydrated that it was common for one of us to pass out backstage. “It’s why I left.”
“But you didn’t leave until you lost your title,” Liam stated.
I swallowed hard because he wasn’t wrong. If I had won the Mr. Universe title for a fourth year in a row, would I have stayed in the business? “You didn’t seem to mind me winning Mr. Universe and competing when I was sending money home every month,” I countered.
Liam snorted and grabbed his phone and notebook, tucking them under his arm. “And now we have a chance to make our own money. To pay you back. To pay off the debt.”
“I know. And I’m not saying I won’t do this Beefcakes thing. But there are other factors to consider.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
I inhaled deeply dropping my hands hard against the table. “How this affects the town, for one thing.”
“You mean how it affects Lainey?”
“Yes! How it affects Lainey, too.” I shook my head, clamping my hands on my hips. “It’s not you they’re objectifying, Liam. It’s not your chest they’re touching and licking.”
Yeah, that’s right. They licked me.
“No, it’s not. But we can do this without you getting half naked. We can market ourselves as the more wholesome bachelorette party. We just need to try. And if you’re not willing to do that, let me know now.”
I didn’t say anything. I was willing to do it. But that didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to.
Liam shook his head when I took too long to answer. “I don’t get you. Baking was always your dream. And you love health and fitness and baking those protein cupcakes and shit. This… Beefcakes… could be your dream come true and you’re so hung up on what the town will think, you’re not stopping to consider that maybe everything you want is right within reach.” I swallowed as he made his way toward the door. He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “You were fine showing off your body when it was a stupid bodybuilding competition and now it’s too much? Jesus, Neil, you were in a Speedo on stage on national television. But sure… okay, being shirtless in an apron is too much for you.”
Liam was right that baking was a big part of my dream. I loved running this bakery with him. But somewhere along the way, I had grown to love stunt work, too. And I missed it. I missed it like I had lost a piece of myself when I hurt my shoulder and had to retire early.
“Liam,” I stopped him just as he was about to walk out. “I’m going to do it. I’m just… nervous. I left that life. I left the spotlight for a reason.”
This was for Mom. Mom. I gulped, my gaze darting back to Liam’s. “Is Mom going to be okay with us hijacking her bakery?” She’d spent a lifetime building this place. Literally. She opened the bakery with our dad before I was even born. Before our dad made four babies with her and then left her for his paralegal when I was in kindergarten and Finn was just a year old.
For the first time all day, Liam seemed concerned. Legitimately concerned. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t even think of that. I just figured she’d be so happy that the bakery had customers…” His voice faded off.
“Let’s ask her,” I said. “Tonight. Why don’t you join us for dinner? We’re grilling at my cabin.” It was my turn to cook for her. Even though she insisted she didn’t need us checking on her every night, we all still took turns. She would never admit when she needed help. The woman was infuriating that way, at times. Annoyingly independent, she hated that she was so sick that she needed her own children to care for her.
Liam nodded. “Anything I can bring?”
I shook my head no. “I’ve got dinner covered.”
Liam stared out the window, his mouth pursed tightly. “Are we going to show her the meme?”
I sighed. “I don’t think we have a choice. We’ll show her the meme. The video. And how everyone now knows her Cupcakery as…” I paused, cringing, “Beefcakes.”
Liam scrunched his face. “Now that I think of it, it sounds like we serve meat pies or something British like that.”
I shrugged. “It’s too late to change it now. That’s what went viral. That’s how people know us.” I stood up as well and lifted the chairs onto the tables. I would clean and mop later. Of course, it was just my luck that it was my turn for clean-up duty on top of having to fulfill these orders. I was more tired than I’d been in months. Weariness permeated my bones. I hadn’t had a nap in years, and I hadn’t missed a work out in even longer. But with all that was still left to do today—clean up, bake at least half of the special orders, cook Mom’s dinner… I might have to skip the gym.
Liam dropped his hand from the doorknob and started helping me with the chairs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It’ll go faster if we both clean,” he said. “The old system worked when we had a fraction of the customers.”
“Thanks, man.” I clapped him on the back, perhaps a little harder than I intended. He winced and rolled his shoulders back.
He filled the mop bucket with soap and water while I started on the dishes. “By the way,” I called over my shoulder. “If I have to be shirtless for these events… so do you.”
