Yeah, I Hate-Ate Your Cupcake!: A Romantic Comedy, page 18
Sophie: WHAT HAPPENED???
Karlie: I told him about my thong.
Sophie: ...
Sophie: That’s a good thing. Did he see it? I bet he thought it was hot. It’s a very nice thong.
Karlie: He didn’t see it. I just told him about it then ran.
Sophie: You could have turned it into a sexy little flirt.
Karlie: I’m not good at flirt jujitsu.
Sophie: Text him a sexy photo.
Karlie: I’m too embarrassed.
Sophie: You have to see him at the couples shower, soooo...
Karlie: Shit.
I stopped by the one-dollar pizza place for a slice of pepperoni before heading home to wallow. Okay, so things were awkward, I told myself.
This was for the best. Liam and I were never going to work together. We were too different. He was a boss: he had his life together, he had a company and responsibilities, and he did not live with his parents or spend money he did not have to impress a fake significant other.
Ugh!
There are only a few more events. You can make it. Shoot, hopefully he’ll sign his contract. Then you can just call the whole thing off.
But seeing him again after that amazing kiss and the awkward exchange? It was going to be unbearable.
I had a whole afternoon self-care itinerary planned to calm down, but when I unlocked the door to my parents’ condo, screaming greeted me.
Gran zoomed in her wheelchair after my mother, who had a martini in one hand and a flyswatter in the other.
“I have tenant rights!” Gran shouted, waving a large green floppy dildo at my mom. “I’m allowed to bring guests, and I have access to the kitchen.”
“You can’t have an orgy in the kitchen.”
“As if you have ever cooked so much as a cup of tea in that kitchen. And it wasn’t an orgy. Porchy has trouble getting off of beds, and he needs a chair. I have rights.”
My dad was sitting at the table, nose buried in his newspaper.
“Frank!” my mother yelled. “Frank, do something.”
My father sighed. “Mother, can you please keep your boyfriends in your bedroom?”
“I have tenant rights,” Gran insisted, “and if I have gentlemen callers then they can be in the common spaces.”
“Frank,” my mother screeched, “I will not live like this anymore. If you won’t do something, I am leaving. See how your production company likes that. You already have bad publicity because of that actor who made that terrible comment about sex dolls.”
My father heaved himself up from the table.
“Mother,” he said to Gran, “I think it’s time for us to find you somewhere else to live.”
“Yes!” My mother toasted the air with her martini glass. “You’re finally being evicted!”
“You can’t evict me; I don’t have anywhere to go.” Gran waved the dildo at my father. “I’m blacklisted from all those fancy assisted living places.”
“I’m not putting you out in the street,” Dad said. “We’re going to find a very nice condo for you to move into.”
“Harumph.” Gran sounded pissed. “You’re just going to cast me off all alone by myself. What if I fall in this new apartment, and no one knows about it for a week? You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
My mom tipped back her drink and muttered, “If that’s what it takes.”
“Mother, please,” my dad begged. “You’re not going to be alone. Karlie will be moving with you.”
“What the fuck?”
36
Liam
I narrowed my eyes, watching Karlie as she ran off.
Why did she keep doing that? She was clearly into the kiss. Too bad my office had glass walls, or I would have turned that kiss into something more. I grabbed my jacket to go after her when my secretary stuck her head in.
“Joseph from JetCut is here,” she said.
Dammit. I needed that deal, but I also wanted to go after Karlie.
I glanced at the cupcake on my desk in its little fancy box. I would contact her later.
“Joseph,” I greeted the slight man. He waved to me and walked into my office.
“Thanks for letting me crash here.”
“Your mom’s on a mission.”
He shook his head. “I told her if she wanted to plan a big fancy wedding, she should have had a girl instead of a boy.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t go over well?” I said as he slumped down in one of the chairs across from my desk.
“Nope. Got a lot of tears and guilt trips about never visiting.” He ran a hand through his pale hair. “Thank god for our meeting.”
“Sounds like my mother except she doesn’t guilt trip me for not visiting. She guilt trips me for not funding her life,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.
“I will say in my mother’s favor she has never asked me for money,” Joseph told me.
The secretary knocked on the glass door before I could go down the twisted, thorny path of my terrible family.
“Special delivery,” she said.
I thanked her and accepted the sack, and she left.
“I had the secretary order sandwiches from Cecily’s,” I told Joseph.
I dumped the bag out on the desk. “The ever-famous prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich with pesto aioli. If you choose this one, let me take a picture first; it’s my brother’s favorite sandwich, and he’ll be livid to know I got one and he didn’t,” I said cheerfully.
Joseph laughed and unwrapped a lobster roll on buttered toasted bread. “It’s great that you have brothers you can joke with. I never had any siblings, and my parents completely focused on me a hundred percent of the time. I had to move across the country to keep my mom out of my business. Speaking of, you said you had a prospectus for me to look at?”
I wiped my hands and handed him the spiral-bound booklet I’d made full of charts and graphs and information on how we would integrate our two companies.
