Armed with a sheet of wax paper and a French tipped piping bag, I followed along with the YouTube tutorial, flicking my wrist just like the guy in the video. But while he made neat little flower petals, I only made a mess.

Flowers made of icing were my kryptonite.

I'd been baking since my grandma showed me how make peanut butter cookies with only three ingredients when I was ten. But when it came to decorating, I was still a newbie. It had only been three months since my Aunt Mimi selected me to help her with cupcakes for one of my cousin's birthday parties.

She showed me how to do that basic frosting design you saw on most cupcakes—the swirly looking one. I remembered getting completely lost in the repetitive motion, silently cheering whenever one came out perfectly.

I was upset there were only two dozen cupcakes.

That night when I got home, I whipped up some frosting from scratch, poured it into a Ziploc bag and practiced some more on Oreo's.

I'd had the worst stomach ache of my life that next morning, but it was worth it for the discovery a new passion. No more making plain, boring cakes for me. Everything I made had a design, no matter how simple.

It had been a few days since I told Aunt Mimi about the bake-off. She hadn't mentioned it once, but I held out hope that she'd come to her senses. And since the competition required a partner, I was practicing my decorating skills so I could bake alongside her in LA.

Dad always called his sister hardheaded and often compared me to her. The comparison was accurate and Aunt Mimi was about to see me at my highest level of stubborn.

The entry deadline was June 30th and I had until then to convince her of what a great idea the show was.

My phone rang, the sound breaking my concentration and causing me to jump. Weirdly, that was one of the only times my flower petal came out nicely. I had to remember that.

Setting the pipping bag aside I picked up my phone from the counter, wiping icing from the screen with my apron. It was Aunt Mimi. I wondered if she could feel my thinking about her.

"Hello, my favorite Auntie!" I sang when I answered the phone, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

"Girl, last I checked, I was your only auntie." There was a laugh in her voice. "Are you at the office?"

"Nope, it's my day off." I had to beg Dad to let me have the weekend off, Friday included. I needed time to perfect my piping technique. Thankfully, Vanessa offered to do to extra shifts. She really enjoyed teeth.

"Good, I need you to come down to the shop, if you're not too busy."

I couldn't hold back the excitement swelling in my chest. Did that mean she was on board with the bake-off?

"Yeah, okay," I said, already headed down the hall to shower. I had frosting just about everywhere. "I'll be there in thirty."

"Perfect!" She said with a relived sigh. "Thank you, my favorite niece!"

I rolled my eyes, smiling. "Last, I checked, I was your only niece."

Her laughter came over the line. "Go shower."

After a quick shower I put on a sundress with sunflowers printed on it and slipped on some sandals. My hair was in two buns (my go to style when my hair desperately needed a wash) and I added a few yellow hair clips to each side to hopefully distract from the flaky build-up of leave-in conditioner.

I left a note for Dad on the fridge, promising to clean up my frosting mess when I got back, and was out the door.

∆ ∆ ∆

My heart sank every time I walked into an empty Cake Me Up. That day was no different. Well, one thing was different.

Cake Me Up's newest employee, Nathaniel, was at the counter where Aunt Mimi usually stood. He wore the white t-shirt with the Cake Me Up logo on the breast pocket. The sleeves were pulled taut around his biceps, which flexed as he fingered the game console he held. How much video gaming did he have to do to get muscles like that?

Ugh, I needed to get a grip.

"Hi," I said once I reached the counter.

"Hold on."

I blinked at his rudeness. He hadn't even looked up from his game. I could've been a customer for all he knew. I hadn't been at Cake Me Up during his shifts, unlike Nessa who always returned with some new fact about him, but if that was how he greeted customers.

Normally, I wasn't a violent person, but his attitude towards potential customers when my aunt's bakery was already holding on for dear life irritated me.

I snatched the game from his hands. From the look on his face, you'd think I'd just snatched his heart right out of his chest.

He blinked rapidly, as if waking from a dream, before his dark eyes focused in on me. "What the hell?"

"What the hell is right," I said, crossing my arms. "You don't treat a customer that way!"

He sighed, placing his hands the counter. "You're not a customer."

"You didn't know that. You were too busy staring at this." I held up the game that began vibrating in my hand.

Nathaniel's shoulders dropped as he let out an exasperated sigh. "Thanks, now I'm dead."

I cocked my head to the side, slowly shaking it at him. Did he honestly think I cared about his stupid game?

He reached out for the console. "And I knew it was you," he said when I handed it back to him. His attention immediately went back to the screen, leaning his elbows on the smudged glass case, thumbs stabbing at the buttons. "You're not hard to miss."

I took a step back, gaping at him. "Wow."

He tore his eyes from his game to look at me, a crease between his brow.

"So, now you're make fun of my weight?"

I wasn't thin and my obsession with baking had people assume all I did was ate cake all day, every day. My weight wasn't something I thought about obsessively, yet, for some reason, other people seemed to think about it constantly.

