“All she ever wanted was to be famous. A singer, an actress, a model. Lots of gambles that never paid off.” And nights sleeping on a stranger’s couch or hanging around outside clubs, handing out black-and-white headshots that nobody wanted.
“Your dad?” Her soft voice pulled him back into the present, and her guarded expression told him she already knew the answer.
“Not in the picture. Never met him.” And wasn’t he describing a perfectly fucked-up family scene for her? Then she surprised him.
“Hey, me too! My mom wanted a kid without the complications of a man, and then in the end, she didn’t even want the kid.”
He watched as her Josie Ryan light dimmed right in front of his eyes. Her mouth turned down, and she curled in on herself ever so slightly, as if recalling moments that made her feel small. He clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her hand. His brash new business partner didn’t need him pawing at her.
And it turned out she didn’t need comforting from him anyway. When she looked up from her laptop, her smile was back, if a little more brittle than before. “Lucky you, to have a good grandpa.”
True. Pops had been stern, but he’d also been the bedrock of Erik’s life, and it made him wonder who’d been Josie’s foundation growing up.
“So!” His interviewer was clearly ready to move on to the next topic. “Why wedding cakes?”
Safer ground, thank God. “Grandma was the woman who made the cakes for basically everybody getting married in the Liberty Valley Episcopal Church. She died when I was a baby, but I found her recipes when I was twelve and…” He made a small motion with his hand, hoping she’d get the gist. His attempts to cheer up Pops with his late wife’s desserts had grown into a profession that Pops had never fully embraced. Maybe not such safe ground after all.
“Adorable.” Josie grinned. “Got any happy customers who’d be willing to talk you up? Not happy with the Cake Shoppe, but with you?”
“Maybe.” In truth, he’d rather saw off his own finger than go begging for help, but he got what she was driving at. As a stall, he tugged the band from his wrist and gripped it between his teeth, twisting his hair high up on the back of his head. Josie made a tiny strangled sound, and he dropped his chin to look at her.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said faintly. “You just… you make that look so easy.”
“Years of practice.” What had started as a dumb stunt in high school to piss off Pops had become part of his routine over the years: up for work, down for social situations, and kept under control by extravagant doses of conditioner that never quite saved it from getting fuzzy at the height of summer humidity. As a bonus, it was available as a distraction technique when he needed it. Like now.
Her eyes followed his hands through their task of wrapping the band twice around his hair. “Nice. Show off those ears.”
It was a normal smart-ass Josie remark, but the tone was off. Breathy.Didhe have nice ears? He resisted the urge to touch the lobe closest to her.
“So anyway, about those happy customers?”
He grimaced, prepared to offer his blood type and bank account instead, when the apartment door burst open to admit a man and a woman, laughing and laden with carryout bags.
“Jos! You’re home!” The black-haired woman deposited the bags of food on the kitchen countertop, then paused when she caught sight of Erik. “And you have company.”
Josie was already on her feet. “Oh my God, you brought home Ming’s. Please tell me you ordered too much so I can steal some.” She glanced up from the bag she was investigating to make introductions. “Oh yeah, this is Erik. He’s doing Richard’s wedding cake. Erik, this is my roommate Finn and her boyfriend Tom, even though I saw him first.”
“Not true. I’ve been Finn’s for years,” Tom told Josie before turning his smile on Erik. “Welcome to the madhouse. How’d Josie manage to lure you to her lair?”
Finn smacked Tom’s shoulder. “Knock it off. Obviously Josie doesn’t lure anybody anywhere.”
“And yet that’s how I found you again,” he said, loosening his tie and pressing a kiss to her hair.
Josie walked around them with a roll of her eyes to grab glasses from the cabinet.
He watched the three of them move around the kitchen with smooth efficiency, sharing details of their respective days as they gathered plates and silverware and spread the containers of food across the table. If they thought having the wedding-cake baker in their midst was strange, they didn’t say so. He clearly wasn’t the first stray Josie had brought home.
In fact, it sounded like that’s exactly what had happened with Tom. Tom, who grinned while Erik grimaced and chatted with ease while Erik stayed mute. Were cocky men in business suits Josie’s type? That fit with everything he knew about her, which meant he was fucked.
He lurched to his feet. He wasn’t fucked, he didn’twantto be fucked, and where had that thought even come from? He wasn’t in competition with Tom, and the fact that his brain had wandered in that direction meant it was time for him to get the hell out of there. Just as he was about to force out a goodbye, Finn set a plate on the table in front of him. “I assume you’re staying for dinner?”
“No, I should—”
“He’s staying.” Josie’s command took the air out of his protest. She wanted him to stay, so he’d stay. Just like that. Plus he didn’t relish the thought of going back to his empty apartment; after years of quiet, he was slowly warming to the idea of noise.
“Okay. Thanks.” He sat back down and accepted the container that Tom handed to him.