Liam groaned as he slopped the mop onto the floor and pushed it across the hardwood. “I guess that’s only fair.”
Hell yeah, it is.
I rushed around the town hall office with a stack of permits clutched in my arms. There was a stupid amount of stuff to do today. Mondays were always like this. Especially when I wasn’t around the weekend before. On a normal weekend, I’m usually called at least five times with work related questions. But because it was my sister’s bachelorette party, I told them to only call me if the city was burning down.
They still called twice.
Luckily, the city had not, in fact, burned down. Even still, my to-do list was now a mile long.
“Hey, Lovebug,” the mayor said as I dropped a few of the permits onto his desk.
“Dad.” I swallowed the urge to yell at my own father, who was also the mayor. “In the office, I’m not Lovebug, remember?”
He winced. “Right. Sorry, old habits die hard.”
“I know.” I smiled at him, despite my sour mood. He was my father, and to him, I’d always be his little girl. But still, I fought so hard to be known as something in this town other than Loca Lainey—the reckless teenager who used to sneak out of her bedroom window and throw wild parties behind the old Maple Grove Inn (the previous owners there were old and deaf when I was in high school, making it a prime party spot).
Even after graduating as valedictorian, I still had to fight that reputation for years. I wore tailored suits, buttoned up to my neck. I never drank unless I was at home having a glass of wine with dinner. And I’d only had one boyfriend since Neil. Brad—my ex who cheated on me, then dumped me a couple days before Christmas because I was too clueless to realize he was having an affair.
“I need you to sign these for me,” I said, sliding the permits toward my dad. “One of them is for an art walk… a sort of First Friday monthly event that the artists’ residency wants to create.”
He made a thoughtful hmm sound. “And we’ve approved this?”
“It was part of your platform in the last mayoral race.”
He slipped his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, reading the permit carefully. “Oh, right,” he said, as if he remembered. Chances were, he didn’t. Unless my mom, sister, or I told him, he barely remembered to take his daily vitamin, let alone what he promised during the campaign. “And this one?” he asked, holding up the second slip.
“Yvonne, with the animal rescue, wants to do another 5k race to raise money for the rescue.”
He scribbled his name at the bottom of that one with no questions. Dad was a big ol’ softy when it came to animals.
“And this one?” he asked, holding up the third and final permit
.
“We need to chat about that one. If not today, then tomorrow. It’s regarding that new developer who wants to buy the old mill on the outskirts of the town.” My face twisted as I said it. “He proposed plans for what he wants to do with it to get it zoned commercially… he wants to turn it into a shopping center.”
Dad’s face, on the other hand, lifted in thought. “A shopping center?”
I nodded. “Three stores to begin with. And a Starbucks.” I did my best to keep the disdain out of my voice. I had nothing against corporate stores, or Starbucks for that matter. I love a pumpkin spice latte as much as the next girl, but my loyalty had to remain with the small businesses of Maple Grove.
The fact of the matter was that I couldn’t stop a private sale. But if I could convince the city to use municipal funds to buy that land, we could do something that would benefit the town way more than a large shopping center could. Like a community center. Or… a park.
He made another thoughtful hmm sound. “Why here?”
“Because our real estate is inexpensive. We’re between a handful of the Lakes Region destinations for tourism, but we’re the smallest and the least developed.”
Dad grabbed his pen, ready to sign. Panic rose from my stomach and I slapped my hand down over the top of the proposal. I’d heard that the developer was waiting for our response to the redevelopment proposal before he buys. It made sense. What was the point of being stuck with the site if the city wasn’t going to allow it to be rezoned for retail use? “Wait,” I said. “We need to have a real meeting about this one. First, you and I need to discuss pros and cons and determine what your stance will be. And then we need another meeting with the city council. Ultimately, we might even need to put it to a town vote.”
His brows creased in the center, highlighting his wrinkles. “Why?”
“Because we want local business owners on our side. We don’t want to lose their votes. We don’t want to sink our downtown businesses for a shopping center.” I slid my hand back and my dad lifted a brow in my direction. He knew me too well. There was more to this story; I was hiding something. I gave in and sighed. “And because I think the town could pull funds together and do something even better with that property.”
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