Page 4 of Fake It ’Til You Mate It

I roll my eyes, sparing a quick reassuring pat to Gus’s head. “He’s an opossum, and you know that.”

Of course she does. I’m an opossum, and back when we were in high school together, she never let me forget it. It didn’t matter that Onancock—and, yes, that’s the name of the small Virginia town I grew up in—was heavy with opossum clans. Roxy is… well, she’s Roxy.

She shrugs. “Right. Sorry. It’s just… the tail thing. He looks like an oversized rat.”

“Roxy—”

“Besides,” she says, brushing crumbs off her leather jacket, changing the subject, “I was just swinging by before you open to⁠—”

“Steal baked goods?”

“Support local small businesses,” is her quipped response. She laughs. “With the utmost enthusiasm.”

I sigh, fighting a small smile. That’s the closest I can get to getting the feisty raccoon to admit that she is a big fan of my baking. “Fine. I can comp you one pastry a week. Not one every time I catch you with your paw in my display case.”

“Oh, Honey.” Roxy pats my arm like I’m adorable. “It’s cute that you think that you’re catching me instead of me showing you that I can get anything I want when I want it.”

I can’t help myself. I laugh, shaking my head.

Running into Roxy Kane is the third shock I received when I moved to Moonburrow. Last I heard, she was still skulking around Virginia, so when I picked up her familiar scent a few days after I arrived, I couldn’t believe I accidentally followed my childhood nemesis to the same shifter town.

But I did, and if I hadn’t forgotten how much Roxy teased and poked me when we were young shifters, she might’ve. At the very least, she seemed almost glad to see me when we actually met, though that could’ve been because she had someone to be her rascally raccoon self around.

Like, oh, now.

Moving around to the front of the display, she leans against my counter as though she belongs there. “So how goes it? The bakery thing working out? Moonburrow not as bad as you thought when you first caught me poking around your dumpster?”

True. I caught Roxy’s scent, convinced myself I was imagining it, but when her head popped out of my dumpster, I couldn’t deny that it was her.

“Yeah.” I fiddle with the ends of one of my twin braids. “Things are going great.”

Roxy studies me for a moment, her yellow eyes gleaming as though she can see something that I’ve spent two months trying to hide.

Here’s hoping she can’t.

Seconds later, she shrugs as she rises from her lean. “Good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not? It might be nice to have someone around town that I actually tolerate.”

I pretend to swoon. “Oh, Roxy. That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She shrugs. “That’s because I snagged a cupcake while you weren’t looking.”

Lifting her hand, she wags the cupcake that I’d just finished frosting and covering in sprinkles before she graced me with her presence.

“Anyway,” she says, “if you need someone to steal recipes, intimidate rude customers, dispose of bodies…”

Ah, jeez. Roxy…

“I’m running a bakery, not committing any felonies.”

She raises the cupcake a little higher, toasting me with it. “Both require good instincts and a pinch of luck. You’ve got this.”

Honestly? I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to respond to that, especially not when the comment came from Roxy Kane, so I just shoot her a bewildered look. “Thanks.” I pause. “I think.”

Roxy removes the cupcake liner, flinging it over to where Gus is —as usual—perched on his bag of flour, whiskers twitching. He hisses as the liner just misses him before burying his snout in the paper, searching for a few crumbs to devour and the traces of frosting to lick.