“Oh no. I will when you do. I don’t mind seeing them again.”
We had a pleasant half hour eating sandwiches and talking parties. It seemed I hadn’t managed to ruin her last fundraiser.And there was a whole lot of chatter on the internet about the party. Some of which was specifically about Augie and me.
“Why is everyone so wound up about the marking? I mean, haven’t many of them already done that themselves?”
“Oh no,” Karma said. “Not like you did. It was so romantic.”
After lunch, I left for my office because I had lots of other parties to plan. But I left with a smile on my face and a spring in my step. I’d worked a long time to get to this point, and I was ready to enjoy it.
As I was heading for the kitchen door, my phone buzzed. It was Andi.Hurry back. There are so many requests for our services.
Yep, gossip sure did travel around here.
Chapter Fourteen
Augie
I woke up later than I wanted to, hitting snooze three times and nearly a fourth. Ever since meeting Dante, I didn’t sleep well without him. We stayed together nearly every night, but there were times like this when it wasn’t practical. He had a big meeting early this morning, and I had to bake. It made more sense for each of us to sleep at our normal places. That didn’t mean I liked it.
After a few failed attempts, I dragged my sorry self out of bed and got ready for the day. As a rule, I didn’t do well without my sleep, but today was worse than normal. The mixer was too loud, the flour too heavy, and the butter too hard. Nothing was good enough. And then I put on a pot of coffee and had to pour it right down the drain, the aroma making me nauseous.
I needed to figure out a way to get enough sleep and get my mate-together time in. I knew it was going to be an adjustment from the beginning. Being mated to someone who held typical work hours when mine weren’t even a standard shift was going to be hard. There was no getting around that.
At least, that was what I was blaming my current state on. It really boiled down to mynoproblem. I couldn’t turn down spending time with my mate, no matter how much I needed to be catching up on sleep or paperwork. We really needed to discuss moving in together full time instead of this back-and-forth garbage we were doing. It wasn’t like I was avoiding the subject, either. It just hadn’t come up because this was working. Except it wasn’t. Not really.
I went about my normal routine as best I could, but every step of it made me want to put a “closed for the day” sign on the door and go back to bed. Maybe I was coming down withsomething.Please don’t let that be the case.I did not have the time for that.
By five o’clock, I realized I wasn’t going to be ready for the day, and I shot Sierra a text asking her if she could come in early. Her mate was a nurse, so, like me, she was used to unusual hours and, thankfully, was awake.
On my way, boss,she sent back almost immediately.
When she walked in, she went straight to the handwashing sink. “Got a big order today?”
“No, I just can’t get out of my own way today.” And I was hating it.
“You sick?”
I shook my head.
“Were you up too late with your mate?” She winked. Jerk.
“No. I just… I can’t sleep when he’s not there.”
“That’s pretty normal. Tell me what needs doing.”
It was a miracle we were ready to open on time. It was pretty crowded from open to close ever since the party at Animals. People had taken pictures of their food and tagged the bakery in it. They came in wanting the cuteness.
I started trying to make at least one of the adorable little animals every day. I couldn’t do the full spread and maintain my normal inventory, but I could add cream puffs here or macarons there easily enough, and people were loving it. Today, the two of us were running back and forth, filling orders and barely keeping up during the hour I’d been running the counter alone before the event. What a difference Animals made.
When I saw Marty at the crosswalk through the front window, it wasn’t just him. His wife was beside him, pushing her hot-pink walker complete with bicycle bell and streamers. She was a hot ticket.
He’d said he was bringing her over, but I hadn’t expected him to be able to. I was thrilled she was feeling up to it. I gothis muffins ready and put a couple of the little hedgehog cream puffs into a box for them as a special treat.
“I got you all set, Marty,” I said, setting his order on the counter.
“That doesn’t look like two morning glory muffins to me.”
“That’s because I decided that today was a day for adventures.” I tapped the box. “In celebration of your beautiful wife wheeling her badass walker over here, may I present—hedgehog cream puffs.”
