Big O Box Set

“Morning!” I call as I climb out of the driver’s seat.

“You’re early,” she shouts back, wagging a finger.

“Need to get a head start on the Deutschs’ 3-tier if we want to be finished in time to knock out the Hendricks’ and the Barrows’ cake all by the end of the day,” I reply as I jog up to meet her at the storefront.

Lara squints at my face, a too-close inspection that she’s all too fond of throwing at me lately. “How much sleep did you get?” she asks.

“Had a late night,” I reply with a shrug. “Nothing I’ve not done before.”

“Uh huh.” She rolls her eyes. “Let me guess. It was not a late night doing anything particularly exciting.”

“Unless you count doing myself exciting?” I flash a grin and duck under the grill she’s still raising so I can skip into the store before her.

“How many times do I need to tell you to take a damn vacation, girl?” she scolds as she follows me inside, heading straight to the register to begin the morning set-up. “Or hell, even just a day off.”

“We have every Sunday off,” I point out.

She snorts. “That doesn’t count.”

I wag a finger at her. “Don’t let any of our religiously-inclined customers catch you saying that.”

Lara groans. “Carmine, you haven’t got a single sanctimonious bone in your body, so don’t pretend that you take Sunday off because it’s holy. You’d work every single day, 365 days a year if I’d let you.”

“And? I’ve got good work ethic,” I reply as I shrug on my apron and dust myself down, getting ready to head into the back and fire up the ovens.

“There’s good work ethic and then there’s excessive to the point of becoming detrimental work ethic,” she calls after me.

I ignore her. There’s too much to do to waste time debating this anyway.

By the time our two assistants, Carl and Jen, arrive, I’m already elbow-deep in a bowl of batter. I shout instructions at them over my shoulder, and together the three of us set about putting together a 3-tiered wedding cake for the Deutsch wedding tomorrow. Next up on the docket will be the 5-tier for the Hendricks wedding, and after that a simple 2-tier for the Barrows, which I’ll save until the end of the day, because their wedding isn’t until Sunday morning. But since we close on Sunday, and tomorrow we need to get moving on the anniversary cake and several birthday parties we’re catering for Monday, I’ve calculated that we need to get that cake in the oven by end of day at the latest.

Things are running smoothly until 10am. At 10am, Carl steps out back for a smoke break without warning Jen. Jen, busy with prepping the fondant for the Deutsch cake, misses the Hendricks’ first tier coming out of the oven, which we set on an automatic roller to save time and prevent over-baking. The cake falls out of the automatic dispenser with a clatter, and before I even turn around to witness the aftermath, I can already tell it’s bad from Jen’s shriek.

There’s cake everywhere. Cake, and the bowl of fondant mix that Jen upended in her rush to catch the falling cake.

I manage to reign in my freak-out. I instruct Jen to clean up, step out back and grab Carl to help, and then get down on hands and knees myself to assist. Together, the three of us manage to put the kitchen back in some semblance of working order. But by the time we’ll have another first tier ready to bake, we’ll already be a few hours behind schedule.

That’s when Lara pops her head into the back.

“Carmine? Can you come help me review the orders for next week?”

“That’s your jurisdiction,” I call back, my voice tight.

“I just want to make sure we’re only taking on the number of orders we can reasonably handle,” she replies. “I was reviewing the books and it seems like there might be more here than we can really finish in time.”

“There’s exactly as many orders as we can handle,” I snap. “No more, no less.”

“Carmine.”

My back stiffens. I recognize that tone. I’ve known Lara since college, and I can count on one hand the number of actual fights we’ve had. She doesn’t get pissed easily, and when she does, I’m almost always the one at fault. But that’s her borderline-annoyed tone. Which means a few more steps in the wrong direction, and we’re going to have a problem on our hands.

I take a deep breath and lock eyes with Carl, then Jen. Both of them have a deer-in-headlights expression on. They’re younger than Lara and me, just out of college, but they’ve been around the bakery long enough to know that my bestie and I never fight. Usually.

Then again, I usually don’t freak out on anyone for something like dropping a cake, either. Shit happens. Anyone that’s worked in the food industry long enough knows that.

So I take a second deep breath, yank off my apron, nod in what I hope is a reassuring manner to our two assistants, and then head out to the front of the shop.

