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“Are swans wedding things too? I mean, I know they mate for life.” He shivered. “I also know you donotwant to get into a fight with one. Those wings arelethal.”
“Speaking from experience?”
Finn smiled, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “No comment.” He kissed Gany’s forehead. “What’s next?”
Gany gazed down at his sketch, and a vision of the finished cake rose, as crystal clear as though it physically floated in the air in front of him rather than in his imagination. Despite the cliché of a pair of swan necks forming the shape of a heart, he was visualizing a single swan. Her neck would twine around the top three layers, her wings wrap the bottom four, with her head hovering over the top layer in lieu of a cake topper, which, for some reason, felt wrong. But in her beak…Yes!A rainbow jewel.
The certainty that he’d got it right settled over him, and just like that, the flavors of sponge, fillings, and frosting solidified in his mind.
“Next, I need to practice.” He bit his lip, smiling up at Finn. “I’ll make the samples at the bakery so Melina and Peyton can weigh in on the results too. I’ve got enough flour and sugar and butter in the pantry there… I think. But if I have to run multiple tests—and if the final version doesn’t work—I’ll need more. I can’t short the bakery. That’s not fair to my loyal regulars.”
“Do you have a local baker's supply?” Finn asked.
“Yes.”
“Do they deliver?”
Gany scrunched up his nose. “Not with so little notice.”
Finn’s eyebrows bunched, his forehead wrinkling, and for some reason, the dogs looked up at him and whined. He absently patted each of their heads and they leaned against him, sighing.
“I’d offer to run over and pick up your supplies, but there are a couple of problems with that. First, I wouldn’t be able to pay—”
“Not a problem,” Gany said, hope warming his middle. He grabbed the pad and flipped to a new page to jot down the address and his account number. “I’ll call and let them know you’ve got authority to charge everything to my name. I’ll give you some cash, too.”
Finn’s frown deepened. “Are you sure you should trust me with your financial details? You don’t really know me.”
Gany flicked his fingers at the dogs, whose eyes were all half-lidded in bliss. “I go by the pups. They trust you, and they literally trustno oneexcept for TD, Lonnie, and me. If you’re on their approved list, that’s good enough for me.”
“So,” Finn said, disappointment flavoring his tone, “just the dogs’ opinions?”
Gany edged closer, nudging Sir’s head out of the way so he could wrap his arms around Finn’s waist. “Mine, too. It’s not like we only met five minutes ago. I’ve seen you every day for months, and you’ve never once done anything mean or rude or ungenerous. You’re really trying to make peace with your cousin. I respect that.”
In fact, it was so refreshing as to make Gany nearly giddy: someone who was serious about redemption, about atoning for his past mistakes. The gods were clearly not grasping the concept even now.
“Really?” Finn asked hopefully.
“Promise.” Gany kissed him, soft but slow, because some things were worth savoring.
“Then there’s the other thing.” Finn rested his forehead against Gany’s. “How do I get there? A ride share?”
“Oh!” Gany blinked. “Can you drive?”
Finn smiled wryly. “Depends on who you ask. My father would say no. I put a dent in his new Lincoln when I was learning, so he never let me get behind the wheel of one of the pa— one of our cars again. But I’m licensed and can drive perfectly well.”
“Then let me make a list.”
As Finn pulled the borrowed Prius out of the bakery supply lot, its cargo space filled with enormous sacks of flour and three kinds of sugar, blocks of butter and chocolate—who knew you could buy the stuff in literal bricks?—jugs of honey, bags of walnuts, nubbly cardboard crates of eggs, and flats of raspberries, he actually found himself whistling Hunter’s Moon’s sprightly “Lover’s Reel.”
He barked a laugh. How long had it been since he’d been carefree enough to do that? Usually, if any music unreeled in his brain, it was heavy and grim, like “Song of the Volga Boatmen,” or sharp and fatalistic like “O Fortuna,” or else one of Hunter’s Moon’s old songs, all mournful and angsty, from when Gareth Kendrick was still obsessing over his lost love.
Now, though? He wantedallthe upbeat anthems, the sappy love songs, the sweetness and light, because Garylikedhim, liked him enough to kiss him. But more than that, Garytrustedhim, even after Finn had spilled the tea about his less than stellar past behavior.
Not only that, he had a place to stay and a job. Yeah, maybe both were only temporary, but just yesterday, he hadn’t had any hope at all of his life improving, let alone turning around so completely.
He alternated between whistling, humming, and singing at the top of his voice all the way to the bakery. Gary had told him to pull around to the back so they could load the supplies directly into the storeroom, so Finn navigated the one-way grid, passing the park—hey, maybe he could take the pups there later—and turned into the alley that led behind the line of stores.
The whistle died on his lips, because black smoke was pouring out an open door halfway down the alley. Shit, was that the bakery?
