Page 77 of Home of the Brave

Madi lifted her chin just slightly, her eyes locked on Victoria. Oh no. I knew this look well. She had a new challenge. If there was one thing the Pride was good at, besides matchmaking, it was helping women reach their goals and dreams.

“But I’m hardly the most interesting topic at the table,” Victoria’s quirk in a small smirk. “Derek, when we first met, I never would have expected you to be a secret baker.”

His eyes widened as we all turned to him. Amelia covered her mouth, but her eyes revealed her smile.

“What do you mean?”

Victoria tapped her phone a few times, and I watched her pull up a social media account. “I really enjoyed the zucchini bread recipe. Where did the inspiration come from?”

I grabbed her phone, pausing the video and holding it out to show the rest of the table. “Did we know about this?”

Hartman was choking on water and nearly spit it out. Kendall was slapping his back while Madi and Erik were leaning against each other, laughing.

“What is that?” Cambrie blurted.

“Where is your shirt?” Hartman finally recovered enough to ask the most important question.

“I have an apron on.” Derek argued.

“Yes, we can all read kiss the baker from here,” Madi said, still laughing.

“Why. . .” Schultz didn’t finish the question before doubling over when I pressed play and let the video play.

“Do bakers wear chef’s hats?” Kendall asked.

“I do,” Derek grunted.

I went back to the account and scrolled. “There are dozens of videos.”

“I got bored, okay!” Derek glared at me. “You have no idea what retirement is like.”

“But shirtless baking?” Madi asked.

“The first time I tried making double chocolate cookies, I stained one of my favorite shirts, so I decided to eliminate the risk.”

Hartman narrowed his eyes. “So you're not trying to be like––”

“It’s not about showing skin,” Derek cut him off and crossed his arms. “It’s about not ruining my clothes.”

“That’s his argument, and he’s sticking to it,” Amelia said while fighting a grin. “I mean, he doesn’t have a shirt on ninety percent of the time when he’s home, so it’s not that weird.”

“And the apron covers everything but my arms,” Derek lifted an arm to flex. “And I don’t want to deny anyone these bad boys.”

Kendall shook her head. “This is remarkable. How did you keep this a secret?”

Derek turned his attention to Victoria, a glare with zero heat, "Because none of you are investigators.”

“I was just scrolling through, minding my own business. Your video popped up all on its own. I didn’t sleuth you out.”

He grunted. “Well, I passed a hundred thousand followers, so it was bound to happen soon.”

“You’re pretty proud of that, aren’t you?” I chuckled.

“You know what. I am. I did it without ever once mentioning my name or previous profession, so yeah, I’m very proud.”

“And your followers are obviously there for your elite baking and teaching skills,” Hartman agreed.

“Not those sick biceps,” Schultz failed to say with a straight face.