Don't Go Baking My Heart

In it to win it! Let’s do this! #bakeoff #teamworkmakesthedreamwork #ilovemyjob

“How the hell did you find him on there? His name is pretty common.”

Reba gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s not that hard to find people online as you may think. A guy like Evan would definitely put his workplace in his social accounts and strikes me as the type to use his actual name on there, so Googling him was easy.”

Reba kept scrolling until she came to a photo of Evan and Dax, drinks in hand as they posed in front of a stage. Devon noticed the other people around them were some of his co-workers.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

Evan’s caption for this one loudly declared:

Boss man passed through. Always grateful for his support! #karaokenight #ilovemyjob #getyouabosslikethis

“So,” Reba placed her phone down next to her laptop case. “Ready to get started in the kitchen? You can think about what you want to wear tonight.”

“No.”

Reba sighed. “Just trust me. Here’s how this is gonna go. We go to the karaoke. I scope out your competition because he’s not going to be comfy spilling his guts to you, but me?” She grinned. “I can be very persuasive. Plus, you show your face. Your boss is happy. Points for attending.”

“I don’t do karaoke.”

“You won’t have to. I will.” She got to her feet. “You just need to be present and look like you’re sort of vibing and having fun, okay? Just bobbing your head to the music a few times should do the trick. Now, let’s go bake.”

He followed her into the kitchen, totally unsure about this karaoke business. They’d decided to start with the cupcakes as, according to Reba’s plan, he needed to lull the participants into thinking he was hopelessly going with some mediocre idea for the bake-off. The cookies would be worked on at some other session, with them progressing to the grand finale cake. He got out the ingredients as Reba fiddled around with her laptop until “Honey” started blaring from the speakers.

He whirled around. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting a good vibe going. Don’t tell me you don’t like Mariah?” She set up her phone, which she explained she was going to use to film his behind-the-scenes clips for submission.

“How can you work in this noise?”

“Excuse you, Mariah is not noise.” She washed her hands in the sink then turned back to him. “I even got your brother’s riddim on here because soca always gets me in the mood to bake. The one he put out for Carnival was vibes.”

“Carnival is over.”

“Soca isn’t just for Carnival,” she countered. “Are you saying you don’t listen to it outside of that?”

Devon didn’t have anything against soca music. He simply didn’t feel the need to listen to it constantly. Keiran rarely asked for Devon’s opinion when he was working on something, but he had heard the riddim Reba was talking about. He liked it fine enough. Didn’t mean he was going to have it on repeat throughout the year just because his brother produced it. His tastes lay in more old-school styles. His mother liked to comment that he had an old soul, and he was fine with that.

“I don’t see the need to,” he admitted.

Reba shook her head. “So, what do you like?”

“I never said I didn’t like soca.”

Reba tapped her chin. “My brain is trying to conjure up an image of you wining low in a fete to soca, and it’s glitching a bit. I can’t even picture it. It’s giving me waltzing to some vintage stuff in a back-in-times party instead.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. Devon had gone to Carnival fetes before, when he and Monica had been together, where they danced along like everyone else. Except he had kept a level of decorum that ensured he didn’t end up on the front of a newspaper grinding on his girlfriend like they were exposing the world to a private moment. Not his thing. A little slow wine he didn’t mind, but getting down to the point where they were basically dry humping on the floor? No way.

“Not my style.”

“Maybe you haven’t met the one person to make that style go out the window.” Reba leaned in, smirk firmly in place. “Sometimes, when the music hits, I surprise even myself with how I let loose. Feeding off your dance partner’s vibe helps too.”

Devon didn’t let loose on the dancefloor, which meant he had a reputation for being stush, or so his siblings said. He didn’t care. He could easily picture Reba going wild. He had gotten a tiny glimpse of her moves at the beach house, and thinking back now, at Ava’s wedding too.

He remembered her in that silver dress that drew the eye like a beacon, bouncing her ass in time to the music, hands on the hem of her dress, which rode up her thighs the lower she got to the floor.

“I know,” he said before he could think better of it. “I saw you at the wedding.”