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Not a single bunny cupcake had survived.
Addison began to wail, her face pointed to the ceiling, tears streaming down her cheeks. Soon Cecily joined in, her cries listless and heartbroken.
June looked at her sisters and huffed. “Happy Freaking Easter. Great job, Aunt Bryce.”
Bryce felt her face go scalding hot. Her lips trembled, and she stood there in yesterday’s black jeans and wrinkled watermelon-red top, unsure whether to cry, laugh, rail at the gods, or just get the damn mop. She might have stayed there forever, frozen in indecision, if it weren’t for the sound of the alley door opening and closing, followed by a loud male call.
“Weatherford girls!” a man said, his voice as commanding and brusque as a drill sergeant’s. “Front and center. The Easter Bunny is here, and we have eggs to find.”
Then, lumbering into the dining area, came the tallest, pinkest, loudest Easter Bunny Bryce had ever seen.
It was Ryker.
Although, if it weren’t for the oval cutout for the face, allowing her to see his brilliant blue eyes, she might’ve wondered. Because the face in the oval was decorated as if he’d prepped for a day terrorizing people at a horror house versus cheering up some girls.
Ryker had drawn black circles around his eyes, probably in an attempt to make them look cartoonishly big and fun. But without a white ring around them, the dark circles made his eyes into two eerie holes of nothing, and when he blinked, showing off the fact that his lids were painted matte black, too, the effect of him being eyeless intensified. What made it worse was his attempt at whiskers. Instead of using black, he’d chosen to use a bloodred paint, and the whiskers were drawn on in thick lines, uneven and jagged across his whiskered cheeks. They read more like wounds than fine hairs.
It looked like the Easter Bunny had come across a pack of feral cats and barely made it out alive.
“Oh my god. Who booked Goth Bunny?” June shot a picture with her cell phone. Her mouth twisted into a smirk. “Never mind. My socials are going to blow up.”
Addison’s sobs took on a more desperate note as her youngest niece flung herself at Bryce, clutching her legs.
“There’s a s-scary bunny, Aunt Beamer!”
“Ry? That you?” Drake squinted at the bunny in face paint.
Ryker, in his big bunny costume, put his pink furred paw out in an “it’s okay” gesture to Addison. “It’s me. Ryker.”
“Make the scary bunny go away, Aunt Beamer!” Addison’s white wings crumpled as she squished herself into Bryce’s crotch area. “Make it stop!”
“Addie,” she said, trying to extricate the child from between her legs and balance the wet mop before she tripped. “It’s Mr. Ryker. It’s okay.”
Cecily picked her head up off the table. She took one look at the bunny, waved, then leaned over the other side of the chair.
And barfed again.
Bryce and Addison were in the splash zone. Splatters of gunk flecked both of them, including the perfect white fairy wings, which made Addison’s shriek louder than an air-raid siren. Over the din she saw more than heard Harvey and Adele step over the stinky puddles of gross to leave, but Bryce didn’t have the time—or the desire—to say goodbye. She was doing her best to shove Kate’s sparkly gift bag in front of Cecily in time to catch the contents as her niece threw up again.
After that, Bryce was so overwhelmed, so embarrassed, and so angry at the world that she decided the safest course was not to talk to anyone or do anything other than clean up. Busy always filled the void, and every time she was tempted to look at her nieces, or the abject pity on her friends’ faces, she forced herself to look at the next dribble of vomit to be mopped up. She might be the world’s worst guardian-in-training, but she could clean like nobody’s business.
As she dragged her mop over the dirty floors, wringing it out after every terrible swipe into the goop, she saw Drake having a quick side conversation with Ryker, whose eyes were as round as saucers in his scary-bunny makeup. She’d finished the floors, deposited Addison and Cecily at the least-contaminated table in the café, and begun to lug the bucket of disgusting water toward the back alley door when Kate caught her sleeve.
“We bleach-wiped the tables and got most of it out of Addison’s wings for you. Patty left, but she, Adele, and Harvey are all fine. They’ll send their clothes to Ray. He’s amazing with stains.” Kate’s face was composed and serene, as if there hadn’t been a disaster of epic proportions only five minutes earlier.
“Thank you,” Bryce mumbled. “I-I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of your hard work. I’m sorry. For everything.”
“It’s not anyone’s fault. Things happen. But you’ve got to promise me a do-over.” Kate bundled up a crying Elise as a white-faced Drake took the bags of unused Easter décor out of PattyCakes. “If I had enough time to prepare—put together a spreadsheet, at least—I could’ve created such an epic event. I need to make it up to you and the girls. Promise I get to do the next event for you all, okay?”
“Sure.” Bryce nodded, but in her head she was pretty sure there would never be a do-over.
Kate waved as she left. “Next time, the event will be perfect. I promise!”
Bryce shut the door and faced her nieces. Addison was trying to straighten her stained fairy wings. She’d stripped off her puke-and-frosting-covered dress and wore only her white undershirt with a picture of Tinker Bell on the front, along with a pair of matching Tinker Bell underwear. Cecily’s head hung over the garbage can, and she was moaning about how she would never eat peanut-butter-and-jelly doughnuts again, while June was swiping dejectedly at her only boots—the black soles and sides of which were smeared with white frosting.
Bryce’s chin wobbled. Then she caught sight of Ryker. He was standing there, in his scary-as-hell bunny outfit, his arms outstretched.
“Hug emergency?” he asked, and before Bryce could move, Addison flew over, pausing only briefly at his pink fluffy bunny feet.