“Seems legit,” Joseph said, flipping through it. “I’ll have to talk it over with my cofounder, but what’s in here looks promising.”
“Have you talked to any other companies?” I asked, forcing myself to come across as casual and friendly.
“A few investment firms,” Joseph said, taking a sip of water. Then he cocked his head slightly.
“Does Cecily’s do cupcakes now too?” He reached for the small cake box.
I resisted the urge to bark at him and grab the cupcake box like Gollum did the One Ring.
“Actually,” I said, hoping I sounded calm and not like a loon, “Karlie brought that over to me.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Is that why you’re acting like you’re about to strangle me if I touch the box?”
“You can have it,” I insisted, sliding the box over to him. “Karlie brings me one every day.”
“Dang. Maybe I’ll get a girlfriend if you get a daily cupcake out of the arrangement,” he joked.
“They’re all different flavors,” I bragged. “She’s very creative.”
Joseph took out the chocolate cupcake. “Karlie always did like to bake. When we were kids, she would always make cupcakes or cookies to bring to parties.” He took a bite of the confection. “Just as good as I remember.” He took another bite.
“Maybe you, me, and Karlie could grab drinks one night while you’re still in town,” I suggested. I so had this contract in the bag.
“Totally. My cofounder is coming into town in a couple weeks; we should invite him too.”
“Is he coming to any of the weddings with you?” I joked.
Joseph’s eyes went wide as saucers. Then his eyes flicked down to the cupcake, and he gave a strained laugh. “Polygamists’ weddings are not really his scene.”
“There’s also one where the groom cheated on the maid of honor with her twin sister,” I said dryly.
“You seem to have gotten the best end of that deal.” Joseph leaned back in his chair.
“Karlie’s great,” he told me sincerely. “Please just do me a favor and don’t hurt her.”
With my phone in hand, I was having second thoughts about calling Karlie after I had walked Joseph out of the building with promises to organize a drinking session.
Did he want Karlie? Maybe he had come all the way here from California to try to shoot his shot with her. But if he was mad at me for ruining his chances, he surely wouldn’t have agreed to talk to me about purchasing his company. He would have just sold it to Belle.
Maybe Karlie was one of his only friends, and he was concerned about her. He did specifically say not to hurt her.
My finger paused over the green call button by her name in my contact list.
It was one thing to have a fake relationship with Karlie and then end it, and—let’s be clear—I was ending it. It was quite another to sleep with her, make her think potentially that we could have something more, then break her heart when I inevitably dumped her because that was how I rolled.
You don’t have to, my mind whispered. I told it to shut up. That was crazy talk. I did not form lasting relationships with women. Blame my upbringing, blame my mother—I knew that about myself, which was why I tried to keep a wall up around my heart and not lead women on. It was better for everyone.
But with Karlie, the cupcake, the kissing in my office, her off-the-cuff comments that were the opposite of the carefully thought-out remarks made by the women I normally spent my time with—she was slowly tearing down my walls. And that was terrifying.
Even though all I wanted to do was hear her voice, I put the phone away.
“It’s better this way.”
37
Karlie
“Thank you so much for doing this,” my father whispered to me as I pulled my Harry Potter books off the main living room shelf.
“I’ll send you some extra funds to decorate your new room,” my dad added, concern on his face. “I know it’s hard to live with your grandmother.”
I hugged him.
“It’s not that bad. Besides, a free place to live is a free place to live.”
“The building is nice,” my father assured me, helping me hold the box closed so I could tape the lid.
“Don’t worry about it, Dad. A change of scenery is good for everyone right?”
“You’re such a good daughter.” Tears beaded up in my dad’s eyes. “If you don’t want to move, you don’t have to.” He hesitated. “You just seemed upset the last few days.”
“Just anxious about the logistics of moving,” I lied. “Will I forget something? What if the moving van crashes into the river? That sort of thing. I’ll be fine once I’m all unpacked.”
He beamed at me, and I forced a smile.
I had been concerned over the last few days but not about moving. No, I was concerned that Liam hadn’t called. Or texted. Or anything. I had sent the cupcakes over to his secretary like clockwork. But he hadn’t told me so much as a thank you. But how could I explain to my father that I was upset because my fake boyfriend kissed me not once but twice then ghosted me?
Maybe he decided you weren’t worth the trouble.
I went back into my bedroom to finish boxing up the rest of my clothes, only to see Roberta standing in my closet, the secret cupboard open. Her phone was out, and she smirked as she snapped a picture.
“Get out of there!” I shrieked at her.
“I have a right to take pictures of the shrine that you built for my fiancé,” she retorted. “It’s pathetic and creepy that you still have it. I knew there was something fishy with you and Liam. I knew there was no way you two were in love, and I was right. You’re still in love with Marcus. Why are you with Liam, huh? What’s the deal? Are you doing weird sex stuff with him in exchange for him being your boyfriend?”
I wish we were having sex.
“No,” I snapped at her. “The shrine was a mistake; Marcus was a mistake.”
And honestly, Liam was probably a mistake too.
“I’m on to you,” Roberta warned. “I’m going to expose whatever the hell is going on.”
