Two weeks later.
“Okay, so we’re doing red stripes on the side with black polka dots on the top and the words will be in yellow, right?” the mousy little woman questioned, looking over her messy page of notes.
I shook my head, looking back down at my own sheet.
“No, I thought we changed the words on top to red to match the stripes on the side, since the base will be white and yellow won’t pop as much.”
She sighed in exasperation, raising her frustrated hands at me. “No, remember I told you I wanted the base frosting to be green! Are you even listening to me when I talk?”
She was yelling now, and I wanted to pack her things up into her weird, donut-shaped bag and send her out the door. She could shove this cake up her ass for all I cared.
Instead, I bit my tongue and calmly reminded, “Yes, I remember you originally wanted that, but we decided against it when we realized the red and green would look too Christmassy.”
We’d been at it for two hours. All for some spoiled kid’s tenth birthday cake they would probably end up smashing his face into or something equally crude. I didn’t even spend this much time with most couples during their wedding cake consultations, but this woman insisted she would have the perfect cake for her son. This was exactly why my mother handled these things, but she was still too busy throwing her own pity party to come to work. If she were any other employee, I would have fired her by now.
“Oh yeah, that’s right, I do remember that,” she admitted, slinking down into her chair in embarrassment at her outburst. “Why don’t you just do what you think is best? I’ll love it either way. I love all of your cakes.”
She gathered her scribbled notes and stuffed them into her donut bag, not even bothering to make sure they were all going the same way. She was a perfectionist’s nightmare, and she had my skin itching just watching her.
I practically shoved her out the door, the rest of the day passing painfully slow. It was a challenge, but I finally got through all the consultation appointments my mom had scheduled and was able to fit new ones into times that were convenient for me. Lynn wouldn’t have believed it if she saw how well I’d been handling things without her.
I was mixing the batter for a red velvet cake I needed to finish by the weekend when the bell above the door sounded, pulling my attention from the mixer and toward the storefront. A short man in a tailored three-piece suit stood just inside the door, looking around the bakery before his mutilated face turned toward mine and a sad, tortured smile stretched across it.
“How can I help you?” I asked warily, grabbing a rag to wipe my hands on before making my way toward him.
His orange hair was slicked back and stiff with gel, sitting on top of his head unmoving like a protective helmet. “You must be Luna,” he greeted, lifting a freckled hand out to me.
I watched it skeptically and kept mine at my sides, refusing to shake. I sensed he wasn’t someone who wanted to buy a cake from me. Brushing off my rejection, he pulled his hand back and shoved it in his pants pocket with the other one, swinging his hips as he surveyed the storefront again.
“My name is Monti. I’m a friend of Liam’s.”
My eyes narrowed at his use of the word friend. I knew exactly what he was to Liam, and I made sure he understood that. What is he doing here, though?
“What do you want?” I spat out, keeping my feet firmly in place behind the counter.
I could tell he wasn’t here to hurt me, but I wanted to keep a barrier between us in case I was wrong.
Monti’s smile spread, deepening the frown that sat on one side of his face from the gash that stretched across it. “I’m glad to see Cooper didn’t do too much irreparable damage to your little shop.” He watched my expression closely for a reaction, but I refused to give him one.
When he was sure I wasn’t going to respond, he sighed and continued, “I just wanted to introduce myself and ask you to relay a message to our friend, Liam. He hasn’t been around much for me to talk to him.”
A sarcastic smile played on my lips as I replied in my peppiest voice, “Unfortunately, Liam and I are no longer on speaking terms. If you have a message for him, you’ll have to relay it yourself.”
His Italian leather loafers shuffled across the floor, stopping next to the counter to take in my full appearance. He let out a loud chuckle. “You’re funny. Tell him this isn’t over. He will be feeling the effects of his actions soon enough.”
Instead of waiting for a response from me, he turned and walked to the door, pushing through it without sparing another glance in my direction. I stayed rooted in the same spot, staring off onto the street through the open window in shock. I watched him jump into the back seat of a black SUV before it pulled away from the curb and drove off.
What the hell did that mean?
It’s been two weeks since Liam walked out of my apartment and he hasn’t turned back since. Part of me was relieved he’d left and hopeful he took the danger of his extracurriculars with him. Exactly what I feared with getting mixed up with the Reapers was coming true and I didn’t plan on sticking around in the shop like a sitting duck, waiting for them to come after me again. In record time, I stored away the half-mixed batter in the fridge and gathered the unsold items from the display case.
●
“Hey, there. How can we help you?” A middle-aged man appeared from a doorway off the lobby at the sound of the bells above the door when I entered.
I took in the tidy front office, surprised at how clean and modern it looked for being in a mom-and-pop auto shop. The loud banging and yelling coming from the back garage was a stark contrast to the silence in the room I stood in. The only noise came from the small TV on the wall that murmured the news.
After appraising the lobby, my eyes swung back over to the waiting man and the familiarity of his features stunned me. He looked like an older version of Liam.
“Hi, I’m actually here for Liam,” I finally said, lifting my arm to show him the three white bags I held full of baked goods that I brought as an excuse to be here. “I come bearing gifts,” I joked, feeling oddly comfortable with him.
He laughed, walking toward me with an outstretched hand to introduce himself. “I’m Joe, Liam’s uncle. You should probably just give me those, you know, for safe keeping,” he joked back, sticking his hands into his pockets after we shook. He wore clean black slacks and a deep blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his arms—a strange uniform for owning a dirty auto shop.
“Liam’s back there.” He gestured toward a door that must have led to the garage. “I’ll go grab him for you. Go ahead and have a seat. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Pop?”
My response was a smile and a negative shake of my head before I grabbed the closest chair and set my things on the one next to it, watching him disappear behind the door. I wondered if Joe knew about the illegal dealings that had happened right under his nose, or if he was a Reaper himself. Maybe this entire shop was filled with them. The thought sent a chill down my spine.
Everything I’d ever known them to be contradicted what Liam showed me about himself. I had no idea what to think about it anymore. Maybe they weren’t all as bad as my parents and the media made them look. But I doubted that. Monti’s mangled face entered the back of my mind, reminding me of his threats.
I missed living in the peaceful bliss of ignorance.
My drive over here was spent waging a war inside my head about even doing this—putting myself in a position where I had to see him. On one hand, I wasn’t Reaper messenger owl. It wasn’t my job to relay information between gang members. Hadn’t they ever heard of cell phones? Second, I didn’t take too kindly to threats, and that’s what Monti’s words felt like to me—a personal threat. Maybe I was selfishly reading too far into it, but his past actions have proved that to be wrong. Lastly, I wasn’t ready to see Liam and relive the moment he walked out of my apartment door, taking every broken piece of me along with him.
I let my eyes wander around the office before a loud laughter erupted from the door Joe had entered, followed by hooting and hollering. A few short moments later, Joe came back through the door with Liam tailing behind him and almost like it knew its owner was near, my heart kicked up in my chest.