Chapter 12: Eleven Layers

At nine that night I locked the bakery door and turned the sign to Closed.

Lark stood at my steel counter with her sleeves rolled to the elbow and a brand-new apron tied twice around her waist.

"What do I do?" she said.

"You crack eggs."

"I'm good at eggs."

"You're a person who feeds fish for a living. Show me."

She cracked twelve eggs into a bowl one-handed, perfectly, and looked smug.

"Fine," I said. "You're hired."

A wedding cake takes three days if you do it right.

Tonight I was baking the layers, eleven of them, for four tiers and the spares.

The mixers roared, the ovens ticked, and the whole kitchen filled with the smell of warm vanilla.

I showed her how to whip the whites until they held a peak.

"Gently," I said. "Fold, don't stir."

"Fold, don't stir."

"You're stirring."

"I'm folding aggressively."

"That's not a thing."

She laughed, and flour puffed off her sleeve into the light.

For two hours we worked side by side without talking much, passing bowls and spatulas, brushing arms.

It was the best kind of quiet.

At eleven, I pulled the first chiffon layer from the oven and set it on a rack.

It was tall and golden and trembling, and it smelled like a cloud.

"Touch it," I said. "Lightly."

Lark pressed one finger to the crown, and the cake sprang back.

"It's alive," she said.

"That means it's done."

"I'd like to marry it."

"The fiance said that."

"The fiance has taste."

She leaned over the rack, and her hair fell across her cheek.

I pushed it behind her ear with a floury hand, and left a white streak across her temple.

Lark caught my wrist.

"You've marked me," she said.

"On purpose."

"I know."

She wiped a thumb through the flour on the counter and drew a line down my jaw.

We stood there a moment, painted and breathing.

"It's almost midnight," Lark said softly. "We could stop for a bit."

"We could."

"I'd like to."

I set the spatula down.

The ovens still ticked.

I turned off the mixer and the lights over the front.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Best Friend's Stepmother's Niece Is Off Limits from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.