Heartbreak Cake (19 page)

“Steady, steady,” I chant.

Pursing my lips, I bend at the knees and move the cake forward with a gentle push of my right thigh as I slowly set it down. Just as the box touches the steel of the van floor, the door is yanked open behind me, startling me, and I stumble back, cake in hand, and I stop it from toppling over with my face.

The miniature bride and groom made out of sugar has fallen to the floor and is shattered, but the cake itself remains intact, nothing a few cosmetic, fixes Pedro and I can’t handle.

Whew.

“Indira!” I hear Josh’s voice say. Through a veil of buttercream I see him dressed in a tuxedo and beaming. “Thank you so much for making our wedding cake. It’s beautiful. Isn’t it darling?” He turns to Valentina who stands next to him in a tight wedding dress showing off her curves and holding a baby with a knitted blue hat.

“
Si amore
,” she says dramatically and moves forward to give me a double kiss on both of my cheeks.

The cake suddenly feels like a pound of bricks in my hands. I am beginning to lose my grip on the box that is now crumpling from the mix of sweaty palms and frosting.

I shift my weight hoping to save the cake, but there’s no stopping it. My grip slips.

“You’re such a good friend,” Josh says as I dive to the floor still trying to save the cake. It’s then that I notice the gold band around his wedding finger.

“I tried to hold on as long as I could,” I say out loud just as the cake splatters to the floor.

***

I wake with a gasp.

“Oh thank God.” I look around my room that’s beginning to turn a soft shade of yellow as the sun starts to peek out. I’m usually up before the sun, not with it, but since I’ve been working from home the last week, I can see how people can get used to sleeping in, which in my world is 7 a.m.

I snuggle deeper into my soft sheets and move closer to a shirtless Noah and take comfort in the sound of his quiet breathing and Norma’s content purr. She seems to have found the best seat in the house, right up against Noah’s chest, and she looks very pleased with herself.

Who can blame her? Noah’s long lean body dominates my queen size bed, and I take a brief moment to appreciate the fact that I have an incredibly sexy man—who’s covered in a few different tattoos, including the darling little peach one that I now notice has a leaf sticking out of the stem with the letter “T” on it.

We stumbled back to my apartment last night, giddy with booze and bad karaoke, and drank water, took a couple of aspirins, put on some pajamas and lay in my bed. We held hands, hooked our pinky fingers together, and fell asleep.

It’s a whole new way to party when you’re over 35.

I’m not going back to sleep. Might as well get up and start thinking about breakfast. Tying my robe around my waist and sliding on a pair of slipper socks, I head toward the kitchen to get coffee started. What is it that you make an award winning chef? It’s fall, so maybe pumpkin pancakes? Cinnamon toast? A spinach frittata? Maybe, he’s a bacon man. Wait a minute. That’s silly…of course he’s a bacon man.

Turning on the oven, I take out a bag of frozen blueberry muffins and set them on a cookie tray while I preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Pressing the brew button on the coffeemaker, I wait patiently for the gurgle of the machine to start.

Noah is my first overnight guest here. No one, not even Josh, has slept here, which is sad, now that I think about it. No wonder I feel so strange having someone in my world.

No one has been invited to be here because I always knew there would be too many questions about the shrine of a life that didn’t actually belong to me. The couple smiling in the framed photo sitting on my nightstand, the children’s books stacked underneath my romance novels and the pictures of all of us scattered all over the house. It was the apartment of a woman with a family, but a family that doesn’t exist. Not anymore.

I finally boxed everything and put it away in my garage. The only thing I allowed myself to keep was the photo of my first day at Crystal Cove, the one with all of us smiling into the camera completely unaware of how we would inevitably change each other’s lives years later.

I slide the cookie sheet with the muffins into the heated oven and pour myself a cup of coffee, splash in some creamer, and stir absently with a spoon while I stare out my kitchen window and watch the world come alive.

Having someone else in the house can feel exciting and intrusive at the same time. It’s the Murphy’s Law of singledom. You are always in search of love and relationships, but when you finally meet someone you’re willing to spend time with, let alone wake up to, you miss the safety of your solitude. Or the ability to eat peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon or use the restroom with the door open. It’s just one of those things.

Being with Josh the last year was lonely. I spent a lot of time in a state of longing. Hoping, wishing that he would just give me what I wanted. What I thought he wanted?

“What is that heavenly scent?”

“Oh that? Just my wild blueberry muffins.” I bat my eyelashes coyly at Noah who stands in my kitchen barefoot, shirtless, wearing glasses, and with a serious case of bed head.

“Did you get up and bake for me?” Noah looks pleased and takes a seat at the kitchen table as I set him up with a cup of coffee and check on the muffins that are warm and nearly ready to eat.

He takes my hand, gives it a thank you squeeze, and my heart skips a beat at his gentle confidence.

“I have to leave to go check on a few things at the bakery soon, but I’m thinking…omelet?” I take out a box of eggs from the refrigerator and a pouch of Maplewood bacon.

“I don’t suggest making me breakfast,” he says.

“Why not? I know you’re the king of gourmet breakfasts, but you do know that I went to culinary school? I used to make Crystal Cove’s cinnamon rolls that were nominated ‘best buns’ in Orange County.”

