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“Cream, sugar?”
“No sugar for me.I’m sweet enough, so my Ma tells me,” he drawled, rolling his eyes for comedy, smiling at me.
God,he was self-deprecating and sexy and caring andjust so amazingly talland I couldnotallow this.
“Must not fall for Rick Callahan and his stupid sexy face,” I chanted under my breath as the coffee machine puttered away.I glanced back at the man in question.He was texting someone on his phone and, for just a second, the little teeth of jealousy bit into me deeply.
But I had no right.I had not an ounce of claim on Rick.Not even a half ounce.
Sadly.
“Okay, order up.”I placed the coffee on the counter.
“What’s the damage?”Rick asked, his phone poised to tap on my reader.
I told him, entering the info into the register, and he paid with a robotic beep, my hands brushing his as I held up the card reader, and for a moment, awareness skated up my arm, and then he moved away and it was gone, and I missed it.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he murmured, and his accent made my blood heat.
“Um, you don’t have to call me that.Maddie’s fine.Or something less formal.”
That half-smile kicked up his mouth again.“What, likedarlin’?It’s mostly what people get called ‘round here.”
“Um.Sure.I guess that works.”I tried desperately not to think about him whispering that over and over, telling me how good I felt around him as he ruined me up against the bakery wall, panting in my ear as he filled me in long, delicious thrusts.
No.
No bakery sex.
It’s deeply unhygienic, for a start.
Even so, I could imagine myself wanting to do things with this man.
“Y’all have a good day now.See ya later,” Rick called as he opened the door, disrupting my little my X-rated fantasy.
I sighed as the door closed.It was going to be alongfew weeks.
* * *
Thankfully, a steady stream of customers toCake Awayhad followed Rick, keeping my thoughts off him.Many of them had commented on my accent and said Jess had spoken about my arrival.I wasn’t used to that.London, although my favorite place in the world, just wasn’t that kind of small.
I loved the interaction.It was what I missed by having a mostly-online business.
That afternoon, I had a brief chat with Jess, who was fresh-faced and high from white river rafting (weren’t honeymoons meant to be relaxing?), and then unpacked my enormous suitcase, which mostly contained video equipment.
My collection had grown with every how-to seminar I’d attended, and each video blogger I’d connected with.Each of them usually recommended equipment, which meant I’d started with a smartphone and a ring light, and now had more than a dozen different lights, a tripod, and various freestanding shades and lighting accessories.
I uploaded a video once a week, sometimes more if I had an email asking about a certain topic of baking, or if a London-based baking or food-related influencer offered to record a video with me.
Today I was making a Mississippi Mud sheet cake with matcha icing, in honor of being in the south.Jess permitted the use of her kitchen in the videos and I planned to give my viewers a mini tour, making sure I removed all the personalized knickknacks first so she wouldn’t be identifiable.
I organized all the ingredients, measured them out in bowls.Even though I was recording rather than live streaming, if I messed up, I’d have to start over, so it was important to have everything ready.
I cracked eggs into a small, pretty blue bowl and as I did so, I was hit with a flashback of Seb accidentally gate-crashing one of my videos, leaning in to give me a forehead kiss and asking jokingly who I was talking to.It had been shared atonof times.
I’d have to communicate the news that we’d broken up somehow, I supposed.Or, I could pretend it hadn’t happened.
Maybe that was why I’d run awayacross an ocean.
