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“Jeremiah never told me that I could get a messed up one for free,” Bram argued.
“You can’t,” Jeremiah said. “But we’re trying this new thing out where you sell the fuck-ups. Usually, I just trash them. But during the snowstorm, Gracie convinced me to sell the ones that are messed up, just at a discounted price. She wants me to call them misfits.”
“Well, if you’re selling them, then I don’t want them for free,” Dory murmured quietly.
I giggled. “He hasn’t figured out a price yet. For now, they’re just going to go to waste.”
That had been our argument all morning, actually.
A price.
He wanted to give them away to customers he liked. I told him that he needed to sell everything and stop being nice.
Which led us to a stalemate, and him being pissy as he kneaded dough.
“Take as many as you want,” Jeremiah sighed. “I have to price them to sell, but I’ll only know what that price is when I get them out there and see their popularity.”
A commotion, and a frantic call from Noel, had Peter and Jeremiah heading to the front of the shop.
I stayed where I was and continued to pipe icing.
Dory came up and snagged the ugliest of them all, a buttercream and devil’s food one, before saying, “Thank you. I really have been craving one of his cupcakes.”
“Well, today, they’re mine,” I teased. “I hope you like it. I added some chocolate chips to the batter today.”
She peeled back the wrapper and took a bite, then moaned.
The sound made me smile.
However, the big man behind her? It made him look pained.
Very, very pained.
“The chocolate chips are a perfect addition.” She paused. “Do you happen to have any milk?”
I gestured toward the fridge. “There’s a half-gallon in there, I think. If you want a cup, though, one of you are going to have to brave the front. There’s a lot of measuring cups, though, if you don’t care what you drink out of.”
Dory giggled and looked at the stack of measuring cups before saying, “Jeremiah might very well kill me if I drank out of one. I’ll go…”
“I got it,” Bram grumbled.
Then he was disappearing through the same doors that Jeremiah and Peter had gone through a few seconds prior.
“He’s driving me insane,” she grumbled as she took another bite of her cupcake. “So you and Jeremiah, huh?”
I blinked, startled. “I’m sorry. What?”
Her face twisted into a knowing smile. “Jeremiah was looking at you and tolerating you. Which are two things he doesn’t do with many people, especially women. You have to mean something to him, or he wouldn’t have allowed you to change his mind on anything. Let alone cupcakes he was dead set on throwing away.”
I grimaced. “It was a one… two-time thing.”
She snickered. “That’s the same thing I said about my husband, but look where I am now. I’ve tried to leave him for the last six months. I leave and he finds me. And he just won’t let me stay gone.”
There seemed to be a story there that I was definitely missing.
Something in which she could read on my face.
“One day, when there aren’t men around that have the last name ‘Crow,’ I’ll tell you it all,” she said. “As long as you bring me cupcakes. Because telling the story gives me really bad indigestion. And the only thing to soothe it lately is sweet stuff.”
I smiled. “I’ll look forward to that.”
Because anyone that could give me some insight on the man I was quickly becoming obsessed with was perfect for me.
“As long as you tell me all there is to know about…” I looked over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t standing there and I didn’t know. “Jeremiah.”
Dory snickered. “Deal.”
She moved in closer so she could watch me pipe the icing, then said, “I have no idea how you’re doing that so beautifully right now.” She paused. “Nor am I sure how you messed up those.”
She indicated what was left of the ones I’d messed up earlier, then looked at them so helplessly that I snickered.
“Sometimes, there’s air in the bag.” I gestured toward her with the icing bag. “But those… I was looking at someone and…”
And I’d fucked up.
Because Jeremiah had lifted his shirt up to wipe sweat off his face, and I’d seen his back, and that small indentation right above the small of his back that led down to his ass crack.
Needless to say, it was my fault, because I’d been ogling my boss.
“And you’re highly attracted to him.” Dory crossed her arms over her chest. “Jeremiah was one of the only ones in the entire Crow Clan that was nice to me.”
I blinked at her.
“What?” I asked.
Why wouldn’t the rest of the family have been nice to her?
“They don’t like me.” She sighed. “When I came around, they were still hung up on Bram’s last girlfriend. Whom they thought Bram would marry. I came along and changed all of that, and I’m a really introverted person… let’s just say that they got the wrong idea, and they all hate me because I’m deathly afraid of them.”
