I put her on speaker and went into the bathroom to scrape off my makeup. “How’s Sweet Dreams going?”
“Splendid. I haven’t even noticed you’re gone yet.”
I chuckled while struggling with the fake eyelashes. I eventually got them off, and one of them landed on the mirror. “How’s Kinsley handling everything?”
Kinsley was Willa’s friend, who recently moved to Humptulips and was helping with the bakery while I was away. She was brilliant with numbers, something Willa was not. They made a great team, and I was glad Willa had someone to rein her in when she thought our small town needed more green bubblegum-flavored cupcakes.
It didn’t.
We sold a whopping total of three out of the fifty she’d made.
“She’s awesome. Even though she still won’t let me order the pink glitter T-shirts. And they’d make such great uniforms.”
I scrubbed my cheeks, the cotton pad coming away with more foundation than I had owned in my life. “No new uniforms. We talked about this.”
She mumbled incoherently before responding. “Fine. Then what about introducing lemonade cupcakes? I found a great recipe in your secret stash.”
Before I left for LA, I shared my recipe stash with Willa, and I was happy to know she’d been going through it. “Nowthatsounds much better. Go for it. But make sure not to use too much lemonade. And it’s less sugar than in a normal recipe, since the lemonade makes them sweet already.”
“I know, I know. But let’s talk about something else. Like how my amazing husband woke me up this morning and—”
“Please stop talking,” I yelled, interrupting her. Willa liked to tell everyone how amazing her husband was—which was true—and also liked to go into detail. Which was way too much information, especially since she was my niece. Besides, I had a reason for calling her, and that was to tell the one person in the world who was always in my corner what happened today. “Grayson is here.”
“Grayson? As inGrayson, Grayson?”
“The one and only.”
“Please tell me you didn’t run the other way like you tend to do and at least spat on his perfectly polished shoes?”
I attacked my eye makeup next. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“Of course you didn’t. You would never do anything to hurt your precious Grayson. No matter if he’s a stupid jackass.”
“Language,” I admonished. “And I had words with him. I told him to go to hell.”
She snorted. “Whoa there. They might arrest you for public nuisance, you little devil. You can swap arrest stories with Kinsley.”
The evil witch broke out in laughter at her joke, and I continued making my face look like, well, my face again.
“As much as I enjoy listening to you amuse yourself, I need to go. Early start for me tomorrow.”
Even though it wasn’t as early as I was used to, I seemed to be more tired at the end of the day. I guess all the standing around trying not to grimace had taken its toll.
“Fine. I have to go anyway, since Jameson mentioned something about ice cream and chocolate sauce once I finished my phone call. I have a feeling he’s going to—”
“Love you. Call you tomorrow,” I cut her off again.
“Why does nobody let me finish my sentences anymore?” she muttered under her breath. “Love you too. Kick Grayson in the balls for me.”
Before I had a chance to respond, she’d hung up.
Feeling better after talking to Willa, I got in the shower before collapsing on the bed and falling into a deep sleep.
Four
“Okay, so everyone clear on what to do?”
Mae raised her hand, and the assistant sighed. We’d been at it for a few hours already, and everyone was getting a little touchy.
