“Oh, you smug, frosting-covered[CENSORED]! How. Could. You. You just tried to swan-dive off the counter like some suicidal pastry princess. After everything I did for you!”
A stomp of her wedge sandal punctuated every word.
“A week. A mother.[CENSORED]. week. I tempered chocolate like I was Amaury freaking Guichon. I piped rosettes until my fingers cramped into sugar-hook claws. I gave up sleep. I gave up hope.
I gave up… a date… with a guy… who owns a Ferrari!
A Ferrari, Lynnette!”
She said it like she was talking to her firstborn.
”Andforwhaaaat? So you could go full Humpty Dumpty and faceplant into the[CENSORED]tile like some Tim Burton reject on The Great British Bake Off?!”
She took a breath, eyes wild, buttercream in her curls.
”You listen to me, you gluten-laced Judas—I swear on Paul Hollywood’s silver fox head, if you so much as ooze another inch toward that floor, I will eat you. Right here. I will stab you with a fork and devour you on the floor like a gremlin who’s lost custody of her dignity.
Oh trust me, you[CENSORED]. I will drag your ganache-soaked corpse into a back alley, crouch behind a dumpster, and
shove fistfuls of your soggy bottom into my mouth whispering…”
She leaned in close to the crumbling wreckage, eyes narrowed, voice a low hiss.
”Poor choices, pastry. Poor choices.
Ace of Cakes, my censored!! You can take your whole ‘make it bigger, make it badder, make it awesome’—” She dropped her voice into a dramatic, mocking imitation. “—and shove it right up your ACE. Because look at the results!”
She flung her arms toward the ceiling in exasperation—and cake and frosting rained down from above like divine judgment.
“I’ve got frosting in places God never intended!” She gave a little shimmy, like it was stuck in her bra.
”The only dancing fingers Nancy Fuller’s gonna give you is the middle one—right in your face, you worthless, ugly, yella, no-good keister piece of[CENSORED]!”
Lynn stood there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling beneath her frosting-smeared shirt. Her hands shook—part fury, part adrenaline. She glared at the wreckage like it might still move.
“You’re lucky you’re not alive. Because if you were?” Her voice dropped to a low, dangerous murmur.
“I’d ice you and this time…”
“Lynn…”
Beth’s voice cut through the frosting fog.
Lynn turned and froze.
Beth stood in the doorway… next to Pastor Ambrose.
Both stared, slack jawed.
One hand still steadying the carnage, Lynn turned slightly, voice dropping an octave. “Oh. Heeeeyyyy there.”
She offered a small wave with her other hand, sending pieces of cake and frosting arcing gracefully from her fingertips before splattering onto the floor.
“What happened?” Beth asked cautiously.
Glancing back at the cake, Lynn accepted the reality–nothing could help it now. She turned slowly to face them, a thick glob of cake sliding off her shoulder and plopping to the floor.
“What happened? Ya see… what had happened was…” She glanced behind her at the crime scene, then back again.
