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“And thanks! It’s the first time I’ve worn one out.” I flushed and tapped the toes of my matching boots on the floor.
There was some sharp clapping from the front of the room, and Ms. Dubufett smiled around at us. “All right, mes jolies. Make your orange roses for your Halloween loves!” She hopped off her stool and ambled toward the tables closest to her.
Morgan squealed and picked up her icing bag, dragging a cupcake directly in front of herself from our shared plate. “How was it?” she asked with a sympathetic frown.
“Scary.” I shrugged. “But mostly okay. No one was mean to me.”
“I thought the dresses were a bit of a bedroom game,” she said, dabbing a blob of icing onto her cupcake. We really should’ve been listening to directions instead of gossiping.
“They started out that way, but... I kind of love it?” I crinkled my nose in her direction.
She hugged me, wrapping both arms around my waist, and I laughed as she got a dribble of icing on my sweater. I grabbed a napkin and dabbed the mess off as best as I could. After that, I got down to the important business of trying to make an orange rose on my cupcake. I squeezed the bag and the pretty design squirted from the tip, but nothing I did made a rose, just a lumpy pile of icing.
“This isn’t right,” I said with a laugh.
Morgan pouted at her cupcake. She had streaks of icing sticking straight up in the air because she’d dabbed and pulled it. “Mine looks like a weird weed.”
We snickered together, and I bumped my hip against hers.
Ms. Dubufett wandered over and she rested her hands on the table. She was a dainty woman wrapped up in a black dress and cardigan, and her round, pink-framed glasses made her about the most adorable elderly woman I’d ever seen. With a tiny huff, she snatched our cupcakes, then replaced them with new ones from our plate.
“Try again, friends,” she singsonged. “Nice outfits. Very sharp. Next time, we pay attention, maybe, hmm?” She winked at us and meandered to another table, and Morgan and I laughed.
I couldn’t wait to take these home for Colt to taste. I’d never been so excited in my life. No matter what they ended up looking like, I knew the flavors were all good, and he would love it. Happiness bubbled in my chest.
About two hours later, I carefully parked my Porsche in front of the walkway that led up to the front door. Colt had told me to simply park there—something he’d never let my mom do—because he didn’t want me walking around in the dark from the garage. It was silly but protective, and I’d decided to indulge him because I was also kind of lazy. I grabbed my pink messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder, then picked up the white box of cupcakes that I’d made tonight.
With a grin, I settled the box on my lap before digging my new tube of lipstick out of my bag. The color name was Smitten Rose, and it was a golden pink that matched the new paint job on my car. Colt had surprised me with the change last weekend—I’d thought that he’d forgotten about my list of demands from when we’d first gotten together—and I loved it. I knew Colt wanted me to have a car this particular shade of pink because he thought it was more “classic feminine” than anything brighter that I might’ve picked out, but I was starting to enjoy letting him have his way. He’d been so happy when he’d brought me out to show me the transformation. He’d clearly been looking for my smile, and I was learning to treasure the times I got one out of him, too.
The thank-you I’d given him had been followed up by the longest blowjob I’d ever handed out in my entire life.
I smacked my lips and checked my handiwork in the rearview mirror. “Looking good,” I said, tapping my toes against the floor of the car. I put away my lipstick, then grabbed the box, but as I was looking through the clear plastic top at the cupcakes, sadness tugged at my excitement. Mom would’ve loved these cupcakes. I set the box back down and took my phone out of my bag.
I’d contacted all her friends that I knew in the city last week, and they still hadn’t heard from her. I hadn’t been expecting much, though. When she moved on to a new life, her old one was finished. It was like she died to the people who’d known her, and now, for some reason, I was one of those left behind.
I tucked my phone away, then studied my attempt at decorating cupcakes again and grinned. Well, she’d moved on, and hopefully that was good for her because for once in my life, I was finally starting to feel as if I belonged somewhere.
Flinging open the car door, I took a deep breath of the crisp night air as it chased across my exposed legs and gave me a shiver. I hopped out and rushed toward the door. The front porch light was on, waiting for me, because Colt knew I would be out tonight. We weren’t really married—I wasn’t deluded enough that I didn’t remember he was still legally attached to my mother—but he treated me with respect I hadn’t thought I would get.
He worried about me coming home in the dark. My heart swelled and I bit the corner of my lip, then stopped when I tasted lipstick. As I shoved open the door, I paused. “Colt! Where are you? I brought you dessert!”
“The den,” he called out, and his tone sounded happy. “What kind?”
“The good kind!” I shouted, something I wouldn’t have ever thought to do before recently. We were having fun. “How was dinner with your business people?” I belted out my words until I made it through the doorway of his den.
“Good. Derek doesn’t take us to shitty places,” he said with a grin.
God, he looked powerful in a suit. Heat slammed my stomach. Laugh lines crinkled around his eyes and made him look friendly. His desk chair was big—if I sat on it, it would be like a love seat—but it cradled his muscles. He leaned back and rested his hands on the arms.
“Nothing is as good as food made for me by my smoking hot wife, though.” He shot me a shark’s smile that had my dick twitching.
I dumped my bag on the floor, not paying attention to where it landed, and almost flung myself into his arms. He snagged me around the waist and dragged me onto his lap. I felt ridiculously proud as I showed him my box of baked goods. He growled and glanced down my body as I wriggled and got comfortable.
“Did you go out this way?” he asked, and at first, I was confused about what he meant, but he touched a hand to my bare knee, then brushed his finger along my bottom lip.
All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure I should’ve done this. I was much more worried about Colt’s reaction than random strangers. “I did,” I said, not figuring there was a good way to lie about it now. “Morgan told me I looked nice.”
He ran his hand along my thigh and squeezed. “My wife is very pretty.”
