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She sucked her teeth. “See that you do.”
∞∞∞
Tessa placed the last apple cupcake in the case, careful not to touch the swirl of cream cheese frosting on top, and took stock of the nearly empty display. Her next batch of donut dough had just finished rising, so at two minutes per side for frying, plus a few minutes to cool, then decorating—she ran through the calculations in her head. It would be fifteen minutes at least before they had more donuts for the case, and that was if she went easy on the decoration and didn’t stop to breathe.
“When did we run out of pear tarts?” she asked Kyla, who was working as fast as she could to grab items for the never-ending line of customers.
Tessa had diverted all of her staff—all four of them, that is—to the front of house to help run the register and serve customers when the line was still out the door by their second hour of operation, leaving her alone in the kitchen. But the volume would die down any minute now—it had to. They’d been open for four hours and she couldn’t restock the cases fast enough.
“What was that?” Kyla asked, before handing a box of cheesecake bars to the man at the register with a frazzled “thank you!”
“The pear tarts. How long have they been sold out?” Tessa repeated.
“Only a few minutes. Pastor Davis’ wife bought the last half dozen for a dinner party they’re throwing tonight.” Kyla boxed up two of the apple cupcakes Tessa had just brought out and slid them across the counter. “Thanks so much for coming!”
“Shit,” Tessa mumbled under her breath.
She glanced around the crowded space, every table occupied by happily chattering customers, a line so long it wound around the room, and Kyla and the rest of the team moving so quickly they were red-faced and sweating. Half the eyes in that line had turned to watch her when she’d emerged from the kitchen, her hair a frizzy mess of a knot at the back of her head. Not exactly the picture of calm professionalism she had planned to present on her first outing.
She felt those eyes boring into her, each one judging her. ‘She couldn’t even bake enough cupcakes on her first day,’ they’d say, and, ‘Are you really surprised? After all, she is Steph Cordeiro’s kid and that girl didn’t even graduate from high school,’ and, ‘This Swiss roll is nothing like her grandmother’s.’
“Are there any more sangria cupcakes?” Kyla asked.
“They’re still in the oven,” Tessa replied, her eyes darting around the near-empty displays and cake stands as panic began to simmer in her stomach.
We’re going to run out of product. Why didn’t I make more ahead of time? Why didn’t I hire more help?
Why the fuck is half of Aster Bay starving for baked goods all of a sudden? Are they really that eager to point and laugh at my failure?
Oh, God, this is just like Vegas all over again.
That stupid picture had gone viral and suddenly Marisa Sinclair’s bakery had been overrun, the crowd clamoring for her bananas foster quickly turning into strings of nasty comments on the bakery’s social media, the phone ringing off the hook with people who wanted to be sure her boss knew that they didn’t think there was anything special about her goat cheese ice cream and granola crumble. All while Marisa Sinclair watched her thriving bakery gain a reputation as “that banana place.” Tessa hadn’t needed to be told it was time to leave—she’d seen it in her boss’ face.
“Tessa! ETA?” Kyla asked, clearly for the second or third time.
“Thirty minutes,” she said, shaking off the memories.
“And the donuts?” Kyla asked.
“Fifteen minutes!” Tessa said, turning to head back into the kitchen, hugging the now-empty sheet pan to her chest.
She pushed through the doors to the kitchen and dropped the pan onto the metal workstation, the clatter echoing like laughter. She squeezed her eyes shut and ran her hands over her face, releasing a strangled scream behind her closed lips.
No time for the pity party. Get to work.
First things first. She grabbed one of the myriad colors of dry erase marker in the cup affixed to the wall and began scribbling a new prep list: fry the donuts; while they’re draining, get the cupcakes out and cooling in the pan; poach more pears for the tart (the chocolate cream is already setting in the shells); cupcakes into the freezer; glaze and fill the donuts; make more of the vanilla mascarpone whipped cream for the tarts; frost the cupcakes; assemble the tarts—shit, she’d also need to cut up more fruit to decorate the cupcakes, and run the finished product back out to the display cases. She started adding in more items, arrows pointing to their proper place in the order. There wasn’t a minute to waste, not when her entire staff were out front manning the counter and she’d hardly had time to train Kyla on the intricate assembly of the desserts anyway.
Why had she insisted on such a large menu for opening day? Hadn’t Marisa taught her to always start small and grow?
This is what happens when you try to show off.
She dropped the marker back in its holder and spun around just as the kitchen door swung open and Jamie stepped inside. “Hey, it’s a madhouse out there,” he said.
She was so damn relieved to see him until she remembered that relief wasn’t an appropriate emotion. What was the appropriate emotion to have when she saw Jamie? She didn’t know and she sure as hell didn’t have time to figure it out just then.
She pulled the donuts out of the proofing box and unwrapped the first tray. “Kinda busy here, Jamie. Whatever it is you wanted to talk about, can we do it later?”
When she glanced up, he’d wandered over to her scribbled prep list, a deep furrow forming between his brows as she scanned the list. With a grunt, he set the small box in his hands down on the empty workstation by the door and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. It was a testament to how frazzled she was that she only paused for a fraction of a second to appreciate the view of his muscled forearms.
