The door slammed shut behind me and all three of them jumped. While the two guys offered slight smiles, Izumi’s grin lit up the room. She moved faster than I could blink, appearing right in my path, and I had to fight the instinctive surge of magic that came to my hands. I’d have to have a talk with her later about the excessive use of her abilities, but for now, I was grateful to see the cheerful teen. She brought an abundance of energy that came in handy in a shop as busy as ours.
“Ms. Sutton—er, Lexi,” she corrected herself—I’d been adamant about the lack of formalities, though Lucifer still held to them with the new crew. “Mr. Rivers was showing us how to make your shortbread cookies.”
“Oh,” I gasped. “I almost forgot that the Christmas menu goes up next week.”
Lucifer handed the tray off to Kameron, who slid it into the center oven, and turned to wash his hands. “I finalized the menu just this morning, if you’d like to review the other recipes with them before the dessert rush.”
I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms. “You finalized it without me?”
He shrugged and gave me an infuriatingly sexy smile. “You’ve been busy getting these two trained up on the current menu. And besides, we tested most of the recipes together already.”
“I’d love to learn the Christmas stuff!” Izumi—or Zoomy, as Kameron and I had taken to calling her—practically vibrated off the floor. “It’s my favorite time of year! Even though we don’t really celebrate it, I love all the lights and decorations and the gift-giving. Are we going to decorate the front? Ooh, can I make some wreaths?”
“Actually, I had an idea for decorations,” I said, interrupting her speedy torrent of words. “If it’s okay with Janet, I’d like the kids from next door to make us some decorations.”
Zoomy’s eyes widened and she gasped loudly. “That’s—yes, that’s an awesome idea! They would love that!”
A frown flickered across Lucifer’s face briefly, so I added, “It might keep her off your back about repayment for a little while.”
He sighed and snatched up a dry towel. “Fine. Just not strung popcorn. It would throw off the other scents in the bakery.”
“Then you can make the request when you make today’s delivery.”
“Me?” He froze, head cocked to the side. “Why me?”
I stepped past Izumi and pressed Lucifer back a step, moving him toward the door leading to the front of the shop. “Because those kids used to see you every day before I showed up, and they miss you. We’ll start rotating regularly once everyone is brought up to speed.”
Just when I thought he’d refuse, he nodded once, a smile twitching in the corner of that kissable mouth of his. “As you wish.”
Somehow, I got the feeling that my ordering him around amused him. Knowing what I did of his history, he wasn’t the type to take orders from anyone. Maybe he was humoring me, or maybe it was a secret kink of his. Our personal time had me leaning toward the latter, though he also enjoyed being the dominant one as well.
He was an infinitely complex man.
“After this, though, I have to go.”
My heart fell into my boots and I twisted my lips to keep from pouting. “Where’re you headed today?”
“Arranging meetings with a few locals,” he replied. He tapped his finger under my chin. “You and Chloe will be the Salem coven’s emissaries when dealing with the Boston covens. All I’m doing is scouting neutral ground and arranging things through Miranda. Don’t worry, I’ll be back tonight.”
And with that, he left. Heaving a sigh, I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled it up into a secure bun, then swapped my dark purple jacket out for my white coat, making sure the Hellforged amulet was tucked and secure under my tank top. I snagged the recipes off the printer where Lucifer had left them and started reviewing them with Kam and Zoomy before we got whisked away by the dessert rush.
All in all, it was a quiet night, with the exception of Zoomy’s near-miss. She’d been attempting to juggle both food prep and the ovens and nearly blasted right through Kam as he started to rack the baked goods. Luckily, I was starting to gain some control over my magic and we managed to save the tray of cookies. This being her first real job that didn’t involve being a messenger, she was still getting used to regularly working in close proximity to other people. It also made her a bit overeager to please.
Kam, on the other hand, was in no rush. He was quiet, reserved, and unlike Zoomy and I, kept his magic reined in close. So much so that I almost missed it the first time we met. I was ecstatic to have magic users in my kitchen, though. It would’ve been a pain to have to hide it while instructing them.
By the time we closed up shop for the night, Lucifer still wasn’t back. I left Zoomy and Kam to clean up the back and walked up front, where Chloe was wiping down tables and putting up chairs. She was older than me by about two years, and I was jealous of the control she had over her witch magic.
That, and she had an awesome familiar: a bearded dragon!
Sojealous.
I leaned against the counter, trying to act casual. “Have you seen Sam in the last few hours, by any chance?”
She glanced up at me and shook her head, smiling. “No, not since he dropped off the empty food case. He was mumbling something about the kids that I didn’t quite catch, but there was gold glitter on his shirt, so I’m sure it wasn’t nice.”
I almost didn’t hear the sound of knuckles rapping on the glass door over the sound of my own laughter. Chloe rushed over to unlock the door for the hulking figure standing outside. “Hey. You here for Sam, Lexi, or Zoomy?”
Nathan nodded over her shoulder to me. “It’s Lexi, today. Think the boss would mind if you left a few minutes early?”
