Sweet Forty-Two(63)

“You did say cupcakes, though, didn’t you, Regan?” Bo stood and wiped under his eyes a final time.

“They’re delicious, too.”

Georgia slapped my shoulder. “How would you know? You haven’t had one.”

“Well, I’ve had those blueberry muffins. I trust your talent transfers from baked good to baked good. Let’s take these two downstairs, I know you have all of those cupcakes left from this morning.” I don’t know what I wanted more, to see Georgia in her element, or to step away from the letter for a few minutes.

Before she could answer, Bo was already at the door. “You said cupcakes. I want cupcakes. I might not always verbalize my feelings—”

“Yes, you do,” Ember cut in with a smile.

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes as I chuckled. “Fine. I might always verbalize my feelings, but whatever they are, cupcakes make them better.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“What’s with his sweet tooth all of a sudden?” I asked Ember.

“You know ... I don’t bake, my parents used to think sugar was evil, I just ... there are no cupcakes in my life.”

“None?” Georgia nearly shouted.

Ember shrugged. “I try. I just ... can’t”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” For someone who said more nonsensical things than anyone I’d ever met, Georgia sounded serious about this. She breezed past Ember, and then stopped in front of Bo at the door, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go get you a cupcake.”





Georgia

It was innocent at first, bringing the grieving friends into my bakery for some confection-type comfort. But, as I watched the three of them eating cupcake after cupcake in one of the booths, laughing their way through memories of their lost sister, friend, and girlfriend, I started to feel like my own skin was too tight.

I didn’t belong here. With them. It wasn’t my scene. Friends. Laughter. Especially not given the fact that next week I’d start taking my mother to her shock therapy a few times a week. I was built for solitude, though the structure around me suggested that, at least at one point, I’d wanted this.

Life ... around me.

“Hey, you.” Regan walked into the kitchen, fetching the last of the cupcakes from the porcelain cake stand. “Told you they were delicious.” He took a gluttonous bite and smiled.

There were no butterflies in my stomach as I watched him smile. No thumpety-thump of my heart. When I watched the tip of his tongue snag a stray drop of icing from the corner of his lips, there was none of that light and bubbly flirty feeling. It was heavy. So suffocatingly heavy was my need to be curled up on the couch with him again that I had to get out of there. It was too late to make a graceful exit, though, since Regan seemed to see my cheeks go flush.

“What’s the matter?” He set the cupcakes down as Bo and Ember laughed softly in their booth and walked toward me.

I swallowed hard. We had to have the conversation. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“About what?”

I wiped my palms on my jeans. “The couch ... I—”

Regan shook his head. “It’s okay. It felt ... nice to wake up next to you.”

“Nice?” I pulled my head back and scrunched my forehead. After the reading of the letter from his dead girlfriend, how could he ... just ... how?

He swallowed audibly and took a deep breath. “Yes. Nice. It was nice to wake up next to someone. To feel the warmth of another body next to mine...” He ran his hand up the top part of my arm.

“But ... Rae. Your letter.”

He nodded. “Rae wrote a letter to me. It’s not like she wrote it from beyond the grave, although it felt a hell of a lot like that as I read it. I just need to process what she said, and make peace with it.”

He squeezed my arm a little as he said the words, like he was trying to say something else, but before I could interpret anything Ember stuck her head into the kitchen.

“Georgia. These cupcakes are so good. Can you give me the recipe? Bo’s already sad that he’s about to eat his last one.”

I stepped back from Regan’s hold. He didn’t seem to give a shit what Bo and Ember thought about his boundaries with me. It was uncomfortable for me to be around someone so unashamed of every action, with no apparent need to cover anything up. He twisted his lips a little as I moved around him, but he dropped his hand without a fight.

“I can give you the recipe but you’ll probably have to spend some time at the grocery store. I’m not sure if Regan told you, but everything is gluten-free.”

Ember’s mouth dropped open and she shouted to Bo. “Did you hear that, Bo? She said everything here is gluten-free! My parents would have a field day!”

“Excellent, where’s my gluten-free goodness?” His impatience made me smile inside.

“Calm yourself, sweetie. Georgia,” she turned back to me, beaming, “you have to make some of these for our recording session. And some muffins. And bread. Do you make bread?”

“Yes,” I chuckled, “I make bread. Do your parents have Celiac or something?” Her enthusiasm over my ingredients was intriguing.

She waved her hand. “I ate homemade wheat bread from the fields of the farm we lived at most of my childhood. Made by my mom. All of a sudden it’s an issue for them. Whatever. It’s more my mom than my dad. He’ll be thrilled to have something sweet.”