Tori watched Penny expectantly. Which was to say, yes, Penny was hugely pregnant, so every pause she took was pregnant, but she was taking her time lingering over Tori’s presentation. Tori had a notebook full of reference material and costs, if Penny would only ask questions.

Tori had taken a field trip to check out the farmer’s market in Calistoga, an excursion well worth her time. The sellers were set up to take credit cards, and even EBT cards. That meant farm to table food was available for all. This key selling point was featured prominently in her presentation.

Tori titled her presentation, “Beauty is only skin deep, but nutrition is all the way through.” She needed to shorten it for a booth slogan, but it got the point across. PnK wouldn’t have to sort through their produce for commercial beauty standards because they would sell what they had in all its glorious weirdness.

Penny leaned back and rubbed her baby bump. She hummed a bit before sitting upright. She clicked the keyboard, backing the presentation up.

“How soon could all of this happen?” she finally asked.

“I have us on the waiting list for Calistoga. We can basically walk into the markets in Napa and Yountville.” Tori pulled the already filled-out applications from a file folder. “Just need your signature.”

“And St. Helena?”

“We have to be reviewed by a committee. It’s only open seasonally. They want pictures of our booth,” Tori answered.

“We don’t have a booth,” Penny countered.

“Sure, we do.” Tori leaned over the computer and clicked to the slide in the presentation featuring an image of a market booth with crates and signs It wasn’t pretty, but that was the point. “We can put up a banner or a bunch of chalkboard signs with ‘give ugly food a chance’ or ‘you don’t eat veggies cause they look good’ and stuff like that. This is all from what we currently have, and we have plenty of these delivery trays. Putting them to use at a farmer’s market wouldn’t impact operations at all. Besides, if we get started in the other places first, we can have pictures of a live booth in action for future applications.”

Penny leaned back in her chair. “How soon can we do it?”

Tori’s insides bubbled up with excitement. She flipped open her note book.

“We need someone to man the booth and take care of sales. I figure we can rotate this through a few different people. We should get you out there as much as you can handle. It will probably be a long day, so you’ll need back-up. And you’ll need someone to do the heavy lifting. But in the beginning your presence is a boon for us. Even if all you are doing is standing around looking pretty.”

“You mean pregnant.”

Tori chuckled. “I mean, like the person who owns and runs Peaz’n’Karrit’s Farm. Get a face with the name. So back to your timetable. _People power we already have, a booth we already have, veggies we already have. What we don’t have is a delivery van for the market day or an idea of how long the waiting process is for us to be accepted. But I do have an idea for the van. I went ahead and applied to participate in the Golden State Fresh program, so that we can be participating in that EBT card program as soon as possible.”

“This might be a feasible idea, Tori. I need to think about it.” Penny played with the application forms in front of her.

Tori pulled out another document from her file folder. She slid it in front of Penny. “Here is a cost break down. I compared the prices of things at the farmer’s market and the grocery store versus what you currently sell to restaurants. This isn’t a suggestion to replace restaurant sales in any way, shape or form, but it’s a decent side hustle. Numbers aren’t my thing, but you said I had to make a positive impact on your bottom line to keep my job. I like working for you. I like working for PnK. I like the mission and the message you are trying to achieve here.”

“I appreciate this, Tori. You really ran with this challenge. How could you leverage this with your online social marketing goals for PnK?”

Penny had to ask a tough one, but Tori was prepared. “Hashtags and silly signs for selfies. We need an artist. I bet one of our growers has hidden talent and would love the opportunity to paint some signs.” She leaned over the keyboard and navigated to a Pinterest board. “I was thinking something like this.”

Tori rotated the laptop to face Penny again. This time it displayed happy customers posing with their shiny purchases in front of a sign that said “I got stoned at the Gem Fair.” The set up was clear, even to Penny, a self-proclaimed social media idiot. The customers were sharing the gem dealer’s information on their social media platforms. That sign and the humor in it was going viral—a small, community sized viral, but viral. It wasn’t just the dealer making the posts, but everyone else sharing it out. Leverage.

Penny grinned and nodded. Sold. “I’ll get back to you.”Which meant that Penny would get back to her with a check and signed applications.

***

Before tonight Tori would have said she had never met a cheesecake she didn’t like. Carnita Joe’s stepped up to the challenge. She stared at the slice of cheesecake in front of her. Her days were beginning to become boringly redundant. Work and then margaritas, or work and then home because Ali and Erin wanted to hit the Spigot.

She wasn’t sure which was worse, here where she got to see Les hanging on hot female tourists or home where she would be alone? At least the margaritas were better here. The mariachi music in the air taunted her. She should be enjoying herself, but this cake had other plans.