Around me stood the ruins of my childhood bedroom. The tape from the pop star posters was still stuck on the wall. I picked at a piece, feeling embarrassed about the shrine and even more bereft about Liam. My brain was replaying and reanalyzing every single interaction we’d ever had. I was obsessed.
“This is not healthy,” I said aloud. “None of this is healthy. The obsession with Marcus, the obsession with Liam—not healthy.”
I grabbed a trash can and swept all the little knickknacks and mementos of Marcus I had collected since I was eight into the trash can. Then I grabbed a cupcake topper that Liam had licked that night he was in my room, and I threw that away too.
Like I said, I had a problem.
“Moving is good,” I pep-talked myself as I emptied armfuls of clothes into boxes. “Moving means a fresh start and not having to be around Liam more than necessary. He’s not going to know where you live, so you don’t have to worry about whether he might secretly show up unannounced. You’re going to keep your interactions with him professional and only related to wedding events. Then you will go your separate ways. Maybe you can focus some of your stalker energy into making money to help open the café. Our new-home resolution is to focus on making money, not boyfriends.”
My mom had locked herself in the master bedroom with a bottle of gin and a bag of limes ever since my father told her Gran was moving out. Now she stood in the living room, sipping a Bloody Mary as Gran zipped around the room in her motorized wheelchair, complimenting the moving men and promising to make them cookies for all their hard work.
Yum, chocolate chunk cookies.
“That everything, ma’am?” the mover asked.
“Yes,” my mother said impatiently. She motioned to me. “Clear them all out. I have painters and a decorator coming to redo the bedrooms. I’m finally going to have a craft room.”
My dad started crying.
“Oh, Frank.” My mother sighed.
“My baby girl is moving out,” he sobbed.
I hugged him. “I’ll still come visit.”
“Only if you come alone,” my mother said, stirring her drink with a celery stick. “Your grandmother is not coming here for dinner if she’s bringing all her boyfriends.”
“I’ll host everyone at the new place,” I said gamely.
“Frank, give Karlie the keys,” my mother ordered. “You’re in no condition to drive.”
My dad continued to cry in the car as I helped Gran load her wheelchair into the van.
“Your sister’s getting married, and you’re moving out and have a boyfriend. My babies are growing up.”
A fake boyfriend. I grimaced as I settled into the driver’s seat.
“Buck up, Frank.” Gran handed him the box of road-trip cupcakes I had packed.
Dad dabbed his eyes and picked out a midnight mint cupcake.
I pulled the van out onto the street and followed the moving truck. We drove down two blocks while Gran’s phone beeped with text messages.
“I already got the deets from the other residents,” she told me conspiratorially. “They say there are a lot of hot guys in the building.”
So I was basically moving into an old folks’ home.
It will be fine. It will be nice and quiet and low drama.
I was expecting to settle in for a multi-hour drive. I had been sure my mom would send Gran over to the next state, but four blocks later, the moving van pulled up in front of a tall steel-and-glass tower with a white marble-and-birchwood interior. The building was across the street from Central Park.
“After all of that, Frank.” Gran shook her head. “And we’re literally just down the street.”
“It’s a big moment for Karlie.” My dad blew his nose.
A group of elderly women in matching tracksuits waved to us as they marched in place outside.
I jumped out of the car to help Gran with her wheelchair while my dad talked to the movers.
“Welcome to 101 Park Place. I’m Vera, head of the welcoming committee,” an elderly woman with a shock of pink hair said. She handed me a glass of champagne.
I shuffled the cupcake box to one arm to accept the drink.
“While the movers get you all settled, we’ll give you the grand tour. Do you all want a snack?”
“Got anything stronger than champagne?” Gran asked as we followed Vera inside.
A whole spread of snacks was waiting in the lobby. I tried not to seem like I was eyeing it instead of paying attention to what Vera was saying about all the amenities. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and the bagel sandwiches were calling my name.
This is going to be a nice, relaxing change of pace. Who needs boyfriends when there’s free food and wine twenty-four, seven?
“That’s fine about the tennis courts,” Gran said, waving a hand, “but I want to see all the hot guys!”
“We got you covered!” Vera crowed. “In fact”—she pointed—“there’s one. Hey, handsome!”
My gaze drifted over from the snack table to washboard abs, up a bare muscled chest and sculpted pecs, up to a strong jaw and a mouth that gave addicting kisses to finally meet piercing gray eyes.
“Oh, shit.”
Liam smirked. “Hey, Cupcake.”
38
Liam
This had to be a sign, right? She was literally here in my building with a box of cupcakes.
“The cupcake fairy!” Kiki exclaimed when she saw Karlie.
“Are you stalking me?” I joked, sauntering over to her, towel draped around my neck. Kiki and I had come to steal snacks for the pool. I had planned a wholesome Saturday with my little sister. Now here was Karlie with a special cupcake delivery.
She couldn’t be mad at me if she showed up at my condo with cupcakes.
“Are those for me?” I murmured, circling a hand around her waist before my mind could catch up to what my body was doing.
