Chapter Four
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Long live Almond.
Poem
“He broke the guy’s nose?” my best friend, Almond, asks through my earbud. “My brother, who hasn’t so much as hurt a fly in the past three years, jumped across the bar and snapped Greg Boggs’ nose—for no reason?”
I shrug, smoothing lavender buttercream across a tall, round cake at my adorable, original 1970s kitchen counter in my adorable, original 1970s home. “I’m sure he had a reason. A stupid one. Because he’s a stupid, idiotic, moronic, dummy.”
“What in the world has gotten into him?” she mutters.
“Stupidity, idiocy, moronity, and dumminess,” I reply, ever helpful.
She snorts. “Surely he had a good reason. Fox isn’t the sort to do something just to do something.”
My brows furrow as I pull up the reference photo Wolfe—Fox’s twin and the birthday girl’s dad—sent me for the cake. Dusty blue flowers cascade down the side of the pretty purple layers on my laptop screen, broken up liberally by pale green leaves. I squint at the picture. “Do you think Amia wants these roses?” I ask. “She seems like more of a peony gal to me.”
“I think Amia is a put-whatever-frosting-flowers-you-make-her-into-her-mouth-as-soon-as-possible type of gal,” Almond answers wryly.
I hum. Perhaps she’s right. And perhaps I am going to make an executive creative decision and pipe out peonies.
Decision made, I grab one of several piping bags I prepped with frosting yesterday and laid out on the counter when I got home. Then, I get to work creating the small flowers. I may be eating leftover pizza for dinner tonight because I can’t cook to save my life, but I can bake, and I can decorate my baked creations like no other. My parents weren’t the sort to make a big deal of our birthdays growing up, so as soon as I was big enough to open the oven on my own and sly enough to filch ingredients for the confections, I was making cakes for Muse, Sonnet, and me every year. A spot of beauty in an otherwise dim home. Something to mark that we’d survived another year and gotten another year closer to getting out. They weren’t just cakes. They were symbols of a future we all wanted to see come to light.
I gotreallygood at making that future look bright.
Amia is going to have the prettiest, most delicious cake this town has ever seen.
“I see you avoiding thinking well of Fox, by the way,” Almond comments. “It’s like you don’t evenwantto be my sister. You ‘don’t find Wolfe attractive’, but Fox youdofind attractive—when, mind you,they look exactly the same because they’re freaking twins, you doofus—but you ‘can’t stand Fox’s personality.’” She sighs, long-suffering. “You hate me? That’s what this is? You want me to be sad and lonely with no sisterhood to speak of?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m pretty sureyouhatemewith the way you’re insinuating we are not already a sisterhood. What, our love isn’t strong enough to surpass something so meager as blood and legalities? You need me to marry one of your stinky brothers before you’ll accept me as your sister?” I shake my head. “Pah. I banish such thoughts. You’re my sister as truly as Muse and Sonnet are, and I’ll not have you thinking otherwise.”
“Of course we’re sisters,” she placates, groaning as she takes the knife out of my back—only to reinsert it. “I would just like to besisters, too. You know?”
“I absolutely do not know.” I sniff, carefully sliding a buttercream peony onto the side of the cake. “So not only are you hurting my feelings, but I am also confused beyond belief. I’m in shambles. Unwell. Withering away in a puddle of unloved, unsisterhooded sadness.” I gasp, all drama. “Say your lukewarm goodbyes while you still can!”
I listen carefully for the sound of her eyes rolling.
“I see you’ve chosen nonsense and ridiculousness for tonight’s avoid-talking-about-my-brother strategy,” she comments.
“Correct.” I confirm. “And I’ll thank you for letting me get away with it without more Fox talk. I see the man all day nearly every day. We couldn’t get more time together. The last thing I want is to let him invade the few precious moments I have away from him.”
She makes a quiet, regretful noise, and I wince.
“No, no, none of that,” I order. “He’s your brother, and you love him, and he did something weird today, and I was there, and I’m your bestest bestie, and you called me to talk about current events and get a firsthand account. I don’t begrudge you any of that. I’m only asking that we cease speaking on the topic going forward,notthat you bury yourself in guilt about the fact that you brought it up in the first place.”
Two beats of silence answer me, and I wait until, finally, her throat clears.
“Fine,” she allows. “I won’t be guilt-ridden. Doesn’t even sound like something I would do in the first place, to be honest. Weird you brought it up.”
Mmhm. I just bet.
“We could talk about much more interesting things instead,” I offer, giving her an out. Sort of. “Like, say, the fact that I saw Emerson Wright at the grocery store yesterday, and he asked about you.”
Almond squeaks, and I cackle.
“He wanted to know if you cut men’s hair outside of your family.” I grin as I place another peony. “He seemedreallyinterested in getting your hands in his hair. I told him you do men’s cuts and would probably give him a discount, him being a friend of the family and all.”
