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“Come in, come in,” he says, beckoning me inside. “I have some cakes in the oven.”
“What are you cooking today?” I follow him to the kitchen which is filled with the aroma of baking and sugar. My stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since this morning.
“Coffee and walnut cake, and some mini banana loafs.” He glances at the brown bag I’m carrying. “What’s in there?” he asks suspiciously.
“Things that won’t make your teeth rot out of your mouth.” I pull out the bananas and apples, along with the carrots and broccoli I bought from a vendor outside work.
“Hmm, these would be good in a cake,” he says, lifting the carrots and turning them over. “Not sure about the broccoli, though.”
“Maybe you could eat them without sugar,” I suggest. “Like with a meal or something.”
He shakes his head. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The oven timer goes off and he grabs a pair of thick gloves, pulling the cake tins out and putting them on the side. This baking obsession is a fairly new thing. About two years old. He took it up as a way to keep busy after Mom died, but it kept growing. Now he bakes all week and runs a stall at the local farmer’s market every Saturday.
They call him the Sugar King. It’s a pretty good name actually.
“I saw you on the lunchtime news,” he tells me, as he slowly loosens the first cake from the tin. “Shame about the weather for Dan’s daughter’s wedding.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I felt bad about that.”
“Well your mom always said it was better to tell a hard truth than an easy lie.” He turns the cake out and puts it on the cooling rack. “You did the right thing.”
I give him a smile. “Thanks.”
He nods. “Now tell me, how’s your love life?”
He always asks me this, as though he’s hoping the answer will change. It doesn’t.
“I don’t have time for one.” I roll my eyes. “How’s yours?”
“What makes you ask that? Your mom only died two years ago.”
My heart does a little clench. We both miss her a lot. “I know, but she wouldn’t have wanted you to be lonely.”
He shifts his feet. “No need to worry about me.”
“Well don’t worry about me either,” I tell him. We’re completely understaffed at work. There’s no money for more employees but there’s also no way Michael and I – and Madison now – can provide a good weather service on our own without putting in the overtime.
“But you should still date. You’re not getting any younger, honey.”
Ouch. That’s my dad, lacing the sweet with the sharp stabs. “Mmhmm,” I say noncommittally because I’m done with dating right now. It goes in phases. I’ll download an app, decide to throw myself into finding Mr. Right, then realize that the dating pool is actually a cesspit. So I’ll take a break, forget about the pain, and do it all over again.
It was easy for Dad. He and mom met at a Carpenters concert. He was eighteen and she was seventeen and they’d kissed when “Close to You” came on. They were inseparable ever since.
When I was a kid I’d thought that would happen to me, too. That it was how life was supposed to go. You’d meet your soulmate in your teens, build up your career in your twenties, then start a family together. It had even started happening when I went to college. I met the guy I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with.
But it turned out he had different ideas.
I push that thought to the back of my mind. “Anyway,” I say, passing dad an apple. “All the good ones are married now.” The bad ones, too. I’ve had my fair share of being hit on by married men. Like when I was on vacation with Ava, Myles, Lauren, and Liam. One guy tried to buy me a drink and his wife called the bar to check on him.
I was mortified. Liam, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious.
I wrinkle my nose at the memory.
“There’s this fella at the market,” Dad tells me. “Says he’s thinking about getting divorced. You should come meet him on Saturday.”
A shudder works through me. “It’s okay, Lauren and I are taking Ava out for a spa day on Saturday before the christening on Sunday.”