She had taken one bite and couldn’t decide if she wanted to attempt another one. Could it really be as bad as the first taste indicated? Her gaze drifted from the dessert to Ali’s oversized purse slouched on the end of the table next to a plate of decimated nachos. Even if she did come back to finish them, they would be nasty cold.

Tori picked her phone up to check in with Sam. Her thumbs typed up a quick message, filling her friend in on how life this week was going. It was boring, it was all work.

Tori poked the fork into the creamy white cake. She had ordered it as a way to pass the time while she felt confined to the booth. Erin had started a new job, so it was just her and Ali tonight, and Ali had taken off, saying she would be right back. That was over thirty minutes ago. Tori was stuck watching her friend’s purse while her friend was off doing whatever.

She needed to come back and pay for her nacho, and her margaritas. Tori fumed. She wanted a decent slice of cheesecake, and she wanted to hang out with her friend, not her friend’s purse.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Les slid into the booth across from her. He shoved Ali’s bag and plate farther down the table.

Tori forgot everything she had just been fuming about. Her face broke into a grin all on its own. Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be such a crappy night out, after all. She didn’t say anything as he reached forward and picked up her fork off the plate and took a bite of her dessert. Les was sitting in the booth with her. Everything in her body went stupid happy.

“Uh, this is crap.” He made a face and scanned the table for a napkin. “How can you eat that? I thought you liked cheesecake?”

She suppressed a giggled. “That’s not cheesecake. It’s frozen cardboard. I don’t know what it is, and I wasn’t eating it, I was staring at it.”

Les turned his attention back to the restaurant at large, making a nodding motion when he spotted whatever he was looking for.

Maria approached the table. “S’up?” She nodded at Les.

Les rambled a stream of Spanish at Maria and pushed the cheesecake toward her.

Tori really needed to learn the language. She was picking up more and more at work and had learned enough to know Les call the cake crap.

He handed the waitress an unwrapped setting with a flourish. Maria slid her gaze to Tori. “Why haven’t you said anything if it’s as bad as he says?”

Maria pulled the fork from the napkin bundle and carefully took a piece of cake. She spit the offending piece out into the napkin and followed it with a torrent of Spanish epithets.

Tori could not suppress her giggle, especially since Les was roaring with laughter.

“I was trying to decide if it was really as bad as I thought. You know, working my way up to a confirming bite. But also figuring out the best words to describe it. Gross just doesn’t seem to do it justice. I mean, how many times has that been frozen and refrozen?”

Maria swept the plate with the offending cheesecake away. “I’ll take care of this. You still want something? I’ll bring you a flan, I know that’s good. We make that here.” She left with an expression of extreme distaste as she stared at the rancid piece of cheesecake.

“You’re all dolled up. What’s up?” Les asked.

“Nothing, and I’m just not in work clothes. I mean, you aren’t in your black and white chef pants.”

“Point taken. Where are your friends?”

Tori shrugged. “Erin had to work and Ali said she would be right back thirty minutes ago. I have no clue where she went.”

“Fall in the toilet?” Les chuckled.

Butterflies flitted in Tori’s stomach when he grinned at her.

She shook her head. “I checked. And I can’t call her, ’cause her phone is in the bag.” Tori pointed at the offending property she felt obligated to monitor. “To be honest, I’m ready to leave. What about you?”

Maria appeared again and slid a plate with a glistening flan onto the table between Tori and Les. She placed napkins and two spoons down. “I promise you this isn’t gross, and I made sure it’s not on your bill.” She reached over and picked up the plate of cold nachos before leaving.

“Thanks.” Tori reached for a spoon.

Les was already scooping a serving of the creamy dessert into his mouth.

“I’m ready to bounce, too. We were hanging with some chicks earlier, but they left, mi primos already took off, and this place is dead tonight. Thought I’d come over and—”

She closed her eyes and experienced the flan as it played across her tongue. Les stopped talking, but Tori didn’t care. She hated that she knew he was in her booth because there was no one left for him to talk to in the bar. She didn’t particularly want to know about some chick he didn’t manage to successfully hook up with.

Actually, it made her a little happy. This way he did come and talk to her, even if it was a crappy reason.

More importantly, why hadn’t she ordered this before? She breathed in and noticed the perfection of the caramelized sugars as they mingled with the rich custard. She may have hummed in satisfaction. This more than made up for that painful attempt at cheesecake and almost consoled her over being stuck with Ali’s bag. She was going to need a second bite to get past being Les’s fallback.

Tori watched as the spoon cut into the dessert, scooping up a mouthful of confectionary delight. She closed her eyes as she slid the spoon back between her lips. She savored the moment of perfect happiness. No matter what else was going on in her life, right now the flan seemed to take all of her pain away.

Les cleared his throat. “You enjoying that?”