“I’m sorry,” I say before Lara can start. “I’m just stressed—we dropped a cake, and now we’re behind schedule, and…” I stop when she holds up a hand.

“Did I not tell you that you were overbooking yourself this weekend?” she asks with an eyebrow raised.

I bite my lip. “Maybe.”

“And did I not warn you that mistakes happen and we need to build more free time into the schedule to accommodate for them?”

I clear my throat this time. “Also maybe.”

“So when I ask you to go over the schedule for next week and make sure it’s not too insane, your correct response should be…”

I groan. “Yes, okay, I’ll try to cut it down a little. But Lara, we’ve got so many orders pouring in—”

“Right, because we’re doing great. Carmine, we don’t have to squeeze in every single order we receive. People are clamoring for our cakes because they’re amazing, but we can’t meet every single demand we receive. And we don’t need to. People understand we’re busy, and they know they need to book us farther in advance. We can trim down the schedule a little bit without losing business, you know.”

I swallow hard. “I know, you’re right…”

“Are you okay?” Lara squints at me, a little more closely than I’d like. I remember the bags I spotted under my eyes last night, and how hard it was to drag myself out of bed this morning.

“I’m fine,” I mumble.

“You need to take care of yourself too, you know,” she replies. “Nobody’s getting any cakes if you go and work yourself into the ground.”

“I take care of myself,” I protest.

“Carmine, when was the last time you did anything but work?” Lara lifts an eyebrow and fixes me with a sardonic gaze. “Hell, when was the last time you got laid?”

“I…” I snap my mouth shut again, because I’m still counting.

She snorts again. “I bet you’d be a lot less snippy if you’d had sex anytime in the last two years, you know.”

“I’ve had sex!” I protest.

“Oh really? When?” she counters.

I bite my lip again. Shit. She’s right. Now that I think about it, I haven’t been with another person since… Well, since before we got the business loan approved for the store. Before Red Velvet’s official opening day. I’ve been with my collection of sex toys pretty regularly since then, but I’m guessing by Lara’s estimation that won’t count.

“It’s not that long,” I reply slowly.

“Carmine, you’re 28 years old. It’s not super normal to have not had sex with anyone for two whole years. Come on, get back out there, get laid! What have you got to lose besides some of this grumpy attitude?” She grins and slaps me on the shoulder.

I stomp away from her toward the cash register as a distraction. “What’s the point?” I call over my shoulder. “Remember the last guy I even came close to dating??

?? Derrick Weaver, the nerdiest guy in town. He was hot in a geeky kind of way, but in the bedroom, well…

“Derrick doesn’t count.” Lara leans against the counter and watches me double-check the schedule for next week, purse my lips, and then cross off a couple of the cakes, which we should be able to reschedule with the customers, since they’re for events that are still a few days in the future. “You told me the two of you had basically zero chemistry.”

“Because he wasn’t into anything I was into,” I protest.

“Ah yes, your mystery kink.” Lara rolls her eyes. I glare at her, but she widens her eyes and spreads her hands. “Serious question, Carmine. You won’t even tell me what you’re into. Are you sharing it with the guys you hook up with?”

“I’ve tried,” I protest. My friends all know that I’ve got some kinks in the closet.

It’s been a running joke since high school. But I’ve never felt like I needed to share with my nearest and dearest. The guys I’ve tried asking about exploring my fantasies have shut them down pretty fast—which makes me feel like my friends would do the same if they knew exactly what I like. Being stuffed so full I feel like I’ll explode. It’s not exactly a normal desire.

I lean back on the stool and sigh, counting through my exes—not just the ones I’ve dated, but even the one-night stands. “I’ve talked to more than a few of them about it, Lara. And any guy I’ve ever talked to really openly about what I like has freaked out.”

I can still remember the last time I tried to honestly explain what I wanted. It was with Derrick, after he said he was interested in trying some kinky stuff. I asked him to lube up one of my really thick dildos and use his hands to push that into my pussy while he fucked me in the ass. He turned a shade of red I’ve never seen outside of our signature Red Velvet cakes, and told me he couldn’t imagine doing that to a nice girl like me.

We broke up a couple weeks later.