He stood up straighter, the confusion settling deeper into his expression. "What—"

"I'm fat, get over it!"

His lips parted like he was going to say something, but decided not to. Instead, he shook his head, a slight smile in his face as he turned back to his game.

"Where's Mimi?" I asked, my words clipped as I held back the urge the take his game and launch it at a wall.

"Who?" He asked his game.

How had Aunt Mimi put up with him for three days? I wanted to throttle him after three minutes. "Michelle?" I tried. At the blank look on his face I all but shouted, "Your boss!"

"Oh," he said, his final two brain cells finally making the connection. "She left."

I opened my mouth to ask follow up questions, but thought better of it. He probably wasn't paying attention when she told him where she'd be, so asking him would've been pointless.

Instead, I went behind the counter, ignoring his eyes on me as I slipped into my aunt's office and closed the door behind me. I'm positive her office was really meant to be a broom closet with how small it was. It matched the rest of the bakery with bright walls and furniture. The walls in there had a cloud pattern, giving the illusion you were floating in the air.

It was my first time back there. The kitchen was where I spent most of my time whenever I visited. I went around to her desk that was cluttered with papers and pens and little unicorn figurines and sat in her pastel pink desk chair.

Why did she call me down there if she was gone? Actually, I thought, thinking about her new employee, it makes perfect sense why she wanted me here.

Fishing my phone from my purse, I called Aunt Mimi to clarify. It rang twice before she picked up. "Am I babysitting?" I asked before she could even say hello.

"Don't call it that," she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of voices in the background. "But, yes, you are. Nate just started working there. If by some luck a customer walks in, I don't want him to deal with it alone."

I absentmindedly began straightening up her desk, putting pens into the pen holder and organizing the papers into piles—scribbles of potential recipes, order forms, overdue bills. "You don't want him to or you don't think he can?" There was only one correct answer to that question and she knew it.

"Charm, sweetie, just keep him company until I get back," she suggested, oblivious to my annoyance with Nate.

Still, I agreed to her request. "Where are you anyway?"

The voices in the background faded, so I assumed she walked to a quieter area. "I am at that sushi place downtown." She sounded almost ashamed to admit that.

As she should! She was out getting sushi during work hours when her bakery was on it's deathbed. Then, something else dawned on me, would she go all the way downtown for lunch? "Are you on a date?" I whisper-shouted into the phone.

She didn't say anything, but I knew my aunt. The only thing she'd skip out on work for was a date. I knew having a social life was important, but it started to feel like my aunt didn't care about Cake Me Up as much I did. Otherwise, she'd be there trying to find ways to bring customers to her shop.

I hung up after she promised to be back soon. I had zero interest in going back to the store front with Nate. If Aunt Mimi wasn't going to fight for the bakery, then why should I bother? Hell, maybe I should go ask Nate to teach me how to play one of his games. Screw it all!

Even as I thought that I didn't believe it. Giving up wasn't in my DNA. And my aunt was right, if we got a customer, I should be out front to make sure Nate didn't mess it up.

It wasn't until I was about to leave the office that I saw a newspaper article on the door, darts thrown into it.

It was about my aunt's first bakery, one she opened with a friend from college, Lynn, I think. The two of them posed under a neon sign that said CAKE'D in electric blue cursive. They had their arms around each other in a hug, grinning wide with one leg each kicked back and their cheeks pushed together.

Cake'd was a forbidden topic with my aunt. All I knew was that, seven years ago, it quickly became one of the most popular bakeries on the west coast—that was where the celebrity photos outside came from—and it all fell apart just as fast.

"Creative differences" was the official report. Only Aunt Mimi and Lynn knew the unofficial reason.

The soft jingle of the front door opening interrupted my thoughts. We actually had a customer?

I yanked the office door opened, sure Nate had his stupid game out again. What I saw almost made me feel bad for misjudging him. Almost.

Tammy, one of Aunt Mimi's regulars, came in with her three kids. The Nintendo Switch was nowhere in sight as Nate put on the million-dollar smile that landed him the job in the first place.

He worked fast, packing a dozen different donuts into a pink box. Effortlessly following along as the three kids talked over one another while they told him exactly which donuts they wanted.

He didn't even flinch with Tammy's twelve-year-old daughter was unabashedly giving him cartoon heart eyes and sneaking a picture of him on her phone. He nearly killed the poor girl when he winked at her.

As soon as Tammy and her kids were out of view from the shop, Nate pulled his game from his back pocket. "Don't look so surprised," he said coolly.

I jumped a little at him acknowledging me. I didn't even know he saw me watching him work. Heat rushed to my cheeks at the fact that he knew I was outright watching him do his job.

When I didn't respond he turned to face me, leaning back on the glass case, his hands gripping the edge. "By the way," he said, meeting my eyes with a hint of a smirk on his lips. "The walls aren't as thick as you think they are, babysitter."

A sink hole opening up right under me would've been nice at that moment.

//

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