“I don’t think they were talking about your cinnamon rolls.” Noah wiggles his eyebrows at me and gives me a lascivious leer. “While I have no doubt in your buns, I need to warn you that cooking for me would be a tragedy for us. I’ll watch you salt everything, count the number of times you whisk an egg. If you cook bacon more than I think you should, I won’t stop talking about it, ever. I’d rather you not know this about me yet.”

“You’re a control freak?”

“Isn’t every chef?”

I pause and think about how I hover and blatantly cringe over anyone new in my kitchen, noticing every wrong move I think they’re making versus looking at what they’re doing right.

“You may have a point, shall we venture out?”

“There’s that place, Coffeepot Cantina. They always have a line out the door, and I’m intrigued.”

“It’s no Peach Keeper, but you may love their coffeecake pancakes,” I say. The memory of Eloise, Josh, and I eating at our favorite booth flashes in my mind. I let the memory linger, but then come back to the present, which isn’t too bad. “You will love it. It’s charming with a capital C.”

I pull the muffins out from the oven and place one on a plate.

“No one can resist my blueberry muffins,” I announce as I set it down in front of him.

Noah tugs me back to him and sits me securely onto his lap, like a kid asking Santa for a new bike. I suddenly feel ridiculously shy being this close to him, who in my world is nearly naked.

“Thank you for respecting and resisting my body last night,” he says seriously while I giggle under his stare.

“You’re very welcome. I don’t remember much except for the fact that I tried to get you to put on my jammies with the feet.”

“I’m very secure in my manhood. Had they fit, I would have proudly worn them.”

“I know. I like that about you.” I pull on a tendril of hair.

“It was nice waking up to your cat. She’s a snuggler.” Noah nuzzles his chin against my cheek.

“She loves men with glasses.”

“Does she? What about her owner?”

I blush. “I have a soft spot for men who look like they like to read and vote.”

“In case you’re taking notes, I do both.”

“I had a feeling you would.”

“I think we need a redo of last night, minus passing out, and maybe ending it with a good night kiss.”

Noah leans in and pulls my waist tighter toward him. I curve against him, his shoulders a perfect nook for my head to lean on.

“Good night, Indira.”

Chapter 16

Cancelled.

Sitting at my desk at Cake Pan, I stare at six invoices all stamped CANCEL in bright red print. A stamp I bought at the office supply store to be ironic. I never thought we’d actually use it. Until today.

Pedro didn’t say a word to me when I walked in from breakfast with Noah. I gave him a happy wave, and he nodded back, which was good enough for me. I could still feel the firm imprint of Noah’s lips on mine, and it made me feel young and carefree. I wanted to snap my fingers in the air and announce, “I still got it!” to anyone who would listen to the crazy lady with a spring in her step.

But there was something about the way Pedro looked that made me turn around one last time before I went into my office, and it was then that I caught him whispering to Amanda, his assistant. His face was scrunched up with worry while she bobbed her head in agreement.

“Pedro? Is there something we need to talk about?”

He sighed heavily, grabbed a stack of papers from the kitchen counter, crooked his finger toward me, and pointed to the office.

“Should I close the door?” I asked nervously, knowing a closed door is a red flag for a conversation I am not going to be happy having.

“Yes please. We’ve had a few cancellations this morning.” He set the stack on my desk and panic draped me like a cloak as I sat down to stare at the invoices, trying not to hate myself. I did this. We went from being on top of our game to being here. But why? Does Valentina and Samantha really have this much pull?

“All but two of our November weddings have been cancelled,” Pedro said like a strong solider as I leafed through the invoices.

“Diane just called and said she’s going with someone else now.”

“No! I loved her and her sweet little molten chocolate cake idea,” I cried out and lay my head on the desk. “I don’t know how to stop this, Pedro.”

“We’re going to be fine for a few months. Stephanie didn’t change our pay, even though she gave Crystal Cove the wedding cake. We are still getting that big paycheck, and we’ve been smart about keeping our costs low, even while we made a lot of extra wedding money for the last six months. So, we have a decent cushion. For now.”

“Well, at least not all is lost. But why today? Did something happen in our
Good Morning Los Angeles
segment? Please don’t tell me they got a camera shot of Samantha and her sign?” I covered my eyes with my hands and moaned, thinking of her homemade hate sign.

“Can you handle more bad news?” Pedro gingerly asked me.

“Just spill it. I’ve got my coffee, a chocolate muffin, and a prescription for Xanax, if necessary.”

Pedro leaned over me and typed in weddingbelles.com on my computer keyboard and the website popped up on my screen. The Los Angeles wedding blog is run by notorious mean girls Jessica and Nina, two Southern girls who found a niche in writing about weddings in the same catty way
TMZ
writes about celebrity gossip.

“Read this.”

Pedro hit the enter key and a picture of Stephanie Hemsley and Travis Wright popped up. Both of them looked dewy, gorgeous, and incredibly wealthy. But the title of the post accompanying their photo was much less attractive.

Cake Pan Bakery takes a backseat to Crystal Cove as
rumors circulate of pastry chef’s indiscretion.

Indira Aguilar and Pedro Sanchez, owners of boutique bakery, Cake Pan, catapulted into the indie wedding scene with their rustic, down-home sweets that rival the throwing of the bouquet. They had the sweetest recipe for success, but rumors are flying that pastry chef Indira Aguilar may have been caught canoodling with a married man! Uh oh! Looks like Indira likes to take her work home with her, and we don’t mean cake. Wink, wink! Cake Pan has