Aunt Mimi had just put a couple round pans of cake batter into the oven when I walked into the kitchen of Cake Me Up. The shop hadn't even opened when Aunt Mimi had called me in to help her prepare for a baby shower that was happening that afternoon. There was a lot of blue frosting and sprinkles shaped like bottles everywhere.

"I thought I was going to have to break you out of that dentist office," she said when she saw me. "You haven't been in here all week."

That was true, but it had nothing to do working for my dad. I was trying to avoid Nate as much as possible. After he kicked me out of his party the other night, I couldn't think of him without getting annoyed. For real that time.

I still couldn't understand why he was acting like such a jerk? Liz's theory seemed to be true. Nate was trying to make his ex jealous and was mad that I wouldn't play along.

And I hated that he worked at my aunt's bakery of all places. I'd been spending my lunch breaks at the park, protecting my food from flies and melting in the sun.

Before I could revel in the fact that he wasn't there, he walked through the doors holding an envelope. Why was he there? Why wasn't he at home sleeping or playing his dumb game? Why couldn't he give me a moment of peace?

"Are those the pictures?" Aunt Mimi asked him, completely oblivious to the building tension between Nate and I. He hadn't even looked in my direction.

"Yeah," he said, not leaving.

Aunt Mimi opened the envelope, pulling out a blown-up sonogram picture.

I frowned. "Don't tell me they want that on the cake."

"It's their choice," she said, tossing her hands in the air. "Let's get started. We have to be done by ten."

♡ ♡ ♡

There was a full hour of denial before I accepted Nate was staying to help with the order.

I was hoping to have some alone time with Aunt Mimi. There was only a week left to send in an audition tape to Bake-A-Palooza and I wanted to use that time to convince her to do it. Having Nate present wasn't part of the plan. But I could waste any more time.

Cake Me Up was hanging on by a thread and I knew the competition could save it.

"Have you given any more thought to Bake-A-Palooza?" I blurted out while we were waiting on the cupcakes to bake.

We moved to the front of the store, the heat from the ovens turned the kitchen into a sauna. Nate was on his phone, Aunt Mimi was sitting at table and I sat across from her.

Aunt Mimi was going over a check list on a clipboard, but stopped to look up at me. "Charm, we've been over this."

"And I still don't get why you don't want to do it."

She sighed and set the clipboard down. "I understand that you want to help me, but I have things under control. Owning a business is like a rollercoaster, lots of ups and downs. We'll be up again soon."

She left the table before I could ask her if she actually believed that, because I didn't.

As soon as she disappeared behind her office door Nate dropped down into her vacant seat.

"Can we talk about the other night?"

"No." I stood, stepping outside where I was instantly hit with a welcome breeze.

Nate ruined my moment by following me out. "I guess baking isn't the only thing that runs in the family."

I narrowed my eyes at him as I leaned against bakery's front window. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm trying to talk to you and you walked away," he pointed out, standing in front of me. "Like your aunt just did you."

"That's different," I snapped, crossing my arms. "I'm trying to help her. You—I don't know what you want."

"I want to apologize. For what happened at the party." He came over and leaned against the window beside me. "I have this...habit of acting out when my feelings are hurt."

There was a heaviness in the pit of my stomach, guilt filling my chest. "I hurt your feelings?"

He shrugged a shoulder, focused in the sidewalk. "I mean, we were talking and everything was fine, then it was like you couldn't get away from me fast enough."

I was so worried about my own feelings that I didn't think about how Nate felt. He didn't know that I liked him or how conflicted my feelings got when he was around. He thought we were friends and I was being freaking weirdo.

"Sorry." Was all I could say at that moment. It wasn't like I could tell him exactly why I was acting weird at the party.

His gaze flicked up to me, one side of his mouth lifting into a smile.

We stood there in a comfortable silence, watching cars enter and exit the strip mall. My mind drifted back to my aunt and her stubbornness about Bake-A-Palooza. Maybe, like with Nate, I was so focused on what I wanted that I missing something on her side.

Then I remembered what she said that night at the at her apartment "I know what the internet can do." What did she mean by that?

"Why wouldn't someone want a social media presence," I asked out loud, looking to Nate.

He thought for a second. "Privacy?"

That was a good reason, but it didn't fit with Aunt Mimi. She loved attention.

I shook my head. "I don't think that's it. The last time I brought up Bake-A-Palooza she said didn't want to do it because she 'knows what the internet can do'—whatever that means.

Nate pulled his phone from his pocket, his thumbs jabbing at the screen.

"What are you doing?"

"Googling her," he explained. "Michelle..."

"Cunningham," I filled in.

Before he could type it in, Aunt Mimi poked her head out of the bakery. "Breaks over minions."

♡ ♡ ♡

As soon as the baked goods were secured in Aunt Mimi's car and she drove off the deliver them to the baby shower, Nate and I went back to Googling.

Cake Me Up was opened for business and Nate was supposed to be working the front counter, but none of that mattered when we didn't get customers.

So, we sat side by side at a table and watched Nate's phone as he Googled Michelle Cunningham. Which, according to the search results, there were about a million of them.

"Try searching it with Cake'd," I told him. "That was her first bakery. She ran it with her friend, Lynn.. something."

She never talked about Cake'd or Lynn. I didn't know why I hadn't put two and two together before. Obviously, something happened back then.

"Lynn Goffney," Nate said, bring my attention to the article he just pulled up on his phone.

The article was from seven years ago, a highlight on Black owned businesses in LA. It didn't say anything about it how Cake'd ended, just about how delicious the cakes were and how close Aunt Mimi and Lynn were.

We tried countless other articles. Cake'd had only been open a year and yet they had so much press. A lot of them from well-known news sources and bloggers.

If my aunt managed to generate that much buzz back then, why wasn't Cake Me Up on that same level?

"Try searching Lynn," I suggested when I realized using my aunt's name was a dead end.

Nate type "Lynn Goffney Cake'd" into the search bar. The first result was to a dance aerobics studio not two hours from us.

Lynn had apparently changed professions and was running the number one aerobics studio in the county.

"Should we call her?" I asked, unsure of how to even handle that. What would I say? Did I flat out ask her about Aunt Mimi?

While I was trying to figure out a plan of action, Nate's phone was ringing. It was on speaker, the number to dance aerobics studio on the screen.

"You called?" I whisper-shouted.

A woman answered and he held his finger up to me as he responded. "Hello, my friend and I are working on our senior project and we wanted to interview Lynn Goffney for it, is that possible?"

"One second," the woman's cheery voice responded, then she was replaced with calming hold music.

Nate leaned back in his seat, a confident smile on his face. A smile that was slowly killing me on the inside. I turned away, my eyes landing on his phone at the exact moment the hold music stopped.

"Hello, this is Lynn Goffney."