“And with both of us on the same team,” Ava added. “We can’t lose. All our big gay juju on one big gay project…” She shrugged, then took a sip of her wine, watching in delighted satisfaction as Maia’s face turned very, very red.
“Okay, listen. I was dumb.”
“Truth,” Regan said, hiding a grin. “Despite the bandanna.”
Maia covered her eyes as the others laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” To her credit, she did look apologetic. Contrite.
“I suppose we can forgive you,” Ava said, and Regan was surprised by her playing along.
“Wait,” Madison said, seemingly just catching up. “You’re both gay?”
Regan glanced at Ava and they both nodded.
“And Maia thought that gave you an advantage in making a wedding cake for a same-sex couple?” Madison went on.
“Yup,” Regan said.
“Okay, I’m caught up now,” Madison said, shaking her head at Maia.
“What?” Maia whined. “I said I was sorry. I panicked.”
“I mean…” Vienna said softly. Regan had noticed that she seemed to be nearly as quiet as Ava, silently taking in the people around her, actively listening to conversations but contributing very little. “It would really suck if you guys didn’t win. Right?” Her expression was dead serious for about three seconds before she burst into laughter.
Soon, the entire table was cracking up, and it felt good to release the tension Regan thought they’d all been unknowingly shouldering.
Then Ava leaned her way and whispered, “It would, though.”
Regan laughed harder and nodded. Because she was right. The gay team losing the battle of the gay wedding cakes would be kind of pathetic. She leaned back toward Ava. “We’d better win, then.”
Chapter Eight
Their design was flawless, and Regan knew it. So did Ava, she was pretty sure. All they had to do was get each step exactly right, watch their time, and stay relaxed. The second one—or both—of them stressed out, they’d be sunk. They both knew this, as well, and there’d been a bit of a nervous silence that morning as they’d gotten dressed.
Regan was in charge of the cakes themselves, and she could make cake in her sleep. She was a baker, after all. Who worked in a bakery. This would be…well, not to be too ridiculously on the nose, a piece of cake. They were doing a two-tiered, seven-layer cake with four layers on the bottom tier and three on the top. The cakes were Meyer lemon, and each layer was a different color of the rainbow. They would put a raspberry compote between each one.
“Should we have done three tiers?” Ava said for about the fourth time, clearly worried. “I wonder if we should’ve done three tiers.” She glanced across the workspace where Maia and Vienna were clearly doing more than two tiers, talking to Liza about their design with excitement. Liza said something low that Regan couldn’t make out, and Vienna’s face fell. “Oh God,” Ava went on. “We should’ve.”
Regan grabbed her forearm and forced her to make eye contact. She kept her voice just above a whisper, trying not to show her irritation as she said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late to change now. Let’s just focus on making the best damn two-tier cake ever. Okay?”
Second-guessing annoyed Regan. When possible, she avoided doing it. If something got screwed up she’d fix it the next time, but it was rare for her to switch direction midstream, so to speak. They’d planned two tiers. That’s what they were going to do.
Seven bowls filled with equal amounts of yellow batter were spread out on the counter in front of her, and she got to work adding color. It was hard to get the red to beredrather than a dark pink, but she worked at it until she was satisfied. The rest were easy, and once she had every color of the rainbow, they went into seven round cake pans and then into the oven to bake.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she glanced behind her where Ava was rinsing bowls.
“Did you do frosting yet?”
Ava shook her head. “No, I had to clean these. I can’t work in a disaster of a space like this.” It seemed like she was trying to sound a little less annoyed than she was, but Regan heard it.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m kind of a messy baker.”
“No shit.”
Okay, yeah,thatwas snarky. Regan chose to ignore it. They were both clearly nervous and stressed, and that could make people snappy. “How about the compote?”
Ava indicated the pot on the stove. “Cooling.”
Regan glanced in the pot at the deep crimson sauce, filled with chunks of raspberries. It occurred to her that maybe they should’ve squeezed the raspberries through cheesecloth to filter out the seeds, but again, it was too late to do that now. Plus, she liked that there was some texture there.
