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The lunchtime crowd began to build. Some of my early regulars came and went before the deluge of New York City’s finest arrived. They provided a pretty decent distraction from Andrew, but he was never far from my thoughts.
“Hey.” Sonya bumped her hip with mine. “I said order up.”
“Right.” I shook the cobwebs from my head.
“Everything okay?”
“Fine.” I grabbed the ticket from the machine and set to work filling the order while Sonya operated the cash register. She’d volunteered to come back again today to help me after we were so slammed yesterday.
“If you skip this chocolate cake, you’ll regret it the rest of the day,” she said.
I glanced at the officer she was trying to upsell. By the look on his face, she’d succeeded. “You’re right. Pack me a slice to go.”
She slid a piece in a box as I set his container of food at the window.
“Thanks,” I said.
“We’ll see him again tomorrow,” Sonya informed me.
The officer blushed a little and laughed. “Probably.”
“Definitely,” Sonya said.
He grabbed his food, and the next customer came up. I recognized the woman, though it had been a while since I’d seen her.
“Grandma Carter, I have just the thing for you.” Sonya looked over at me. “She’ll love those chicken things you made. The sun-dried tomato and mozzarella one.”
“Coming right up.”
The two of them spoke in hushed tones about something. They looked up to no good. Then again, Sonya was always causing trouble.
“Just box up the whole cake,” Grandma Carter said.
“But some of it’s missing. We don’t have another whole one.” Sonya motioned toward the glass dome which housed a coconut cake.
“Why the hell not?”
I stifled a snicker. The lady was blunt; I’d hand that to her.
Sonya looked at me, perplexed. “Why the hell don’t we have more cakes?”
“I’m already baking two more a day than I was a week ago.”
“Still not enough.” I snapped my head up to find Mr. Hardaway at the window. “And you can’t sell her the rest of my cake.”
Sonya mouthed, “Oh, shit.”
“Mr. Hardaway, you should have come by earlier,” I said.
All I got in response was a grunt and a glare.
“This gives cake wars an entirely new meaning,” Sonya said.
“I thought this was fast food,” Grandma Carter complained, shifting back and forth on her feet. “Old people aren’t meant to stand up this long.”
“Don’t bother explaining that to her,” Mr. Hardaway said, jerking his thumb in my direction. “She has no respect for the elderly. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be giving you my cake.”
Grandma Carter gave him an unimpressed look. “Ever heard ‘you snooze, you lose’?”
