A loud knock at the back door—the steel door—makes us all jump again.
“Holy mother of cupcakes,” Sarah whispers.
“I’ll get it. Don’t worry. It’s no one. Probably just the garbage guy, complaining that someone from the bakery is parked in front of the trash bin again, and he can’t empty it.” This is a tradition around here, but we all know it’s not trash day. Still, Sarah starts mopping, and Marla furiously assembles the cupcakes that aren’t wrecked as I scuttle off to the back.
I know who’s out there because I know who stuck that card in with my mail. He probably waited for the mail guy to show up, ran like crazy, stuck it in the box with the rest of the mail, and then ran back to his car. He likely waited five minutes, drove around back, and is here to ambush me. I know all this because I can see it in my mind and because I know the level of inventive evil my brother and Hal are capable of.
I yank open the door, and my lips curl back in a snarl. Yup. The harbinger of seafoam envelopes with no postage, terrible tidings, and all things asshole is standing there in person.
“You butt clown! I know it was you who put the card in my mailbox!”
Hal grins. He’s so good-looking that it’s unfair. It’s like getting served an extra tasty piece of delicious chocolate cake with cherry gooeyness in the middle and rare golden icing spread on top with a generous amount of chocolate chips when you’re on a diet and have vowed to yourself that you will not touch chocolate for the better part of this century. Obviously, that doesn’t apply to me. Tasting is my job, and chocolate is the name of my game. I’m also tall, and I went through an awkward skinny stage and kind of never grew out of it, so my hips can afford it for now.
Hal isn’t as tall as my brother, but he’s up there, above six feet. He’s got big manly shoulders and a big manly chest. He also probably has manly abs, a tight manly waist, and manly buns in the back too, but I don’t bother tallying up those things because they’re on Hal, and Hal is my brother’s nasty friend who I dislike with the burning passion of a requested birthday cake for a hundredth birthday with that exact number of candles on top.
I’ve made one of those before. They ordered it with the candles. I was tempted to stick some all along the sides when I ran out of room on the top, but I just kept cramming.
If he were anyone else, I’d say he puts the S in the classy black suit he has on, S standing for super sexy or scrumptious or slap me silly, wow! But yeah, unfortunately, it’s still Hal, so that’s a hard pass for me. S could also stand for how much I’d like to soundly smack that super slick smirk off his superbly silly square jaw.
“It was you,” I repeat since he hasn’t fessed up to it yet.
“Yeah, obviously it was.” Hal folds his arms and gives me a smug smile. His jet-black hair is twisted into his usual man bun. He’s worn his hair long forever now, and Sam hates it. I know he wants to cut it off. I would do it just out of spite, to teach Hal a lesson for everything he did to me growing up, but even I’m not that mean.
I would like to crack a few eggs or two over his head, though. And dust him in flour, smear icing all over his face, and cover him in chocolate—wait, no. Ugh. Nothing tasty. Just gross raw eggs and flour. And the nasty, fake kind of icing. Definitely not the good awesome buttercream, and certainly no chocolate. Anyway, I’d like to coat him in some not-so-tasty things and stick him in one of the big ovens in the back and—no, hold up. That’s much too vengeful old witch from every fairy tale.
Hal has these super green eyes, but I know for a fact that he’s sporting colored contacts because his eyes are brown. He can’t fool me. We go too far back. Um, wait. That sounds wrong too.
“I want you to know it was Sam.” Like that’s going to help things. “He told me you needed a loan, so I thought I’d do one better and just go straight to the guy myself and buy him out. I got a deal. He sold his share to me for seventy-five thousand.”
“S-seventy-five thousand?” I splutter. “His share was only fifty!”
“Ahh, well, you have to account for inflation and the fact that when he invested, this was only an empty building, and now it has a thriving business. He wanted a hundred, but when I threatened him with the bodyguards that Sam told me not to bring, he was more reasonable after that.”