Tori blinked up at him. Yes, this moment was bliss, a perfect dessert, Les looking at her with those fathomless dark eyes of his, his mouth twitched up into an amused grin.

Tori felt like purring. “I am. It’s really good. You’re the professional. What do you think?”

“It’s good, but I don’t think I got nearly as much out of it as you did,” he said with a chuckle.

The dessert was small, and between the two of them they finished in a few bites.

“You need a ride?” Les asked.

Tori shook her head. “I’m walking, but I can’t go anywhere until Ali comes back. I can’t leave her shit here, and I really don’t feel like paying for her drinks.”

“Where is she?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. She took off a while ago.”

Les managed to grab Maria’s attention again. He asked if she had seen Tori’s friend.

Maria pulled a check from her pad and paused. “Oh, she’s out on the patio smoking,” she answered.

Les took the check from Maria and handed her several bills.

She looked at the money in her hand. “You need change?”

Les shook his head.

“Wait, she’s been outside this whole time? I could have left.” But she was glad she hadn’t because Les, and flan. “Maria,” she called after the waitress as she was leaving, “Can I get my check?”

Maria looked confused and pointed at Les. “He just paid me.”

“Oh, okay.” Tori turned her attention to Les. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. You shared your dessert with me, so call it even.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“You aren’t letting me. C’mon. I’ll walk you home.”

Tori huffed, grabbed her bag, and scooted out of the booth to follow Les. She wasn’t about to let this opportunity slide by her.

Once she exited the front door, she walked along the patio until she saw Ali, sucking on a cigarette and curled up in some tourist’s lap. “Hey Ali, don’t forget your purse when you leave.”

“You just left it? You could have brought it out to me,” Ali grumbled.

“I didn’t know where you were. You could have told me where you went.” Tori shook her head. “Look, I’m headed home. Your bag is back at the booth.”

Ali rolled her eyes, and Tori just shrugged it off. Ali was always doing shit like this. “See you later, okay?”

Ali jumped out of the man’s lap , stumbled over to Tori, and leaned over the railing separating the sidewalk from the patio to give Tori an air kiss to the cheek. “See ya later, sweetie, and thanks. Didn’t mean to ditch you like that. This guy is really hot. I think his name is Scott.” She turned and yelled back to him. “Scott, wave hi to Tori.”

Tori coughed and waved in return. The guy was good looking and was just Ali’s type, buff and temporary.

“Good, that’s his name. Okay, I’ll see ya later.” Ali tottered back to Scott.

Tori caught up with Les, who stood waiting by the front door.

“You all good?” he asked.

Not really, but she didn’t need to share that she hated it when Ali treated her like a purse babysitter or that everyone seemed to prefer to do anything instead of hang out with her. She just nodded and set off down the street.

“You walk home a lot, or was she your ride?” Les had his hands shoved down into his jeans pockets.

“She was my ride, and I end up walking a lot.”

“Why do you put up with that?”

Tori shrugged. “I know it’s gonna happen, so it’s not like it’s a surprise. Besides I live downtown, barely a mile away.”

“Is it safe for you to walk home alone at night?”

“No less safe than getting in a car with a tipsy driver. Look, most anybody out this late is in a car, not out walking. And if they are, they are walking their dogs or out for a jog. It’s probably as safe as any other time of day,” Tori explained.

“So where do you live?” Les asked.

Tori pointed north and a little to the left. Her insides did a little happy dance. She needed tell Sam that Les walked her home. “Just up here. I’m in a back apart—”

A loud honking cut Tori off. A bright red convertible, clearly a rental, pulled to an awkward stop alongside the curb. “Hey, Les, you still interested in partying?”

The blonde who leaned out of the passenger’s side was lean and tan and falling out of her spaghetti strap ruffled tank top. It was too cold to be wearing a tank top without a jacket. The other woman behind the wheel was dressed similarly. Tourists, thinking California was perpetually beach weather. Tourists who looked like every other women she had ever seen Les with: shiny hair, big eyes, boobs.

“Becky and Emma, right?” Les halted next to the car.

Tori’s stomach sank. She knew exactly what was about to happen, as if she was a psychic. She didn’t need to be clairvoyant to know that Les would jump in the car to leave with these two.

“Tori, you’re good from here, right?”

Bingo. She should go buy a lottery ticket. She gave Les a weak wave and concealed her huff. Can’t be mad at a dog for being a dog, can you? She should have expected it, just as she’d known Ali would go home with some guy with a neck thicker than his IQ.

Les fell into the back seat, and the passenger chick tossed her arms up in the air and shouted, “Woo hoo!” as the car pulled away from the curb.

“Woo fucking hoo,” Tori muttered as she watched them drive off. She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. Setting herself up for a fall. She needed to do something nice for herself. She remembered seeing a notice for social dance lessons and open floor on the front door of the Barre and Tap School of Dance.

She walked the extra few blocks to check. Yep, right there, the school’s schedule.

Thursday nights eight o’clock. Show up fifteen minutes early to learn the dance steps. Hanging out at the bar at Carnita Joe’s wasn’t doing her any favors. She wasn’t meeting new people, and Ali and Erin preferred the Spigot anyway. Tori couldn’t go there anymore, she just couldn’t. It was bad enough having to deal with Josh at work, and she didn’t want to deal with him on her own time, and on his home turf.

***

Les leaned over and piped a tiny carrot on top of the thick white frosting. It looked like a little orange dick. Once the green was added, it would look like a carrot.

The table in front of him was covered in personal sized cakes. As soon as he finished piping the frosting design on all of them, he would complete the decoration with sprigs of crystalized mint leaves. That reminded him. He was going to need more mint. He would ask Tori next time she showed up.

He smiled and began humming. He didn’t realize the tune was the R&B funk classic Brick House, until he started singing out loud.

Next to him, the tall aluminum baker’s rack spun. Marc DeLuca, hotel owner and therefore Les’s big-boss, stepped out from behind it. He obviously had filched something from the rack.

“These eclairs are almost as good as my wife’s,” Marc admitted

“Only almost?” Les teased. He knew they were as good as or better than Marc’s wife Lexi’s standard creations.

Marc picked up a dessert plate from another shelf on the rack. He scooped a spoon full of cake into his mouth and moaned. “Lexi makes the best rum cake, I swear.”

Les set down the piping bag. “Your taste buds need to be checked, boss-man. That rum cake is mine.”

“Do you use my wife’s recipe?” Marc cocked an eyebrow at him. “Because I had one of these the other day out of her display case.”

“Nope, I trade her. The eclair that you claimed as almost as good as hers is hers, and the rum cake you filched from her stock is mine.” There was no reason to compete, and with the boss’s wife, a renowned pastry chef, right next door, why not arrange to work together? With Chef’s signature on the order form, Les had worked out an equitable trade with the hotel’s neighbor at The Sweet and Savory Bistro. He delivered rum cakes with enough proof to make someone think about handing over their keys, and in exchange he received trays upon trays of chocolate eclairs and cream puffs.

“Crap, don’t tell her that. Lexi would make me sleep on the couch for a week.”

“Mum’s the word. So, can I leverage this for a raise?” Les chuckled as he returned to piping orange semi-phallic veggies.

Marc was silent for a moment, and then he also chuckled. “For a second I thought you weren’t joking. No raise, but I can probably finagle a paid day off. I have an in with your boss.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Les nodded as Marc left.

Lost in placement of his mint leaves, Les started singing Brick House again.

A low curse came from the back door followed with an “uff” and other sounds that accompanied the carrying of large delivery trays.

Tori lugged the bushel of tomatoes through the back door to the kitchen. She left it on the trestle table and headed back to the van.

Les leaned against the half wall and watched her wrangle her load.

“Hey, Tori.”

She sidestepped as Karen entered, her hair in tight coils of bright colors, held up in a pony tail on top of her head. When she smiled back at him, he couldn’t help but smile more broadly.

Had he noticed that her eyes twinkled like that before?

“What’s with the crazy hair?” He nodded, indicating her cascade of curled ribbons.

She reached up and touched her head. Her eyes went wide, and she flushed a light pink under her freckles.

“Oh crap. I forgot to take those out.” She left her hand resting on top of her hair style.

“Tell everyone it was on purpose. They kind of look like those extension things mi primas put in their hair for parties.”

“Then pretend that’s what I told you. How’s that cheesecake coming along?”

“Someone I know didn’t get me enough lavender to make more than a few sample batches,” Les teased.

He felt like a goon the second he saw Tori’s face. She really did feel bad about that. “But hey, she’s promised to get me all the lavender I can handle as soon as her contact’s crop blooms.”

“I’m sorry about that. So many growers in this area presell,” Tori tried to explain.

“I didn’t mean to poke at a sore spot. I’ve been busy doing production runs. I’ll have time to experiment and make samples next week. Chef wants a full seasonal shift. Time to phase out the heavier cakes for lighter options.”

Karen appeared silently behind Tori and tugged on her shirt.

“I’m gonna have to head out,” Tori said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Wait.” Les stopped her. “I need more mint. Is that you? Or are you just veg and flowers?”

“That’s us. I’ll make sure you get some. And I’ll make sure that slacker lavender supplier of yours delivers. I really want to try that cheesecake.”

Her hair bounced in springy coils as she left. She was wearing jeans again. Her backside was mighty mighty.